A Long Active Summer – Part 1

It’s been a long while since I updated this space – over 2 months actually.  It could mean I had either done absolutely nothing – or, alternatively, I had an extraordinarily busy time.

Happily I can say it was the latter and I was busy doing all the things I would normally be writing about in this space … I was out exploring this great country.

I hiked it.  I biked it.  I boated it.

It was an AMAZING time.

At first I was going to write one post about the entire summer until I realized exactly how long that post would be.  So I decided to break it into a 2-part summary of what I’ve been exploring.

To give you an idea of the ground I covered, the following map shows the 3 major locations I travelled to in July.

For the purists who know Southern Ontario, yes, I’m aware that (3) Wasaga Beach should be near the bottom of the Bay.  After 3 attempts with this map, I decided this was as good as it was going to get.  Forgive me.

My month of exploring started in Collingwood, about 170 km (106 miles) northwest of Toronto.

My husband and I had gone there for a day of tree trekking and zip lining in an area known as Scenic Caves, but our outdoor adventure included a short hike through the rocky landscape.

This is a beautiful part of the province and one that I was already quite familiar with after hiking the Bruce Trail several years ago.  In fact at one point we were on the Bruce Trail for a short distance.

Although there was a cave in here to explore, there wasn’t a chance that I would be attempting to go in there.  Call it “Fat Women Know Better“.

My second key trip of the month was a 2-day excursion with a friend to cycle and kayak.  We were off to Long Sault, near Cornwall over 400 km (249 miles) east of Toronto.

At this point it was becoming obvious that the heat spell we were having wasn’t going to break and we were in for an exceptionally hot and humid summer.  The cycling portion of this trip along the Long Sault Parkway was an uncomfortable sweatfest.

Crazy people go out on bicycles in temperatures pushing 40C (104F) with the humidity.  On this particular hot day, the views of the St Lawrence River were tantalizing, but we would have to wait for the following day for the water portion of our program.

Although the Long Sault Parkway isn’t part of the TransCanada Trail, it is part of the Waterfront Trail that runs along the northern shore of the St Lawrence, Lake Ontario and Lake Erie.

After cycling in the heat of the previous day, we greatly anticipated time on the water in kayaks.

Unlike the previous day when the winds were chopping up the water, we had mirror-like conditions.  So many fish were jumping, we simply stopped commenting on them when it occurred.

If I hadn’t been completely smitten by the kayaking bug last summer, this particular outing on the St Lawrence River would have sealed the deal.

At one point, 3 geese flew towards the bow of my boat – mere inches above the water.  They passed by my starboard only a few feet away, with the softest of ‘whomp’ noises from their wings.  It was magical.  It didn’t even occur to me to take out my camera.  I was mesmerized.

However, we watched the skies as they got darker and more forbidding and after 3 hours on the water, we made it back to shore shortly before the thunder, lightning, and eventual rain began.

The following week, I was heading back north of Toronto to Wasaga Beach – on the southern tip of Georgian Bay.

I was kayaking again, this time with my sister on the Nottawasaga River.

 

The slow muddy water of the Nottawasaga (pronounced Not-a-wah-sah-gah) didn’t have the same sense of grandness I felt on the St Lawrence, but it was still a lovely way to pass a summer afternoon.

July was a great month, and I was looking forward to more adventures in August.