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?