I really like the run up to Point Farms. Firstly we head out along the Thames River to Thamesville then strike north, across country towards Lambton Shores and the southern end of Huron. The scenery goes from dead flat farmland with few trees in the south to a pleasant undulating farmland with a few more trees the further north you go. The roads are mostly arrow straight and punctuated by right angle turns here and there, with the occasional swoop right then left to accommodate a bridge across a river or creek, seeing as those cursed natural features don't conform to the grid pattern of the roads.
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| Thamesville, Ontario |
It had rained all Friday morning, contrary to the forecast, but cleared up as we headed out. The sun, though, brought out a wicked northerly wind which not only lowered the temperature a fair bit but meant we had a stiff headwind; bye-bye gas mileage. Still, the run up to Lambton Shores was nice and it meant we went through the town of Watford. Now Watford has a couple of key features for us, not least of them being it's named for Watford in the fair county of Hertfordshire and that is the birthplace of Mayne Minor. The other thing is its bridge over the railway. There's nothing unusual about a bridge over a railway, normally, but this one is uncommonly high and as you crest it you get an aerial view of the the little town's Main Street, which is unusual. The bridge is quite new, I think, and would have replaced a road crossing at street level so I think we're fortunate to get this special view. That said, we're probably the only people in Ontario to appreciate it.
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| From a few years back, before the railway bridge was built - imagine this view but from about 25 feet up. |
Once at Lambton Shores, we're on the southern edge of Lake Huron and go for quite a few miles through woods that are to the rear of a large area of sand dunes. The road is littered with trailer parks, some smarter than others, and shacks selling firewood. I think this is camping Mecca in the summer, especially as the road leads us through to the surprisingly trendy lake side resort of Grand Bend, a little slice of California in Southern Ontario. I have to say that the resemblence to California is limited to a couple of months in summer as the rest of the year the place is shut up tight and quite often buried under snow.
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| Grand Bend - in the summer, obviously! |
From Grand Bend we follow the edge of the lake along the aptly named Bluewater Highway; aptly because when you do catch sight of the lake it's certainly very blue, turqouise even. Only today, the turqouise was fetchingly topped with a foaming array of waves breaking on the surface; it sure was windy. I also like the Bluewater highway for its dips and swoops, it not being quite as straight as some roads around these parts. There's a speed limit of 80 Km per hour, which I stick to, and I not only get to enjoy the scenery but save some money on gas as well. It's win, win, eh?
Pitching up at the park gates a little after six, we were surprised to find quite a lot of other trailers lined up to book in. In the gatehouse I found out why; a lone Park Warden (and I wanted to call him a Lone Ranger, tsk) was serving a long line of people, all of whom had some difficulty with their booking. He told the assembled throng that he was on his own as two of his team had cleared off, apparently sick, and left him alone to deal with the hoards. Poor fellow. It was warm in the gatehouse and the young man was fully kitted out in a quasi-police uniform, complete with stab-vest (although no gun, I was pleased to note) and utility belt, all of which he managed to shed before I arrived at the head of queue. He was very quick to keep offering his apologies but I think most of us in there were more than sympathetic, even though I was in there long enough to hear Wings, The Pet Shop Boys and The Tragically Hip from the piped music system.
We managed to build a nice queue behind us as we topped up the fresh water tanks at the dump station, partly because it took me a while to work out how to get the tap to give up its water and partly because it takes quite a time to dispense 50 gallons through a glorified garden hose. Heading to our allotted site, I had the bright idea of approaching it from a different direction, which was fine except that it opened up a couple of new positional possibilties for Towed Haul that we hadn't considered. So, after a few failed attempts at fancy parking we ended up backing off the site, doing a circuit of the campground and approaching from the proper direction. Sometimes these sites look quite inviting but when you actually try to manoeuvre a 15 foot long car with a 30 foot long trailer attached to it into the space, things start to leap out and bite your bum, like trees, posts and dips in the ground. Still, arriving correctly and backing in as we should have done in the first place was simple and only took a couple of minutes, which is just as well as it was getting dark. Our abortive manoeuvres were also the source much concern (or mirth) for our neighbours; I have a feeling that they thought were a tad deranged. On our circuit of the campground, we happened upon three other Airstreams, all in the same loop road but not together, as far as we could see. Not an impromptu rally then! A little later on, when exercising the hound, I stumbled upon another Airstream, so that was four plus Towed Haul; and I'd only ever seen one other Airstream in a Park campground at the same time as us before.
Setting up went well and the all important fairy lights were attached to the awning in good time. The trouble was, we should have tried the water heater first because as the light was getting dimpsy, I watched the flame in the burn tube splutter and stop and realised that we had yet another squatter setting up home in the propane feed pipe. Sensibly we gave up all thoughts of dismantling the pesky device in the dark and put that job off until the morning. The Toads then retired to Towed Haul and settled into camping proper with baked potatoes, English Heinz beans and cheese triangles for tea - proper grub.
Avid Toad fans may remember us blooding the Kuerig coffee machine last week, well our new addition to the camping inventory this week was the smallest of the Tassimo range of coffee makers. The Kuering is the bees knees but for the trailer it was a touch too big and, more importantaly for certain members of the team, didn't do Cadbury's Hot Chocolate. So, the Tassimo was called from the substitutes bench to fill the void and performed well on its first outing, dispensing said hot chocolate and some rather nice Nabob brand coffee. The Tassimo is a little noisier than King Kuerig and is a little more involved but the benefits of having hot chocolate almost on tap certainly outweighed any of those little niggles. I have to say, though, that we were more than a little miffed to discover that, after having scoured the stores for the best price on the Tassimo (and attaining what we thought was rock bottom), the cursed thing appeared on sale at Canadian Tire for $9 less. Tsk.
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| Hot Chocolate on tap - almost. |
Anyway, listening to the local station My FM, we whiled away the evening chatting and working our way through a moderate amount of Guinness and wine before hitting the hay at a reasonably sensible hour. The hound misbehaved somewhat with a burning desire to sleep on our bed, but we did manage to get her to settle on the banquette eventually. Before turning in, I nipped out to secure the awning with a couple of guy ropes as the wind was pretty stiff, even parked in amongst the trees. In the dark I managed to misplace one of the ropes and had to lash up a temporary rope out of shorter bits and then, in my hurry to get into my pit I forgot to close the tailgate on the car.
So Saturday dawned, bright and sunny if a little cool, and it was at that point I realised I'd left the car tailgate open all night. It was, fortunately, a dry night and also one where the raccoons, and bears, weren't sufficiently curious enough to visit. I'd even left the hound's unwashed food bowl in there, surely enough to attract some attention from the wildlife, but no, all remained undisturbed.
I mention bears because my to my surprise there was a bear warning posted up at the shower block. It was specific to this very campground and mentioned recent bear activity. I had no idea that bears were to be found in this part of the Province, thinking them to be pretty rare even up on the Bruce Peninsular about 100 miles north of Goderich. That said, the park is probably quite a draw for all wildlife what with hundreds of campers cooking outside all through the summer.
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| Point Farms Resident |
After a lesuirely ablution routine, we settled to croissants for brekkie and then made our way to the beach, via a spin around the campground where we discovered yet another Airstream, bringing the total to five plus Towed Haul. The beach was glorious; sunny with even the wind seeming reasonably pleasant. The water was various shades of vivid blue and the place was pretty quiet, which is why we let the hound off her leash. She had been really excited as we approached but now freed of her tether she ran in broad circles around the beach, stopping only to wade into the water and to dig furiously in the sand, apparently in search of something that she never did find. I don't think I've ever seen Willow run that much; she was certainly enjoying herself and we were enjoying watching her. She kept up the running for ages, far more than her usual 30 seconds, which did auger well for a quiet night punctuated only by her snores. How little I knew!
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| The hound and the blue |
After lunch we motored into our favourite little town, Goderich. Gas was surprisingly cheaper than down south and the little "Gas Bar" we used had old fasioned pumps that you had to lift a big lever to get it working - it was quite like the olden days. Goderich is famed for its Cream Puffs but today we settled on a box full of vanilla slices from Culbert's Bakery; well you have to get something, don't you? Mrs Toad spotted a nice little table lamp in a Jewellers' shop and managed to buy it after some curious interplay between her and the slightly oddball pair who were running the store. I missed all the fun because I was outside with the hound, who was a bit edgy being in town, quiet though it was, especially as nearly everyone wanted to come over and pet her. Tail between her legs, Willow hid behind me, resisting all attempts at introductions; I suppose that she really is the scardiest Greyhound in the world. The town square (which is actually a circle) looked barren still after the big storm a year or so ago, the courthouse in the centre of the circle looking big and imposing without its curtain of trees, which were all lost in that storm. Most of the businesses were up and running again although there were two noticeable gaps in the main facade where buidings had been demolished rather than repaired. We did a quick run down to the harbour and beach area to see a lake freighter heading away from the port and to watch the waves on the turquoise water; all very pleasant but a Tassimo coffee and a clutch of vanilla slices was calling us back to Towed Haul so we didn't hang around.
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| Good shot of Goderich and harbour. Today there isn't a single tree around the Courthouse in the square (circle). |
The campground being quite full, we did like to browse around and look at the other campers. Most seemed quite friendly, loved our "Briddish"" accents but more than that, they all loved the hound. She seemed a little more confident away from the town and managed to pluck up the courage to sniff a couple of people; I wonder if they realised how honoured they were? We even managed to have a quick chat with the Camp Hosts, a couple who get to dispense help and guidance to the other campers for a week or two in return for free camping. Their trailer was interesting, looking for all the world like a European caravan, with a big panoramic window on the front and that curious upturned boat look of the aerodynamic roof. It turned out that whilst made in Canada, the trailer was indeed modelled on the European styles - see, I know a European caravan when I see one and I'm hardly nerdy at all!
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| One of our Airstream neighbours |
Saturday night on the campground was quite lively, with some outsized camp fires and a few noisy gatherings going on. One of the nicest things is to see all the fairy lights hung on the awnings; it makes for a very jolly campground and is one of the reasons that we get our lights up quickly. There were a few people tent camping and I was thinking that with a projected low of 5C for the coming night, they should thoroughly warm themselves on those huge camp fires before heading to bed. On our nocturnal tour, we also took the opportunity to look at the stars, not always so visible at home with the street lighting and cars doing their best to hinder the view. It's nice be out where there's no light at all, although with a hound in tow, a torch is handy for spotting those deposits she makes in the undergrowth.
Heading for bed, we thought Willow had settled for the night on the banquette but, as soon as we headed to bed she had to follow. There followed a game where we'd shoo her off the bed and she'd go, only to return minutes later. Then she resorted to underhand tactics, scratching at the material of the banquette (some sort of faux leather) with her wickedly long claws. I was too tired to argue and had visions of our upholstery shredded beyond repair so I gave in and let her on the bed, much against my better judgement. She did stay quite still all night but I felt I'd been conned so woke up thinking dark thoughts about dogs and walked the hound in silence. She doesn't know it, but Miss Willow missed out on a trip to the beach on Sunday morning due to bad behaviour. Mind you, I did discover that we'd left the roof vent open above Willow's bed so I suppose she might have been a bit cold......
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| This is what you missed out on, hound! |
Sunday mornings in Towed Haul have, traditionally, been about doing not very much and, being traditionalists, we didn't do very much. I did have to twiddle with the water heater to get it to work properly (something to do with a sneaky south westerly wind I think) and I did manage a slow walk over to the shower block (warm if not exactly a power shower). On the way back I dawdled with interest, watching the folks with the new Airstream hitching their silver beauty up to their huge pick up truck. The lady doing the guiding had a walky-talky but was yelling so loudly into it as to render it quite necessary. She was also waving her arms around wildly but, given that she was right behind the truck, I didn't hold out much hope that the driver would be able to see her. They drove out a short time later so they must have "connected" satisfactorily.
Breaking camp was performed at a leisurely pace, especially as the weather was warming up significantly. We both still get confused about the order which we do things, chocks, electricity, sway bars; we get there in the end but still have to think about it. This time I forgot to turn off the propane, which was not a big issue but it did mean that we travelled all the way home with the fridge running, something I've always bleated about being the wrong thing to do. Still that's the first time that we've powered the fridge with propane so at least we know that it works!
If the drive up to Point Farms is nice then the drive home is better, Yes, we had a headwind again (the wind had moved to the South West over night) but being Sunday, the road was quiet so we had a fine run south. It always seems to take longer than I imagine it will but it's still one of the best trips we do with Towed Haul; even the dog sat quiet.
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| A landmark on the trip home :~) |
We're not sure of our next destination, or indeed when we'll go there. Thoughts are already drifting to winter storage, which is a bit sad given that it's still only September, but we will get out for a couple more trips. Well, we are equipped for the cooler weather and anyway, it's hard to leave Towed Haul on the driveway for too long.
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| The Haul at Point Farms, complete with fairy lights |
