A Weekend In Goderich - Day Two

No rain in the night! Dawn dawned and although cloudy, the day looked quite pleasant as I did my morning amble over to the bath house. This was was all shiny and new and to the exact pattern of all the other new bath houses that have been built in Ontario Parks over the winter. It was clean, though, and the water good and hot, so no complaints from me. On the reverse amble I had a good gander at the other sites and the trailers parked thereon. This site had a pair of camp hosts (not camp in the theatrical sense), not something I'd seen in a provincial park before; maybe I hadn't been looking. They had a gigantic motorhome and looked very comfortable with their little car (towed behind the Moho) and their portable satellite dish. Actually I never actually caught sight of either of the hosts whilst at Point Farms so I was wondering what they actually did! 

On a slight tangent I have to say that TV use in trailers is interesting. Most trailers come equipped with at least one TV and an antenna built into the roof. One of the big accessories is the portable satellite dish and quite a few campgrounds have a cable TV system; our trailer certainly has a cable TV hook-up. Indeed, one guy that was camped near us did very little else except watch TV; he was even there at 8am on Saturday morning watching some sport or other (see, I like to be nosey). I'm not entirely sure about this fascination with the TV when out in the great outdoors. We've only ever used the antenna once, to catch up on the Royal Wedding, and used the DVD player perhaps three times. I really can't see the point of going to a campground just to watch TV. Still, I think I'm in the minority there because everyone seems to be well equipped televisually. (Is televisually a word?).

Goderich from the air. It looks a bit like Paris from here....

Anyway, off we went into Goderich to have ourselves a nice day. First we went to Canadian Tire and managed to pick up a pack of spare locking pins, much to my surprise. They're just ordinary wire pins, reusable Cotter Pins really, but that store had them and they were even manufactured by the same people that manufactured the anti-sway bar that the pins were needed for, which was nice.

Then it was into Goderich proper and over to Colbert's Bakery to collect an order of cakes that Mrs T had phoned in during the week. Colbert's is excellent; it has a wide range of cakes and bread, made on the premises, and presented in a nice 1950s themed shop. I don't think they mean it to be themed like that, it's just that was the last time the shop fitters visited. For Canada, it's very olde worlde. We came out with armfuls of stuff and started to wonder when and if we'd ever eat it all. Then we visited the weekly Farmer's Market in the Courthouse grounds. It was small but the produce was amazing. There were some Mennonite farmers, complete with half-beards and straw hats, selling the most wonderful looking cakes. What a dilemma! We resolved to leave the Mennonite cakes for another weekend, but it was a tough choice.

We were about to visit a shop in the square and must have paused to look lost because a friendly local sauntered up and not only directed us to where we needed to be but gave us a heap of useful information about Goderich as well. This is why we like the place.

Lunch was taken at J's Bistro in Courthouse Square (which is circular). The menu wasn't extensive but I had an excellent salmon club sandwich and Mrs T had a lovely, light and fragrant curry; quite a rarity in these country climes. The Bistro is highly recommended! (Phone (519) 524-5392).

The 120 steps

The Beach

After lunch we headed back to Point Farms to explore the beach and search out the site of the hotel that had once stood there. From where we were camped, the beach was at the bottom of 120 wooden steps; a nice walk but maybe not when loaded with deck chairs and a cooler. The beach was part flooded at the base of the cliff but we negotiated our way out to the sandy bits and spent a happy half-hour sidling up along Lake Huron. We walked back up the bluff via the access road and surprisingly came face to face with a big bill board that had a painting of the old hotel on it. Apparently it had closed in 1913 on the death of its owner and had never re-opened. It certainly would have had commanding views of Goderich and the lake. ‎

The site of the old Hotel

Being such whirlwinds of activity, we had supper under the awning of the trailer, watched a DVD inside the trailer and then went to bed! That's camping, just as we like it.

Toad Hall and the Toad Mobile

A Weekend In Goderich - Day One

After the exertions of our trip to Upstate New York, we decided a more local trip was in order. So on a fine Friday evening we loaded Toad Haul and headed north for Point Farms Provincial Park, nestling on the shores of Lake Huron, near the town of Goderich, Canada's prettiest town apparently.


The run was about 200 Kms, the first 120 of which took us across country, following the grid patterned roads between Chatham and Lambton Shores. It's fairly flat and apart from an annoying number of right angled junctions, quite an easy passage, even with the trailer in tow. We'd not even arrived in Thamesville, the first town out from Chatham, when the SatNav was suggesting a faster route. Well, being adventurous types we plunged off the main road and followed the man in the satellite. First we were caught up with some heavy transport, then a tractor, then some construction work; a faster route this most definitely wasn't. Still, we make reasonable time and our gas mileage was, according to the Toad Mobile's information screen, looking quite good. 


Once on Highway 21, the road that hugs the Huron shoreline, things improved as there were no turn offs and precious few Stop signs for the next 80 Kms. I selected the Automatic Gearbox, set the Cruise Control to 80 kph and let the Sienna do the work. The gas mileage improved and the presence of 7000lb of trailer on our bumper seemed to fade; I can't say we drove like Towed Haul wasn't there but the car pulled that thing with barely any complaint. It was a most enjoyable trip.


Arriving at Point Farms, we pulled into an empty gate area and went into the office to register, clutching as we did so, our bright yellow dossier, crammed with information relating to our trips from the licence plate details to the booking receipts. The young woman behind the desk, not your usual mouth breather I have to say, was most taken with our dossier and the organisational skills that it implied, even to the extent of telling her colleague about it. Apparently most campers arrive in some state of disarray and we were very much the exception. Of course, a lot of people would think us simply nerdy, but I could see that we were dealing with a fellow pedant!


Anyhoo, paperwork completed, we were directed to the dump station where we could fill the fresh water tank. Having pulled into the water bay I realised that we were facing the wrong way so set off out of the bay and down the road to turn around. Fortunately there was a space big enough to do a U-turn with a 28 foot long trailer but I really should have removed the anti-sway bars from the hitch because as I did the 180 degree turn I heard something ping. Although I didn't realise it at the time, it was was of the locking pins from the left hand sway bar, installed incorrectly by yours truly. I only discovered the loss when we went to unhitch at the camp site and I immediately remembered that pinging sound. I did go back to look for it but it was nowhere to be found; a trip to Canadian Tire was called for the next day.


Once watered, we found our camp spot and did a canny 180 degree turn using the the empty plot opposite and positioned ourselves facing the fire pit. The site wasn't large but it was on gravel, albeit that it was very wet underfoot. Unhitching and positioning is getting easier with each trip and we even had one side of the trailer up on a pair of leveling blocks; there's posh for you. 

Safely anchored at Point Farms

An exploratory walk was undertaken, before it became too dark, and then we settled in for our regular Friday repast of Baked Potato and English Heinz Baked Beans, which was excellent as usual. Ah, this is the life.