Kayaking the Sandbanks

Hi Blog! Today is Tuesday, September 9, 2014. We've recovered form our weekend with William & Company and are looking forward to doing a little more touristy stuff. We have a couple days before we move again.  The weatherman says we are in for rain and colder temps later this week, so this just might be our last chance to kayak until we are down in Florida this winter. We decided to go back to the West Lake region, so we could visit the sand dunes again at the Sandbanks Provincial Park. We rented our kayaks from Westlake Watersports. They are directly north across the lake from the Sand Dunes Day Use Beach. It should make for a great kayak adventure.

We started the day with long sleeve shirts and long pants. However, just before we hit the water, the sun broke through the clouds and began to warm us up. Here Kathy is coming up to a small dock to ask a local how the fishing has been.

There are a number of vacation houses and cottages around this part of the lake. We took our time paddling across the lake taking note of the various types of houses, boats and docks. Kathy was particularly interested in the home-made kayak stand made of PVC elbows.

Despite the fact that school started this week, there were still a number of families with kids on the beach.

We decided to pass by the public beach and look for something a little more secluded.

We worked our way along the far shore passing through the shadows of large dunes.

It wasn't long before we found the perfect beach to landour boats and enjoy peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on fresh apple bread. In our retirement, we have truly come to enjoy the simple pleasure that is peanut butter and jelly.

After lunch, we took the opportunity to hike up some of the dunes.  If you look closely, you can still see our kayaks down on the beach.

From the top of the dunes, we could see out over West Lake and Lake Ontario.

Time to head back to the boats. Here is Dave heading down the dune. Unfortunately, there was no path back to our beach, so he had to climb back up.

The name of this blog is "Kayaking the Sandbanks." All I can say is that it was much easier paddling down the dune than it was paddling up it!

Before long it was time to hit the water again and head back to the marina.  We stopped at one more secret cove to converse with a large flock of Canada Geese (yes, they call them Canada Geese even in Canada).  However, before we could get there, some jerk in a speed boat decided to buzz the flock. Just goes to show you there are just as many idiots in Canada as there are in the States.

We had a little bit of a south wind off Lake Ontartio. We did a good job hiding from it by sticking close to the East side of the lake on the way south, but on our return trip, we had to try and keep the wind at our back while working our way west across the lake.  It really made the paddle back exciting.  As we came down the west side of the lake, we noticed several homeowners built concrete retaining walls to protect their properties.  When the wind pushed the water up against the bulkheads, it created a reverse wave that collided with the incoming waves. It was like paddling in a washing-machine. The waves were high enough to make it exciting, but not so high as to swamp the boats.

Before long, we were back on dry land.

On our way back to camp, we stopped at several farm markets to fill up on fresh fruit and veggies.

Did someone say Happy Hour?  Got to go.  See you next blog.

GO William!

Mommy and Daddy wanted to take Laoye clothes shopping at the grand outlets in Niagara-on-the-Lake on Saturday, September 6, so we decided to take William on his own adventure!  He loves watching the big trains roll by near his house, so we asked him if he'd like to take a ride on the big train with us.

"Yes!"

Toronto's commuter trains are called "GO" trains.  They run east and west along the shore of Lake Ontario from Toronto, and, fan-like, north, northeast and northwest from the city.  Given that Toronto is said to be among the worst five cities for traffic in North America, this commuter rail system is a life-saver.  When we visit William & Co. in Toronto, we always try to park at a GO station as far outside the city as possible, and complete our journey in by train.

Of course, for William, it's not about the traffic, or the commute, or convenience.  He just likes the big trains.  They have lumbering green and yellow passenger cars, and roaring diesel engines, and bells that CLING and CLANG as the train comes into the station.  Everything an almost-3 year old could want.

While Mommy and Daddy get breakfast ready and prepare for the day, we help William wake up. He does so slowly, watching children's TV.  Bubu always likes to help.  Here, Yeye - I mean David - is taking his turn at minding the William:

William was dumbfounded when the train rolled into the station.  It was much bigger and noisier than he expected.  There were lots of other people, and hustle and bustle, at Toronto's Union Station as we boarded the train.

We decided a short ride was the best ride, so we travelled two stops westward, to Mimico, hopped off, and waited for the next train to arrive.  There was plenty of entertaining stuff to do, including playing chase through the waiting booths along the platform:

Finally...HERE COMES THE TRAIN!

It was almost as fascinating to ride inside the train as it was to watch the trains roll by:

William wanted to take his own photos for the blog, and so we handed him the camera and told him how to do it.  His first attempt was pretty creative:

When we got off the train at the Exhibition stop, we decided to sit on the bench and wait for the train to leave the station:

The Exhibition section of Toronto is just what the name implies:  a huge area of land and buildings devoted to hosting any and all sorts of exhibitions.  Here, we found a wall on the back side of one of the buildings, and we couldn't resist making funny faces like the people in the pictures:

The exhibition facility is between gigs, so we saw lots of workers driving all sorts of trucks, tractors, forklifts and other rigs.  Here, Kathy and William inspect one of the tractors:

The Exhibition grounds are filled with sculptures and other artwork.  David decided to incorporate himself into this one:

From Exhibition, we took a long walk along the Lakefront, to William's favorite park, where he instructed Yeye to jump on the mini-teeter-totter with him:

Having adventures is hungry work for a little guy, and William made it clear he was ready for lunch. So we continued our walk back up toward our restaurant:

We had never eaten here before, but this place had great pub fare.  It was even still servig branch, and so William could have chocolate-banana pancakes.  He'd never had it before, but it was his immediate favorite.  And what else to wash it down with but chocolate milk?  Here he is showing us his pancake.  Despite the look on his face, he enjoyed it immensely.

We got home after lunch, just in time for the little guy to take his nap.  We felt like napping, too, but Daddy, Mommy and Laoye had lots of shopping stories to tell us.  We chatted until William was up and at 'em again, and through dinner, until sunset and the rising of the full moon:

Good night, moon.  Good night, William.  Good night Mommy and Daddy.  Good night, Laoye. Good night, Yeye Nainai.

Yes, and good night to you too, Bubu.

Eddie Finally Wakes Up in Toronto - With William & Co.

Better late than never, Eddie!

Sandbanks Provincial Park

Hi Blog! When we came home from our bike ride yesterday, we got to talking to our neighbors. They are from the Kingston, Ontario area. They've been to this region many times.  They told us not to miss the Sandbanks Provincial Park. On Thursday, September 4, 2014, we loaded up the bikes and took off in search of adventure.

Sandbanks Provincial Park is a provincial park located on Lake Ontario in Prince Edward County near Picton, Ontario, Canada. It is noted for its picturesque sand dunes and beaches. It also has the world's largest fresh water sand bar and dune system. In addition to Day Use Areas, the park contains 549 campsites. We asked the Gate Attendant when we arrived, where we might find the best place to park and ride our bikes.  He suggested we park at the Main Gate and take the Woodlands Trail to Dunes Beach. Sounded like great advice.

The Woodland Trail winds through large, open meadows and wooded groves that once were large farms on this peninsula.  Since the area was made a park, the park administration has been husbanding the fields in their return to wilderness, planting trees and encouraging diversity of plants and wildlife in the meadows created by the former farm fields.

The Woodlands Campground is set in both meadowed areas and wooded areas, including some of the most mature hardwood forest.  It is a picturesque setting.  Here is Kathy working her way through the Woodland Campground.  As you can see, Fall is coming.

Hey wait, there are no dunes here.  This looks just like the rest of the shore of Lake Ontario. We must have made a wrong turn.  Back to the campground.

It wasn't long before we were back on track. Did you know that Sandbanks is the World's largest baymouth barrier dune formation?  Here we get our first glimpse of the dunes, across the water from a small beach that welcomes swimmers and picnickers.

Back in the day, much of the Sandbanks was used as pasture for cattle. By the mid-1850s, the area was changing dramatically. Farmers cut down 200+ year-old trees to clear the land. They built buildings and roads; and in an effort to free up the land to grow crops, farmers allowed their cows to graze on the dunes. The removal of the dunes' natural vegetation meant that there were no longer plants to keep the dunes/sand from shifting across the landscape, burying everything in its path. By the 1880s, considerable roadwork was necessary. In fact, the West Lake Road had to be moved three times in a period of 50 years, as the sand kept on burying it. In 1911 locals tried to plant white willow to stop the sand, but that did not work. Currently, the shifting sand is under control.

Thanks in part to the planting efforts of Parks Canada and the Friends of Sandbanks many of the dunes have been re-seeded, encouraging reforestation. Here is a particularly green round mound.

We ended up going backwards on the Dunes Nature Trail, but that didn't stop us from enjoying the various micro-climates found on the peninsula.  In between the tall dunes are low areas that collect rainwater.  Some of these remain water filled all year round.  Here is one of the local residents giving us the lowdown on the low area.

At the high point, we could look over the dunes out to West Lake.  The dunes completely cut off West Lake from the rest of Lake Ontario.  The waters of West Lake are protected from wind and waves that can be common on Lake Ontario generally, and so are relatively calm.  We hope to come back to West Lake next week and kayak.

We soon left the Dunes area behind and headed out toward West Point.  The West Point Trail follows an old service road that once served Lakeshore Lodge, built in the early 1900's for eager tourists but now demolished and given way to open grass fields fronting on the lake.  The road takes you right out into Lake Ontario. Here we are looking West from West Point.

To give you the total picture, here we are looking East from West Point.

We followed the trail around the point and back to Highway 12. The road runs along the lake where it forms a sheltered cove between the dunes area and the campgrounds to the east.  The water in the cove is calm, clear and bright blue-green.  In the photo below, beyond the water are the various swimming beaches of Sandbanks Provincial Park.

As we got out to Highway 12, we noticed several houses.  It appears farming is still being done in the park. Apparently, there were still a few active homesteads on West Point when Sandbanks became a park.  It can't be sold to anyone other than the Park, but the owners have a right to continue until such time as no family members are left to inherit the property.

Among the farming are large fields of corn, nearly ripe in this early September weather.  Here is Dave proving that the corn is as high as an elephant's eye.

We passed another owner-occupied cottage.  Here the red flowers seem to reflect the red in the Canadian flag.  They contrast beautifully with the blue of Lake Ontario in the background:

We wanted to tour all the campgrounds to give a full report to all our RVing friends, but several of the campgrounds had already closed for the season. It was also getting late and this park is huge.  We opted instead to go back to the truck, drive home and start Happy Hour!  Oh, yes, and bake a scrumptious tomato pie with some rich, red, ripe, sweet tomatoes that were homegrown by our RV neighbors.  Cheers!

Biking Presq'Ile Provincial Park

About five miles from our campground is Presq'Ile Provincial Park, a beautiful preserve of beach, bay and marshland along the northern coast of Lake Ontario.  We decided to spend the day exploring it.  In 1922, a private commission was given authority to develop a park at Presqu'ile. In the 20th century, Presqu'ile became popular for recreation, with two kilometres of sandy beaches, a summer hotel and dance pavilion, an annual regatta race, a nine hole golf course and opportunities for boating. As the decades passed, the type of recreation enjoyed at the park changed, which caused the dismantling of the golf course and the closure of the hotel and dance pavilion. Presqu'ile was incorporated into the Ontario Parks system in 1954 and has become a popular destination for campers, naturalists, and other users.

We brought our bicycles and started our journey bicycling along the shore of Lake Ontario:

After looking at the beach, we moved on to a 1.2 km marsh boardwalk.  Here, cattails dominated the landscape, but there were occasional patches of that invasive grass phragmites:

The marsh is an undulating landscape originally formed as tombolo - fingers of sand connecting the shore with nearby sandbars.  These tombolos, or fingers of sand, developed vegetation - first marsh grasses, then small bushes (here, red-leaved dogwood), and then trees - originally cottonwood trees, which still dominate the dunes near the shore of Lake Ontario, and later, great stands of cedar, which grow on the ridges formed by the tombolos:

Between the ridges are damp areas, including isolated ponds or pannes, where a rich variety of vegetation grows, supporting a wide variety of animal life.  We saw dragoflies, hummingbirds, frogs, mute swans, egrets, geese, gulls, and the scat of some unnamed ursine or canine visitor.  Here is one of the pannes we saw as we walked the boardwalk trail:

Kathy loves fir forests, and here, on this ridge, the cedar trees formed a huge grove, which blocked sunlight out from all but the towering fir trees.  Their needles shed over the years formed a soft, rusty colored carpet on the ground:

One oddity in the cedar forest was the "horse trees," which, as best the naturalists can guess, were small fir trees when some force - perhaps a late spring frost - stopped the growth of the main stem and forced the tree to focus its growth through one of its side branches, thus forming a saddle.  Here, David tries a horse tree saddle out to see how the bum fits:

Out on the lake, we left our bicycles to walk along the wild shore:

We found a picturesque spit of sand and rocks at Owen Point sweeping out toward Gulf Island and High Bluff Island:

Along the southern margin of the peninsula stretches a beautiful, wooded campground.  Many of the sites offered lakeside vistas.  Here, a camper nestles cozily into its site, reminding us of years of family camping:

We poked around on the beach and found a huge tree-sized piece of driftwood, which Kathy examined:

Further along the shore, we came upon an ad hoc piece of public art.  Some unknown camper had moved a picnic table down into the lapping waves of the lake, and then built a stone nunsuk on top of it.  It made a whimsical statement:

David gave closer inspection and realized that, perhaps, the nunsuk was not an entirely innocent statement:

Leaving whimsy behind, we cycled on to the Lighthouse on Presqu'ile Point:

The park area had been selected in 1797 as the site of a town called Newcastle which was to become the county seat. However, on October 8, 1804, the schooner HMS Speedy, which was bringing officials to a trial at the new courthouse, sank offshore with all on board lost. The ship was never found, nor the bodies of the passengers and crew. As a result, plans to develop the new town were shelved. In 1840, the lighthouse was completed at Presqu'ile Point. The designer of the 69-foot, octagonal structure was Nichol Hugh Baird, who also designed the Murray Canal, parts of the Trent-Severn Waterway and the Rideau Canal. Today, this lighthouse stands as the second oldest operating lighthouse on the north shore of Lake Ontario.

As we circled around onto the north shore of the peninsula, bordering the bay and opposite to the marsh we explored at the beginning of our visit, we spotted a family of mute swans feeding in the shallow water.  There were two parents and three fledglings - one that had begun to turn white and two that were still mottled brown:

Finishing our bicycle trip around the park, we returned to the beach where we had originally parked and enjoyed a scrumptious lunch of cold, pan-fried Atlantic salmon and salad, with lemonade and tea:

After lunch, we lolled in our camp chairs on the beach and enjoyed watching kite boarders testing their mettle against the strong winds blowing ashore from Lake Ontario:

By late afternoon, it was time to head home.  We enjoyed a long happy hour chat with our neighbors, who hail from an area near Ottawa, and then walked out to watch another beautiful Ontario sunset:

While it wasn't quite as special as a day with Sir William, nevertheless, it was a very enjoyable day, and we got a chance to get some exercise in this beautiful, warm early fall Canadian air.  These are days we'll remember for a long time.

George Wakes Up with William in Toronto - Where's Eddie?

George woke up to find himself with Sir William!  Gazing about, George realized he was at William's casa in Toronto.  But where was Eddie?  It seems Eddie slept in and is still back at the RV.  Imagine Eddie's surprise when he woke up with Baxter.