New York or Bust - Day 2

After our late night shenanigans, we were slow to rise to start day two of this current adventure. 


Day 2 is the discovery day. Whilst our mobile gin palace is equipped with a shower and a toilet, I still like to use the facilities provided by the site; after all, we have paid for them. The bath house (lovely name, I think) was just a couple of yards away down the slope and looked OK. Inside it smelled very sweet, which is not a word you can generally associate with campsite bath houses! It looked clean, too, which was another good sign. The showers, though, left a little to be desired. Only two for starters, one with no shower head and one with no lock on the door; not so good, then. I opted for the lockless one, thinking that with my towel over the door then anyone who did miss it and came bursting in would get everything they deserve! As it happened, no one came in the building and the shower was very nice.


Getting back to Towed Haul, we set the awning and rigged the fairy lights, which are mandatory for all camping trips. I had a look at the damage on the coupler and saw that yes, it was very sick. I went to work with my pliers, though, and straightened it all out as best I could. Because the cap/retainer assembly had dis-assembled itself I thought that having a slightly skewed coupler would create a very tight fit and at least help to keep the two parts together when travelling home; very convenient! I also went to the Park Office to register and, once the lad behind the computer had worked out why I was registering on a Saturday when I was due to register on the Friday, all was hunky dory. Indeed, our Taughannock Falls car pass gave us access to all the other State Parks in the region, which was a real bonus.


A quick look around the campsite showed that a good half of the trailerites were Ontarians, no doubt escaping the youthful boozing that would be going on in Canadian campgrounds this weekend. Fishing seems to be the popular pastime on Cayuga as there were a couple of groups of young men who headed out early each morning armed to the teeth with fishing tackle.

Taughannock Falls from the look out

Breakfast dispensed with, we set to exploring Taughannock Falls. We started by driving up the hill to the falls lookout point high on the rim of the valley (it didn't look that steep at night as we pulled Towed Haul up there) and then headed down to the mouth of the valley, or Canyon depending on how dramatic you want to be, and walked the river path back to the falls. It was a glorious day and the walk was marvelous; Mrs T and the tadpoles even dipped their toes in the water. It's a gentle walk, flat and safe, and to be recommended if you're ever in the area.

Taughannock valley

For lunch we drove into Ithaca, the nearest town of any size. Ithaca is home to Cornell University and the town had a vibrant air, especially in the fine weather. Some of the shops in the Commons were selling some slightly iffy items related to smoking but the whole place had a young feel to it. Lunch was in Simeon's, a nice bistro selling reasonable food at reasonable prices. We encountered some good American service there and it made the lunch all the better.

Simeon's in The Commons, Ithaca NY

Parking, it turned out, was free on the weekend; no wonder everyone was giving me the evil eye when I stopped to get a ticket at the pay booth!


I'll gloss over the bit where we went to Walmart and move straight to Wegmans. Wegmans is a store that is based in Upstate New York but is venturing south and east (sadly, it's not going north into Canada). It has a wide variety of fresh goods and a bakery to die for, and that's on top of it being a pretty good shop anyway. Sure, it wasn't cheap, but where else can you get home baked bread (still hot) and HP Brown Sauce (imported from the UK) under the same roof? The only disappointment was that although they sold beer, there was no wine. This was, we were told, because of the many wine producing outlets in the region; other Wegmans stores did sell wine. Never mind, I was able to get my beer!


Back to the camp ground and it was a relatively early night, for me at least. It was quite domestic at one point, with all four of us sat in the trailer occupying ourselves in our own individual ways. I had to go to bed because in the process of downloading photos to the Netbook PC I nodded off and nearly dropped it!


The morrow promised more sightseeing, and a cooked breakfast; what tourists we are!

New York or Bust - Day 1

Well, Upstate New York actually, still 350 miles from the Big Apple. Our long weekend celebrating Queen Victoria's birthday was going to be spent by the shores of Cayuga Lake, part of the finger lakes system between Rochester and Syracuse.

Logistically, this was going to be hardest trip yet; six hours (minimum) driving, an international border and not being able to leave until after 3.30pm on the Friday. And just for good measure we had less than 24 hours before the start of the end of the world. Still, it was about time we did something difficult.

For once the weather was being nice as we finished the loading and hitching and we really were off at around 3.30ish. Highway 401 towards Toronto was busy but not overly so and apart from a nasty rainstorm around Woodstock, all went well up to our first stop for supper on Highway 403 at Brantford. As we slowed down to turn into the service centre, we heard the safety chains betwixt trailer and hitch tinkling as they grounded on the road. I think we're running a little low at the back of the Sienna anyway so wasn't surprised to hear that, but I didn't have a lot of scope for twisting the chains to raise them a little. Ever the practical one, I salvaged a bungee cord from my tool kit and rigged it so that the chains were held off the tarmac. Aren't I a smartie?

The Lewiston-Queenstown Bridge between Canada & The USA. Often cited as the worst Can/US crossing point!

Then we were bowling along the Queen Elizabeth Expressway (QEW) towards the US. The traffic towards Niagara was horrid but as we branched away towards the bridge and the border with the US, it really thinned out. Were were in the line for about 10 minutes before getting our passports checked and the inevitable summons to the office so I could fill in my visa waiver I94 form.  It was quite noticeable that we were the only white people in the waiting room, apart from the armed border people. Obviously we didn't know what types of passports everyone else had but why all the brown skins I wonder? Anyway, we cleared the formalities after about 30 minutes or so and were on the road again, heading first into Buffalo, then along the New York Thruway towards Rochester and Syracuse. The darkness fell quite quickly, leaving us two hours of night time driving; not a great problem but it meant we were missing the scenery.

Aware that we needed to buy some food for breakfast (you can't take much across the border and risk the electric chair if you do) so we pulled over at a service centre. Being on a turnpike, coming off into a Walmart wasn't really an option so we were stuck with the services provided. It must have been after 9pm because everything except the burger bar was closed! Not even the gas station had any food. So it was back on the road and onto the next service centre, only about 35 miles away. I needed to fill up anyway so as Mrs Toad hopped out (geddit?) to get some brekkie fixings I went to to the gas pump; except that it was knackered and I needed to go to another pump. That's not too much of a problem normally but with a 28' long trailer on the back, it takes a bit of manoeuvring. After I'd frightened all the other customers with my exaggerated U-turn, I was at least able to get some gas.

In the dark and following the Sat Nav I didn't have too much idea of where we were but as we came off the Turnpike and headed south I realised we'd been routed down the side of Lake Cayuga rather than across the countryside. It was nice and quiet but not easy to appreciate the lake views in the dark!

The man in the satellite took us right to the Taughannock Falls State Park but as we struggled up a very steep gradient, try as we might we couldn't see a sign for the campsite. Of course, it was now almost midnight and very nearly time for the world to come to an end, so there weren't any people about to ask. I did the second U-turn of the night as we realised we'd gone too far into the park, because we'd come out the other end. Coming back down the gradient, Mrs T saw a light on in the NY Parks HQ building so we stopped in a cloud of smoke – the trailer brakes weren't too happy with the down hill run! What's a bit of smoke between friends? The trailer stopped, didn't it?

By a stroke of fortune, we'd stumbled on the Parks Police desk, which was manned, and they gave us directions to the campsite; right at the bottom of the hill. So, locked in first gear, we crept down and into the site, which was filled with jolly campers all having a jolly time.

As we found our pitch, a police patrol vehicle followed us in and sat there watching whilst two very tired novice campers tried to get the trailer backed into a very small space in pitch dark whilst trying to be very quiet. We managed in the end but when I came to unhitch, I realised that in one particularly harsh back up manoeuvre I'd managed to get the power line coupling caught between the A-frame of the trailer and the hitch on the Sienna and crushed it. Everything was still working but I couldn't separate the two parts, which was a slight issue given that the electrical system wouldn't work until they were separated. So, 20 minutes with a big screwdriver and a pair of pliers and we were sorted, even if half of the metal plug thingy had fallen off! It was getting on for 2am by the time we'd fully unhitched and set up; not exactly silently, either. We made a note to apologise to the neighbours in the morning.

So, after a very long day, three stops for gas and a nightmare parking job, we were ready for bed. Strangely though, it wasn't raining. High hopes for the morning, anyway, if the world hadn't ended of course. 

A Rainy Weekend In Brantford - Day 3

And still it rained. Now it was cold, too. Fire up the furnace, Jeeves.


At least we could have a decent shower on board.


A very slow start was made slower by bacon and eggs, cooked in our electric skillet. It's a fine contraption but not quite as non-stick as the manufacturers claim. Typical Canadian Tire rubbish!


We were putting off the hitching as long as we could because of the rain but it just kept coming. So it was that at 11:30 I ventured outside into the deluge. When we're hot and bothered in Florida in the summer, we'll look back and laugh at this; plodding about the long grass in temperatures that barely reached 7 degrees Celsius with rain dripping down our necks. 


Everything outside (cables, hoses and the like) was wet and muddy; I just threw them into their respective totes and made a note to dry them off later. Once hitched, it was a tight turn to get out of the camp site then we headed off to the dump station. I was wet already so another 15 minutes in the rain wasn't going to hurt. Yet another dump station with no water supply with which to flush the tank, although there was at least a reasonably high pressure jet that I could hose down the poo pipe with. 


Leaving the park was interesting with a very steep hill up and a left at the top; with the rain and dirt on the road it fair had the fronts spinning as I attempted to get the trailer going. Still, we made it and headed back towards the 403 and home. 


The rain and spray made the journey less fun. The McKesh extension mirrors were covered in rain and not really very useful and to top it all there was a stiff cross wind. However, we continued our experiments with getting the fuel consumption optimised. We really only got about 22 litres per 100 Kms (11 m/US Gal) but then the wind wasn't helping much. I did get to push the speed up on occasion and enjoyed the relative assurance that the trailer was good and true behind us. 


It was still raining hard when we arrived home and once parked on the drive, we unhitched and headed right inside, glad to get out of the cold and wet.


We did have a good weekend, though. We didn't think much of Brant, but we liked Brantford. We loved Can Am for helping with the water heater and we tolerated the shopping. We HATED the rain and the cold but, as I said earlier, it's all experience. Roll on summer!

A Rainy Weekend In Brantford -Day 2

We awoke to dry weather, which was good, albeit that the temperature had dipped a bit. I gathered my towel and soap and headed off to the nearest bath house. Things didn't look good when I realised that there was only one shower in the mens' block, and even worse when I could see that the shower hadn't passed any water through its system for quite some time. Optimistically I put a quarter in the slot but realised that the money collecting box was missing as the coin just fell straight out of the mechanism. Oh well, I thought, it's a big camp site and there are other showers. A ten minute walk past a whole series of apparently abandoned trailers, an Airstream amongst them, and I ended up in the slightly more affluent part of the site. I knew this because of the big shiny fifth wheelers dotted about. The next shower block looked no more promising, though, and my pessimism was rewarded when I found the shower there locked up. Disconsolately I headed back to Towed Haul, determined to get a shower one way or another. Mrs T rang the gatehouse. In answer to the question “Are there any working showers on site?”, the reply “Well, there should be” didn't instill confidence. Apparently there were showers across the other side of the Conservation Area and they were 25 cents for 3 minutes. That made us determined to get our water heater fixed!

After an abortive call to a local RV dealer in search of some new thermal cut off devices, I decided to try bypassing the melted plastic thingy, to see if I could get the heater to work. It  certainly fired up, but not in a good way! Flames started coming out of the air intake rather than into the burn chamber, which I had a suspicion was wrong, so a quick switch off procedure was instituted. I still didn't see the bug issue, but I should have done.

We decided to call our own dealers', located about an hour away. Somehow I ended up speaking to one of the co-owners, the legendary tow guru, Andy Thompson. Yes, he said, that'll be little critters in the pipework, even on a new unit like ours. Without my asking, he suggested that he'd be able to get a technician out to me, within the hour, because he knew one in Brantford. Good to his word, one Murray called right back and arranged to come out within 30 minutes. This was service par excellence.

Murray duly turned up, with his wife, and within minutes had the burner dismantled and was showing me the spiders nest in the pipe work. Well I never! It took him no time at all to clear the blockage using, I'm glad to report, a bent wire coat hanger and a piece of old cloth.

He then put the whole thing back together, fired it up (properly!) and then adjusted the air intake a little. As if by magic we were up and running again. I tried to offer Murray a $20 dollar bill, knowing he wouldn't accept it, but I insisted he take it for the WBCCI rally he was going to next weekend.

The whole episode was quite uplifting; our dealers, Can Am RV and their team are second to none for service. Murray was fascinating to talk to, as was his wife, and Andy Thompson was just brilliant getting things set up for us. How lucky we were to have found them.

After hot showers in the trailer (of course), we were running a little late but decided to head out to the Royal Mohawk Chapel in Brantford. It had piqued my interest when I'd seen it on the Internet and by a complete co-incidence, Mrs T had been on a school trip out to the adjacent Mohawk Institute and Woodlands Centre Museum not two days earlier. The rain started up again as we neared the chapel so we really just dived inside. Mind you, once there we were entranced. It wasn't that grand but was entirely lined with wood and well lit. Despite the poor weather outside, the stained glass windows looked excellent. We met the church guide, a lovely native lady who's name I didn't get, who gave us a wonderful talk about the chapel and some of the history of the Six Nations people. Being a Brit, it didn't make for comfortable listening and our guide certainly made her feelings known about the proposed and the actual land grant for the Six Nations in that area. I couldn't help feeling guilty. Anyway, if you're ever in Brantford Ontario, I can recommend the Royal Chapel of the Mohawks.

The rain hadn't let up when we came out again so we set off in search of some lunch and then onto the weekend's mission; Bed, Bath & Beyond in Cambridge and IKEA in Burlington. Tsk, what consumers we have become. 

The rain stayed all day. We returned to Towed Haul and set about boiling some water for pasta, omitting to put a lit on the pan. All that did was produce a pot full of nearly boiling water and a trailer full of steam; thank goodness for Fan-Tastic fans! The pasta was eventually cooked, though, and we were able to wash up in lovely hot water out of the tap.

We went to bed to the sound of the rain on the roof and didn't hold out a lot of hope for a fine Sunday. 

A Wet Weekend In Brantford - Day 1

Not quite a rainy night in Georgia but it's a good as we could get in Southern Ontario.

Friday afternoon and it's time to go. One day we'll get this hitching lark sorted out; it still takes us ages to do it all. Still, we were ready to roll by 5pm so it wasn't too bad. First failure of the day (it being Friday 13^th) was that all the Guinness at the Beer Store was way out of date. By months in fact. I had to settle for domestic stuff and was a little miffed, although the Sleemans Honey Brown is quite a good alternative.

We headed out in the rush hour traffic and made a path for Highway 401 and Brantford. Although there was a lot of traffic, it was all moving and as we like to stay within the speed limit, we were the slowest vehicle on the road (speed limits here tend to be little more than a vague suggestion). That said, it's quite satisfying to have everyone else having to pass you. Once up to speed, I spent a lot of the time experimenting with transmission settings and the use of Cruise Control. The Sienna has a very nice TipTronic gearbox where you can limit which gears you use rather than just letting the gearbox decide; I eventually settled on 6^th but no cruise control, keeping at around 100km/h, which stopped the gearbox constantly changing the gear. Mind you, at that speed, the gas consumption is a bit scary.

The run up the 401, then the 403, was quite uneventful and we even overtook a couple of vehicles on the way, much to my suprise. I do enjoy confusing the SatNav so I came off the 403 a little sooner than the device had suggested, in order to avoid some construction; “Turn around” was all it's strangulated computer voice could say!

The day had been very warm and muggy, with the promise of thunderstorms, so we weren't too surprised to see the dark black clouds, seemingly hovering over our destination and spouting the occasional fork of lightning. Sure enough, the rain started just as we arrived at the Brant Conservation Area, although as we splashed through the puddles to the camp site, we realised that it had been raining for a while here. Of the past four weekends we had been camping on three of them. The only dry weekend was the one we were at home! Now tell me we're not fated.

Brant Conservation area is quite big, on a bend in the Grand River. There are a lot of camp sites with many seasonal pitches, as we discovered as we rolled into what can only be described as a shanty town of old, decaying trailers, each with its own home made deck and pile of firewood outside. Most looked abandoned but most also had lights on and cars outside; very odd. Our little site was quite tight with a couple of trees obstructing the access a bit, albeit that the pad was level and made of gravel. Mrs T suggested that we do a pull through manoeuvre, even though it wasn't a pull through site, so off across the long grass I headed. Actually, it was a sensible move because as the rain came down we parked, unhitched and set up in about ten minutes; rain will do that for you.

This was our first pitch with water supplied so it was a nice feeling to connect the trailer up and not be relying on the fresh water tank on board.

The rain did stop for a while but it wasn't sitting outside weather so we had our baked potato and beans indoors and thought about retiring. Then I decided to try the hot water. Oops! No hot water. The monitor light was off, too. A quick trip outside with the Mag Light and I checked that the propane; it was on, but there didn't appear to be any flow, even to the stove. I thought I'd better have a look at the water heater compartment on the outside of the trailer and there the problem was obvious. Oh dear, I thought, as I saw the mass of burnt plastic between two bits of wire, that looks terminal.

Given that it was dark and raining, I repaired to the trailer and Mrs Toad and I set about reading the manuals. It seemed that the burned plastic was the remains of the Thermal Cut Off device, designed to cut all power and gas when a failure in the water heater is detected. That would account for the non-working water heater and the lack of LPG, then.  The book said that this occurred often when bugs had set up home in the heater and blocked some important pipe or other. I felt sure that as our unit was only a few weeks old that bugs couldn't be the issue but realised that there wasn't much we could do that evening. So, the washing up was done with boiled water from the kettle, which was no big deal; it looked like the shower block for us in the morning.

My one notable success of the evening was getting the LPG working on the stove again. What a clever toad I am.

We decided to turn in for the night as the rain started it's rhythm on the roof again. It was warm at least so the furnace stayed off, for the first time on any of our trips, and we settled down with hopes of a better and busy day tomorrow.

No Camping? No Worries!

The sun has shone all weekend here in this part of the Glorious British Empire, despite what those Yankee weather forecasters had said.


The trouble is, we weren't camping this weekend (Oh woe is me!).


So, never to be cheated out of a good day in Towed Haul, we opened all the awnings, all the windows and all the hatches and sat inside our mobile mansion whilst she stood on the drive. Tea and/or coffee and a nice slice of cake plus a bit of neighbour watching makes for a good day non-camping. Lovely!


We also gave a few guided tours, now that the sun has brought the locals out. These Airstreams are social devices, aren't they?


Planned camping is at Cambridge (Ontario) next weekend, pack your brollys everyone. 

Shakedown 2, The Sequel. Day 3

The campsite was even quieter than when we'd arrived on Friday and we were a good 100m from anyone else in the woods. The big surprise was no rain, or at least none when we were moving about.

Breaking camp was a joy without the rain and we were able to take our time hitching up and checking the rig over. Our friction anti-sway bars were still howling as we headed out of the site but I think other campers are quite used to that and no one paid us any heed. 

We needed to dump both the black and grey tanks but were a bit disappointed to find the one open dump station still in a state of part refurbishment. We were able to get rid of the waste but couldn't flush the tank because there was no water, so we were hoping that adding some water when we got home would suffice. Actually, The Pinery was generally in a state of semi-repair; there is a lot of construction taking place but nothing was finished. They'd better get a move on for the May Two-Four weekend because that's a biggie.

The drive home was fine, despite the wind having turned and was now blowing against us all the way home. One day we'll get a tail wind! The trailer towed straight and true, despite the gale, and the Sienna behaved as I swapped between full auto transmission and the Tiptronic semi-automatic, just to see how things worked. I was certainly able to force the gear up slightly from fourth to fifth, thus reducing the engine speed by 500rpm but I don't think it make a lot of difference to the fuel consumption. Either way, the car drove well and the trailer followed.

Arriving home, we had a bit of a triumph. We're having to make a bit of a detour to get to our driveway on account of some construction work right at the end of it (Thanks, Municipality, that's only about three months now). Anyway, I straightened up the rig in the road and Mrs T started to guide me back with some good clear signals on the two way radio. Between us we managed to get Towed Haul up on the drive, parallel to the edge, on the correct side, clearing the construction work completely AND we did all this in one go! We're getting the hang of this backing up lark I think.

So, another trip completed (no dings this time) and the shakedown pretty much sorted. We're getting better at hitching and unhitching and backing up is beginning to make sense now. Now all we need is a few longer trips.

Watch for our tales of Taughannock State Park in Upper New York State, which is our may Two Four destination; a longer trip and international, too. We can't wait!

Shakedown 2, The Sequel. Day 2

A fine day dawned for the second day of the second shakedown. A stroll down to the bath house at 8am confirmed temperatures rising with Chipmunks and Woodpeckers making their presence felt.

Given the sunshine, I took advantage of Mrs T's personal hour to wander through the woods  towards the lake. The footpath took me over the old river channel, resplendent in the warming morning, through Oak, Ash and Pine woods to the wooden walkway over the dunes. The woods were full of camp sites (all closed up due to the earliness of the season) and completely devoid of people. The walkway is designed to preserve the dunes and gave gorgeous views of the lake and its miles of sandy beach, disappearing into the distance, both left and right.  The last time we'd been here, the ice was piled high and stretched out about 100m into the lake. Today the beach was narrow and the water lapped gently on the sand; it was quite beautiful. I was on the beach for about 15 minutes and didn't see another soul, which was just fine.

Huron Shore at The Pinery

I headed back to the trailer (about 25 minutes walk) so that we could head out for a lunchtime rendezvous with a TV showing the footy, pre-planned at Paddington's Eatery in Grand Bend. We had a little drive around the park roads first; those that were open, that is. The  park is enormous and packed full of wildlife and we only managed to see a small part of it.

The boardwalk over the dunes

We headed out into civilization (if you can call Grand Bend civilization) and Paddington's. We'd read some good things about this little English bar and Mrs T had phoned earlier in the week to see if they'd have the Chelsea match on the TV. Unfortunately the information given was slightly duff because whilst they had Setanta Canada, the match was showing on Sportsnet, which they didn't have. Still, we had quite a nice and inexpensive pub meal. It's not a bad place to be in Grand Bend, especially if you're not a young trendy surfer type. The Bangers and Mash is to be recommended, by the way, and the pub is more Scottish than English!

After our abortive footy session, we headed into Grand Bend proper, a beach resort on Huron Shore famed for it's young and trendy people and shops. Main Street has been tarted up somewhat but unfortunately in April, virtually nothing was open so, despite the people about, it was all a bit curious. I'd like to come back in the summer but I think I'd have to be parking up at about 7 am because the place really is very popular.

Grand Bend - very Baywatch

Main Street Grand Bend

Mrs T suggested a run up the coast, around the bend even, to Goderich, Canada's self-styled "prettiest town". Up on the bluff, the town is a busy little place, set around a big square that contains the courthouse. There's a lovely little baker's there, Culbert's in West Street, which is highly recommended by us and many others. OK so they didn't have any Madeleines that day but their custard slice was a great substitute. 

Salt Elevators at Goderich

Down by the river, all was quiet, despite the huge grain and salt elevators on the dockside; even the shipping season hadn't really started yet. The little beaches were nice, though, and the sun had brought out a few people. There is a forlorn looking station at the foot of the bluff, sadly bereft of tracks. The building looks a little lost, especially as it's lost it's awning. Still, it's been preserved, which is quite unusual in 

Bereft Station at Goderich

Sunken ship - sort of

this neck of the woods. 


There's also a two storey steel wheel house from an old lake freighter parked on the grass, now a Marine Museum. It looks for all the world like the freighter is buried just beneath the grass! The sight isn't lost on the museum's owners, either, because there are a few other nautical artifacts half buried in the grass.

Following the mandatory stop at a Tim Horton's road block we headed south towards the Pinery again, stopping at a point on the lake where we'd stopped a couple of years previously on our way to Tobermory. It's just a little parking place at the top of a low cliff, overlooking Lake Huron, but it does give a great vista of the lake. This place, I think, will be a favourite for those who like to catch the famous Lake Huron sunsets. We found that we had a couple of chairs in the back of the car so we became old people and sat together in by the car, sheltering from the wind and enjoying each other's company.

Old people

Enjoying the view

With so much activity during the day, we retired to Towed Haul early and spent a leisurely evening listening to music and talking; it's a hard life this trailering!

Unlike the first shakedown trip, we decided we'd not start breaking camp until the Sunday morning, even with the threat of (more) rain. See, we're hardy souls. At least the temperature had risen and stayed risen, which was a welcome surprise after the previous night. What for Sunday we wondered?

Shakedown 2, The Sequel

The Old River Channel at The Pinery

The Pinery is a large strip of Oak Savannah that borders the southern end of Lake Huron. The Savannah is protected from the ravages of the lake by a wide and high bank of sand dunes. I don't know how many camping sites there are hidden in the Oak, Ash and Pine woods but it must run to many thousands. Our trip in April was early enough for only one camping area to be open and even that was virtually empty, so I can't imagine what the place is like at the height of the season. Mind you, this is a big park so hopefully all those people blend into the woods; we shall have to do a high summer trip just to find out.

The Pinery is about 120 Kms from home and across country, so no nice wide highways but lots of right angle turns and towns to drive through; a test for my driving skills when towing.

Preparation involved making sure that we didn't have too much fresh water on board (it's so heavy!) and only taking enough stuff for the two of us; we were sans enfants for this trip. We also packed the Sat Nav because all those right angle turns can get confusing.

The drive was uneventful (thank goodness) and I was grateful for all the arrow straight roads between those right angles so I could get a feel for towing. There was a dreadful headwind but Airstream trailers deal with those pretty well. We also met a few big tractor trailer units heading in the opposite direction, at speed, and that is always a test of your hitching set up and general stability; I'm pleased to report that there was ne'er a wobble experienced, so our hitch and trailer ensemble is obviously working well.

Checking in at the park, I paid particular attention to any stray Stop signs and noted that the gate house had some obvious scrapes at eaves trough level; I'm not the only entry way crasher!

Lake Huron Shore

We'd been to the park to look at the camp site earlier in the year and now it looked a little different without the snow. A little scruffy was the initial impression. We filled up with water at the Comfort Station, backed up about 75m (it took a few attempts!) and headed into the woods. Drawing into the site, Mrs T decided that she'd like the trailer facing in the opposite direction so, with a confidence I don't really merit, I set about a complicated three point turn, with Mrs T spotting. With deft use of some simple instructions and the excellent two way radio system, we had Towed Haul turned around in no time at all, which wasn't at all shabby given the confined space. We're getting there.

The camping area was very sparsely populated so as the darkness fell, it was almost like being in the backwoods. It being Royal Wedding Day, we deployed the on board TV antenna and watched the re-run on a slightly grainy CBC before turning in for a very quiet and restful night.

Regular readers of my blogs will note that there has been only a passing mention of weather in this little missive. Now, though, is the weather report. A lovely evening it may have been but as the darkness came, so the temperature fell. It was 0 degrees C outside when we went to bed, which isn't right for the end of April, even in Southern Ontario. Still, I guess that's what the furnace is for.

The weather forecast look set OK for the next the day, though, so one cold night was bearable; look out for day 2......

Shaking Down at Rondeau. Day 4

Day 4, Easter Monday, dawned with dull and ominous skies. My daily trek to the bath house was dry but rain was in the air. We'd pulled the awning in the night before to minimise the time it would take to break camp if it was raining and what a prophetic move that was.

I can't remember when the rain started but when it did it set in seriously.

The tadpoles were bundled into the Toadmobile and told to stay put, on pain of death or something even more painful. Mrs Toad and I donned our oil skins and set about breaking camp.

As it turned out, apart from getting very wet, the process went quite smoothly. Hitching was achieved on about the second attempt and backing up the entire rig went reasonably well. My worry was getting it moving forward on the wet grass and boggy ground, given that the Toadmobile is front wheel drive. Fortunately we moved up the slight incline off the site with ne'er a hint of wheel spin. All visions of having to ask someone with a four wheel drive truck to help us out were (thankfully) banished.

We decided upon a grey water dump and were somewhat relieved to see the dump station was newly refurbished and free of other trailers so, even with the rain, Mrs T and I had our first dump, as it were. I did forget to close the grey water tank valve when we left but, given that it was empty and the drain pipe cap was on, it didn't really matter.

The trip home was uneventful, if wet, and we avoided clouting any Stop signs. Of course, backing onto the drive was its usual fun and I live in hope that one day I'll master that particular task. Still, Towed Haul was straight and on the correct side of the drive so that was OK.

As to shaking down, all went very well. Everything worked in the trailer and we didn't forget much. We did draw up a list of things we might need to make things easier for the next trip. You know, wine, Guinness, that sort of thing. We did drain a whole 30lb tank of propane but that was down to the weather and as it turned out, simplicity itself to get it refilled.

The Toadmobile (you can't tow that with that!) actually performed very well, even if I still wince at the thought of lifting her back end off the ground in order to put the weight distributing torsion bars on. See, you really don't need a gert big truck to tow these things.

We have Shakedown 2, The Sequel next week. Can't wait!

Shaking Down at Rondeau. Day 3

A calmer night, for sure, so we all had some sleep. It was still cold, though, far too cold for this time of year. Still, the showers at Rondeau are excellent so once clean, the day was looking to be good.


Lunch was a pre-prepared chicken dish with rice, which worked well as there wasn't too much washing up. The trailer's monitor system picked up that we were low on fresh water so it was up to the big tadpole and I to refill our tank using a water holder we had bought for tent camping. There was a tap right next to the site but it had been cunningly fashioned so that there was no possibility of fixing a hose to it. I didn't have too much of a problem with that as you wouldn't want some selfish goon trying to claim the tap as theirs. Having filled up with water, then using some of it, we realised that the grey water tank (the non-toilet waste) was filling to capacity. We weren't equipped with a "Blue Boy", a small cistern on wheels that you can dump grey water into and transfer it to a proper dump station, so we had to go easy because the only way of getting rid of the waste water was to take the trailer to the dump station, and that wasn't going to happen until we broke camp the next day. It seems that the fresh and waste water tanks are matched!

Coat Weather

The day was cool but dry and we went off on more beach combing expeditions in the afternoon, relishing the lack of people and the fresh air.


Prior to turning in that evening we brought in the awning as rain was forecast for the morrow and we thought it would be easier if the thing was dry. 


That evening we watched Daniel Radcliffe in My Boy Jack, which was about Rudyard Kipling's son in the first world war. Excellent stuff, even if the tadpoles were a little restless without a big squishy sofa to lounge about on.


Monday beckoned, with the prospect of rain. Maybe the forecast would be wrong?