Tobermory Weekend

In days of old
When knights were bold
And toilets weren't yet invented
People powdered their noses by the road
And walked away contented

September 3/06
I wouldn't necessarily say that was the highlight of the long weekend, but since it was said by my wife less than an hour ago, it has been stuck in my head. She said that as we were driving back on Cape Hurd Road -- it was an after dinner drive up in Tobermory, where we spent this long weekend. My wife didn't want the weekend to end, as we were heading back to the motel for our last night. We've been up to Tobermory a number of times over the past few years, and have never been disappointed with the trip. It's always good up here -- even if you have to suffer through an overcast weekend that regularly erupted, thanks to Hurricane Ernesto.

This morning, after breakfast at the Princess Hotel, we drove down to Cabot Head in the drizzle. It's always fun driving along Cabot Head Road -- a single dirt lane that cuts through a forest of trees, and at times, hugging the rocky shoreline of Dyer's Bay extremely closely -- winding its way to the lighthouse at Cabot Head -- one of many that can be found along the Bruce Peninsula. At Cabot Head, we took in the lighthouse, the outhouse and lunch. We also went down to the shoreline and played among the rocks -- something you do when adventuring in Bruce County.

After Cabot Head, we drove through another forest, heading to Britain Lake. It wasn't a road we drove on -- it was more a trail that was passable for motor vehicles. My wife's Corolla became an off-road vehicle for the couple of hours that followed. Last year, my wife and I also did this trail with my car when we journeyed up to Tobermory -- then it also rained -- and we ended up not finding Britain Lake, but were hoping for better luck this time around. The trail came to an end when a sign warned of private property ahead. There we got out of the car, and decided to hike for a while along the Bruce Trail, following the signs to Devil's Monument. Yes, we actually drove our car onto the Bruce Trail and parked under a canopy of trees while we went hiking.

The hiking was nice, though it got quite dangerous at Devil's Monument. If you hike along the Bruce Peninsula, you know how dangerous the rocks can be. The hike was pretty exhaustive, and since it was the afternoon, we called it a day to the adventuring and drove back to Tobermory for coffee, ice cream, some walking and shopping, then supper. We didn't find Britain Lake -- it was most likely on private property.

Supper was at the Stone Orchid, an Indonesian restaurant just outside of downtown Tobermory. We've actually had dinner there on a number of trips up to Tobermory. It's always good. If you're ever up there, I highly recommend it. I could detail what we had, but if you check out their site, you'll find a menu. We had their sampler, which gave a little bit of everything on the menu. We were all full afterwards.

Yesterday wasn't much of an adventuring day, but we did get in some sightseeing. We ventured out to the Singing Sands Provincial Park to walk along the beach, then it got dangerous when my daughter took to the wheel to get us back to Highway 6. Johnsons Harbour Road is a winding dirt road which promises a surprise around every bend. Luckily for us, it was pretty tame, and we got out intact. We ate in Tobermory that night, at the Fish and Chip Place. They serve pretty good fish and chips, with the fish being locally caught white fish. Mmmm ... deep fried goodness!

September 4, 2006
Today we left Tobermory early to beat the traffic back to Toronto. We took the long way back however, meandering along the sideroads to make the trip last, enjoying the sights of rural Ontario. On the way out, along Highway 6, we stopped by the Crossroads Coffee House in Ferndale. If you're ever out that way, it's a great place for a cup of coffee and a good chat. The owners moved up there about seven years ago, and brought with them a worldly social conscious. They serve fairtrade organic coffees and teas, to go with light breakfast and lunch.

My daughter did most of the navigating, picking the sideroads to slip and slide our way home. If you ever played a game of snakes and ladders, you'll have a good picture in mind of what our route home looked like. There was much geology and geography to see. Rural Ontario has geography scattered willy-nilly all over the damn place -- so much of the stuff, that I kept screaming out, "Geography!" and stopping the car to take photographs. Along with the geography was a regular quirk of rural Ontario -- the many hidden entrances along the undulating roads. Quite peculiar were the signs that warned of the hidden entrances. After some people went to such lengths to hide their entrances, along comes some civil servant, erecting signs telling everyone where they are.

We also saw many instances of ancient ruins -- history and archeology scattered randomly about the place with no semblance of planning. I didn't stop to take any photos of those, in case ghosts of the past haunt those resting places. One place of history I did stop to take photographs at however, was the Pioneer Cemetery in Lloydtown. Lloydtown is famous for being the site of the Lloydtown Rebellion of 1837, which was part of the Upper Canada Rebellion -- in which rebels wanted to wrest control of what was then Canada, from Great Britain, and create an American style republic. The rebels lost and the rest is history.

Since we were driving through King Township at that point, we happened through Schomberg, and there stopped off at a neat country store: Piety Ridge Primitives. If you want a neat little place to have tea, coffee and treats, it's worth the drive to Schomberg.

From Schomberg, it wasn't that far to home. Once you get south of Aurora, Ontario quickly runs out of rural as you head towards Toronto. We got home tired, but happy. And that was my long weekend in a nutshell.

Pictures ... there's lots of them, and they're coming soon.

Update: Photos are now being added, and you can view them at Webshots. I've only uploaded 160 of the 396 photos I took. Not all are great, but most are typical of the shots I take.