A Week Long Holly-day!
/Sudbury - Manitoulin Island - Tobermory
August 24 - 31, 2019
After a number of weekend trips, we felt ready to take a longer trip and decided to combine it with dropping Josh off at University in Sudbury (or rather, I messed up and booked our dates without finding out when he needed to be back in Sudbury!).
I spent days making lists, working though the to-do’s, running errands (mostly for the kid) and packing up the car and trailer. And if that wasn’t enough, I also vacuumed and washed the car and trailer before leaving, knowing full well it would be dirty when we returned! Does anyone else like to leave on holidays with a clean car?
I also finally managed to sanitize the water tank before this trip. In order to do this, I needed to bypass the hot water tank, which shouldn’t have been a problem, but the valves are EXTREMLY hard to move and I needed a wrench to turn them just a 1/4 turn (and even that wasn’t easy!). I’m going to ask our dealer about this because in my mind, they should be WAY easier to turn.
Sanitizing the water tank (finally!)
So many lists…
We planned to leave on Saturday morning, so I spent Thursday and Friday packing the car and trailer (when you have a small-ish car and trailer, everything needs to be in it’s place so that we don’t go over our weight allowance). With the car and trailer ready, all we had to do was hitch up, which should have been quick and easy. Except it wasn’t. We normally travel with literally nothing in our car, so when we added some of the items that were needed for school, combined with putting a few too many blocks under the jack from our last trip, the ball on the car was a touch too low for the hitch. Chris suggested we unpack the car and then hitch up. I nearly lost my mind (there was a bit of precision required in the packing…). In the end, we used a block under the car wheels and that was enough extra height to make up for the extra blocks under the hitch. Phew.
Sudbury
We had a beautiful day to drive - sunshine and blue skies. Our first stop was in Deep River for some lunch and to walk Daisy. We’ve stopped here a few times now because we know Daisy loves the pathway by the water. It was late afternoon when we finally arrived at Laurentian University and got to work moving Josh in. It was much easier and faster the second time around! Dinner was take out pizza from DiGusto’s (we discovered this place when we picked Josh up after his first year and it was quite delicious!). There were a few things we needed to pick up at Walmart, so we had our dinner in Holly in the Walmart parking lot first. Once Josh was settled, we left him and went back to Walmart to settle in for the night (we had asked already if it was ok to stay overnight there).
This was our first Walmart experience. There were about a dozen other trailers spending the night along with us and everyone was reasonably spread out. It was a cool night, so we didn’t need to open the windows or put the fan on. It was also really quiet and we slept very well. In the morning Daisy and I took a quick walk, we had some coffee and then I headed over to McDonald’s to pick up a small breakfast. We were actually planning to have “breakfast” with Josh and his friend, but breakfast time for them and breakfast time for us are vastly different. I would never have survived without food until nearly noon! We settled for brunch at The Motley Kitchen, where Daisy was allowed to sit on the patio with us. After brunch we dropped the boys off at residence and said our goodbyes.
Manitoulin Island
We headed west toward Manitoulin Island and stopped for groceries in Espanola. We continued further, crossing the one-way Little Currant Swing Bridge to get onto the Island, and then stopped in the town of Little Current for a quick walk along the water before going on to our campsite at the southern part of the Island.
Procrastinator that I am, I waited too long to book the ferry from Manitolin Island to Tobermory, and by the time I tried, the Sunday evening sailing was fully booked. Whoops, change of plans… we decided to stay over on Manitoulin Island and booked the morning ferry instead. This is one time where procrastinating worked for us! We ended up booking a camp site at the South Bay Resort (also last minute) and we scored an amazing site! We arrived at this family run private campground at dinner time, and despite the fact they were sitting down to dinner, they were still super friendly and extremely helpful. They gave us a few sites to choose from and we ended up on site C5 with a gorgeous water view. The campground was still recovering from all of the spring flooding, so our site was actually not in use, but since Holly is so small, they knew we could fit and offered it to us. To us, it was more than perfect! We both showered before bed at the bathhouse and the water pressure and heat were terrific.
South Bay Resort
Supper was simple (sandwiches) and we headed to bed early, as we needed to get up and out at a reasonable hour to get to the ferry on time. Although we had access to an electrical outlet, we didn’t need to plug in for the night, since our battery was charged from driving.
The early morning brought us a fantastic sunrise! In an unusual twist, Chris stayed in bed to get a bit more sleep while Daisy and I headed outside to enjoy the sunrise. What a treat!
Our gorgeous site
Daisy joined me for a walk around the campground and demonstrated lots of patience while I took many, many photos!
MS Chi Cheemaun Ferry
Our ferry was scheduled to leave at 9:10 am and despite having a reservation, we needed to be there one hour before. We packed up and left the campground at 7:45 am, giving us lots of time to get there and then find something for breakfast. It was only a 10 minute drive from the campground and while we weren’t the first in line, our timing was perfect and we were able to get some coffee, scones and bagels from the onsite bakery before it got busy. The ferry isn’t huge, but it still could accommodate all sorts of vehicles. We were parked in front of a logging truck! There were a few other trailers, but not many. We got to park in the middle aisle with all of the big boys and girls, but only because our trailer is over 8 feet tall. We were second from the front and it was really cool to watch the ferry dock on the other side!
Giving his love to all of the dogs!
The ferry ride was much more uneventful than we were thinking it might be. Chris has always had some motion sickness, but it’s gotten worse as he’s gotten older. He was quite concerned that he would be motion sick from the ferry as we’d heard from others that the crossing can be quite rough depending on the winds. Luckily, it was a smooth crossing and we met another couple with two dogs on the deck. Chris sat down on the ground with Daisy and the other two dogs and pretty much pet them all for the duration of the trip! We enjoyed chatting with them and the two hour trip flew by. We were first off the ferry, but had to pull over to let the regular traffic pass by.
Tobermory
Once we were on our way, it took about 5 minutes to get to our next campground - Land’s End. We had booked our site about 6 weeks earlier (which is late in campsite booking terms, but early enough to still find a site), for Sunday to Friday, but because we took the ferry on Monday morning instead of Sunday evening, we were able to check in right away when we arrived. By this point, we’d been using our facilities in the trailer for two nights, so before setting up at our campsite, we took the opportunity to first dump our tanks. The dumping station was at the back of the campground (similar to Lake Placid). I always find it interesting that the Provincial Parks dump stations are close to the entrance/exit of the park, but at non-provincial parks, we’ve sometimes found them at the back of the campground. The bonus is that we got to take a little tour of the campground, right when we arrived!
Land’s End Park
Land’s End Park is a privately owned campground. There’s a small store with lots of different supplies, where you check-in. The staff were pleasant, helpful and efficient. We quite liked the site we were on. It was nice to have both water and electricity hookups so that we didn’t need to be quite as diligent with monitoring our resources.. Our site was semi-private, or as private as it could be when it was at the corner of the main road into the rest of the campground! But, it was down a small hill and felt tucked away from most of the action. We had a great vantage point for watching all of the different trailers coming and going during our stay and we enjoyed the activity. Despite the “volume” of traffic, we never felt like it was at all noisy. We did park our trailer towards the back of the site where it felt a little more secluded and out of the way… until we realized that our neighbours campfire pit was very close to our site and if we left our bedroom window open, the smoke came in! Luckily, they weren’t up all night at the fire. The nice thing about our site is that it was fully surrounded by trees, so that made it feel more private as well.
The campground had a mixture of seasonal and tourist campers. There were all sorts of different trailers and tents, as there was a wide variety of site sizes. Equipment ranged from bus-like, all the way down to little pup-tents. The bathrooms were very clean and the showers were ok, but lacked some water pressure, making it hard to wash and condition my longer hair (Chris had no trouble…). They also needed quarters to run the showers (one quarter for 4 min), which I forgot to bring with me both times I went for a shower and had to go back and get. Whoops.
One of the best parts about camping are the people we meet. This time we had a chat with one of the seasonal campers, who stopped by with her dog. She had some great camping stories for us. Later in the week, we met another couple (also with a dog), who had an Airstream (longer than ours) as well. They said they had other trailers before, but this was the first Airstream for them. They talked about how much they’ve enjoyed being part of the WBCCI and encouraged us to join and try out a caravan or rally. We’ll likely join in the future, but at this time in our lives, we’re not quite ready to. They spoke very highly about going to the recent Alumapalooza in Ohio at the Jackson Centre Factory and said they learned so much more than they expected from the others who were there.
Tobermory
Our first day at Land’s End was spent setting up, sitting outside, reading and making sandwiches for lunch. Tobermory was a quick five minute drive away, so we headed “downtown” to walk around and find some dinner. We walked along the boardwalk around the marina and continued further uphill, where the views were really pretty! Daisy was with us, so we needed to stop at a patio to eat supper. The Fish and Chip Place had a large outdoor patio, with beer and delicious calamari! Best of all, it was Daisy friendly:)We finished off the evening with a little ice cream from The Sweet Shop.
Bruce National Park - Indian Head Cove and the Grotto
Tuesday started out with clouds and rain for much of the morning. Chris was fighting a cold, so we just hung out in Holly and read/rested. It was our first day of holidays where we weren’t rushing off to do something and since we were both needing some down time, the rain didn’t bother us.
Because we weren’t staying at Bruce National Park, we had to pre-book our parking reservation for the Grotto (since we were going during the week at the end of August, it wasn’t hard to get a reservation, but weekend reservations were booked early). This was the day we had booked and it looked like it might be terrible weather, however the weather cleared up and it was actually very lovely out by the time we went. Our parking reservation was between 4 pm and 8 pm. The drive there took about 20 minutes and we headed out just before 5 pm.
There are a three trails that take people to the Grotto. We chose to take the Horse Lake Trail, which connects with the Bruce Trail to get to Indian Head Cove. It’s only about 2.1 km long. It was an easy walk to begin, but then became a bit more difficult when we arrived at the water and connected with the Bruce Trail. The beach is actually smooth rocks and while it’s harder to walk on, the views are beautiful.
The Horse Lake Trail to Indian Head Cove can be completed fairly quickly, but we slowed down quite a bit when we got to the water and wanted to see the views (and I wanted to take photos).
We made it to the Grotto in about 45 minutes. I thought maybe because it was dinner time, that it might be quieter, but it was BUSY! My understanding is that it’s nearly always quite busy, except in the early mornings and off-season. Also, it’s even busier in the height of the summer and on weekends. I’ll qualify this, though… it was busy in my standards. I enjoy the peace and quiet and being able to move around freely and take photos and it wasn’t like that. But it also wasn’t busy in an unsafe way, just more people than I’d like to share nature with at any given time! As it turns out, though, I don’t think we ever made it to the actual Grotto, I think we only got as far as Indian Head Cove. When writing this blog post and looking up some info to link to, I realized that where we were wasn’t actually the Grotto! The whole area is referred to as the Grotto, but there are different areas right close by, that we never explored.
We took the easier 1.5 km Georgian Bay Trail back to the parking lot. It took us less than 15 minutes to get back to the car. I needed to use the bathrooms at the parking lot, and I was really impressed with the number and cleanliness of them! We picked up a few things at the grocery store in Tobermory and went back to Holly for supper.
Lion’s Head
We weren’t itching to get anywhere in any rush, so we spent Wednesday morning puttering around, walking Daisy at the campground and having showers. After lunch we packed some snacks and water and headed to Lion’s Head. It’s about a 40 minute drive and we had another gorgeous day. We parked by the Municipal campground and walked around the marina, down to the beach. It was sunny and warm but windy on the beach. The beach wasn’t your typical small grain sand, but instead was larger, smooth and worn rocks that were hard to walk on, but beautiful to look at! The water here (and near the Grotto) was crystal clear (but cold!) and the colour was the most beautiful shade of blue - it wasn’t the typical Caribbean blue, but a different, almost majestic colour of blue.
the lighthouse
the marina at lion’s head
We backtracked to the car, but decided to leave it parked where it was and continue on towards the Bruce Trail and Lion’s Head lookout. We went through the Municipal Campground and along the road before taking a “cut through” pathway to the parking lot, where we were able to start our hike to the lookout. The walk to the McCurdy Drive parking lot on Moore Street was longer and warmer than we expected and we were a bit worried that Daisy would be too tired for the entire hike, but she was just fine.
The start of the hike was pretty easy, on a very even crushed gravel pathway. The trees were tall, the sky was blue and the greenery was stunning. It took about 45 or 50 minutes to get to the lookout, including quick stops to take some photos and to see the Lion’s Head Potholes. Even though it’s only a little more than 2 km to get to the lookout, it was primarily uphill the entire way. Good thing we brought a water bowl for our little Daisy!
The path was only flat for a short time and then it became a bit more difficult. We took the direct route to the lookout, in the interest of time (we only started hiking after 3:30 pm) and we were often rewarded with stunning water views peaking out from the edges of the trail. It’s hard to make much progress when there are so many opportunities to take in the view (and take photos!). At one of the view points, there were climbers - we saw their back packs and ropes there and later saw them on the rock wall!. This was a quiet hike and other than one of the climbers, we rarely saw another person, which was SO different from the Grotto just one day earlier. Daisy, of course LOVED this, since she is quite shy and anxious around people she doesn’t know.
One of the things I found most interesting about our hikes in this area, was the untouched aspect of it. We were sitting on a rock with a fantastic view, but also with a huge and long drop down and there were no railings or warnings. As adults, it was really great to be in such an unspoiled area, but I wouldn’t have wanted to hike on this trail with young children! I’m pretty cautious by nature, and there were a few too many places where I would have been nervous if we had young kids with us. That said, if we found ourselves on a hike similar to this when our kids were younger, I would have made them hold my hand the entire time:)
a stunning view from Lion’s Head Lookout
We arrived at the lookout, where it was a bit windy, but we were the only people there. We stayed and enjoyed the view for a while and then continued back to where we came from, when some others arrived. We tried to get a photo of the two of us, but we still haven’t figured out how to hold the phone for a selfie with both of us in it and where one of us doesn’t look like a giant head with the other one being out of focus! We need to practice this (or get longer arms or just get a selfie stick:).
We finished the day with an easy supper, a beer and a book. Which is what camping is all about!
Thursday began slowly, just like most of the other mornings! I decided to make a fire so that we could have hot dogs for lunch. As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Chris isn’t much of a “sit by the fire” kind of guy. He doesn’t like to be still (unless he’s sleeping!), so sitting by a fire and doing “nothing” isn’t his idea of fun. In fairness, he didn’t grow up sitting by fires, singing camp songs or roasting marshmallows. So, this was our first fire of the trip and there’s nothing better than a fire roasted hot dog (even Chris can agree with that!).
Devil’s Monument
We cleaned up after lunch and headed off to Devil’s Monument. It’s located on the Georgian Bay side of the Bruce Peninsula, about halfway between the Grotto and Lion’s Head, but it takes nearly as long to get there as it does to get to Lion’s Head, thanks to a round about way to get to the parking lot. It was a gorgeous and sunny day for a drive.
From the parking lot, it was a short and pretty hike to Devil’s Monument, which is where we found the largest of the Bruce Peninsula’s flowerpots. For anyone that’s not especially agile, there’s a great space to look at it from the trail, but if you want to get closer, there’s a fairly steep descent (trail and steps) to get to the bottom of it and then another steep trail down to the waterfront. Seeing it from the top and then from the bottom gave such different perspectives! We walked along the waterfront a little bit and took more photos. This waterfront was the same as Lions Head and near the Grotto - smooth rocks and not a fine sand beach. The water was so crystal clear! We went back up to the top of the monument and decided to continue on the Bruce Trail for a while. We ended up at another fantastic lookout! The trail is really well marked, easy to follow and aside from seeing a few other people at Devil’s Monument, we didn’t see anyone else on this trail. We hiked about 30 minutes out and then turned around and hiked back the way we went in.
Back at the campsite, we started another fire (two in one day! It’s a record for us!) and eventually had good enough coals to put some burgers on the grill. We had some snacks when we arrived back from our hike, which was a good thing because we only ate dinner at nearly 9 pm! Our burgers were made at home and frozen until we cooked them. So delicious!
We knew we had a long drive the next day, so we took the opportunity to clean up a little in the evening in order to get on the road at a decent hour.
Homeward Bound
Our plan was to get up, finish packing, hitch up and grab coffee and breakfast to-go in Tobermory. We’d been to The Sweet Shop’s Coffee House a few of the mornings we were in Tobermory and enjoyed their coffee and pastries, so that was the plan for breakfast.
I was up first, so I took Daisy across the street to the beach and dock area for the morning light. The beach, dock and water area for Land’s End are across the roadway from the campground, which is different from most other campgrounds. The beach isn’t huge and Daisy isn’t allowed on it, so we didn’t spend much time there, except on a few of our walks. It was another beautiful day to stand out on the dock.
Ideally, we would have been on the road much earlier, but even though Chris is a morning person (I am not), neither of us are crack of dawn people and I don’t know if we’ll ever be able to get up and be on the road before daylight, like my parents often did. We try to plan our driving days so that we can get to our destination by about 7 pm at the latest, stop when Daisy needs, or when we want to check out a new place and so that we’re never rushed. It mostly works… except this particular leg of the trip!
We packed up, hitched up, dumped, picked up coffee and breakfast and were on the road by 10:30 am. Definitely not the crack of dawn, but only about an hour later than I had hoped.
Chris had been looking at the route to drive back home and had chosen a few places he wanted to stop. For most of our lives together, we’ve travelled by car and he’s always viewed it as a means to get from point A to B, with stops in between only when nature calls. But now that Daisy travels with us, he doesn’t like her to feel cooped up for too long, so he plans stops where not only can she get out and do her business, but she can get a little exercise also. I love this aspect of travelling now, but it certainly takes longer to get anywhere!
Owen Sound
We arrived at our first stop at Kelso Beach Park in Owen Sound at around noon. There’s a great pathway along the water and through the park that leads to a rocky point past the marina. We had fun climbing over the rocks to get to the tip of the point and Daisy loved scrambling with us.
Meaford
Our next stop was the little town of Meaford, right on Georgian Bay. We drove towards the water and stumbled on Fred Raper Park. It’s a cute waterfront area with a small beach and a stoney waterfront. The best part was that the parking was made just for us! Spots were pull through and angled, which made it so easy for us to park Holly. We walked around and found Meaford Top Dogs - a food cart with hotdogs, sausages, chips and drinks. We found lunch! There’s nothing more satisfying than a sausage on a bun on a sunny day, while on holidays, sitting by the water.
It was around this time of the return home that we realized we weren’t likely to get home by the end of the day without having to travel in the dark. So, we pondered our options. We could head to a Walmart and stay overnight there or we could call my sister and see if it would be ok to pop in at her house, without very much notice at all! Of course, she said yes and that we should stay in the house vs sleep in our trailer outside (which we were totally prepared to do!). It all worked out, because we also were able to fit in a visit with my Mom before she headed out to a show she had tickets for.
Wasaga Beach
We made one last stop in Wasaga Beach before arriving at my sister’s house. Neither of us had been there before and Chris is a sucker for a beach. On the way there, we passed by Craigleith Provincial Park. While it’s close to the highway, we both thought the view was pretty spectacular, especially if you were able to get a campsite on the water. It’s also close by to Blue Mountain, which is a nice area to explore.
It was SUPER windy at the beach! We hadn’t expected to see such huge whitecaps! Despite this being the last week of August, the water level was still very high from all of the spring flooding and there wasn’t much beachfront left before the boardwalk. Wasaga Beach is a very well known tourist town in the Georgian Bay area and it was pretty busy, even with all of the wind and high water levels. I expect that on a calmer day, it may have been more attractive, but it would have also been far more packed. I’m not sure I would love this place in the height of the summer…
Uxbridge
It was about 5 pm when we finally arrived at my sister’s house. We parked and walked over to my mom’s house for a quick drink. We enjoyed a terrific dinner, an evening swim in the pool and a good catch up with my sister and brother-in-law before calling it a day.
We spent a leisurely morning and managed to get on the road by about 10 am, stopping first for coffee at our favourite Uxbridge coffee shop - Nexus. Thanks for Jennifer and Peter for a wonderful evening and for putting us up on a moment’s notice!
We finally arrived home at about 3:00 pm, happy to see Jillian, but not so happy about having to unpack and clean up after more than a week away!
Ottawa - Sudbury - Manitoulin Island - Tobermory - Uxbridge - Ottawa
Towing: 1385 km
Driving: 232 km
Battery, Water, Tanks: We dry camped in Sudbury and Manitoulin Island and used the shower facilities in at South Bay Resort. Since we had water and electrical hookups at Land’s End and we mostly used the bathroom facilities there, we didn’t track our usage as diligently. We didn’t use our A/C, but used our fantastic fan extensively! I forgot to record our black tank usage either from our Walmart/South Bay resort or Tobermory legs of the trip.
