Moving day today so no plans for any expeditions. I was up with the lark (that's early!) and fighting off the bugs on the way to the shower block as the sun was warming the woods quickly. Making a quick foray off site to get some petrol, I made my way over the narrows between lakes Simcoe and Couchiching and was able to see both lakes stretching away in the bright morning sunshine, flat calm and glassy looking. I'm sure it's not so wildly attractive in winter but early on a summer's morning, it was delightful.
$1.239 for gas as opposed to $1.399 on the way out of Toronto the other day - I had to put that in as my dear old dad would have loved to have known.
It was a leisurely start to the day and as Mrs T did what she does in the mornings, I packed away a few things outside, aware that the bugs were getting quite viscious. When it came to do doing the joint things like hitching up, poor old Mrs T needed to nip in under cover at every opportunity to avoid the biting little blighters. The thing is that we had the site cleared and were away out of the Park gates in under an hour; it's amazing how a lack of dogs and children can speed things up.
So, it was off to Emily Provincial Park, some 90 Km south-west of Mara, smack in the middle of the Kawartha Lakes region. As is often the case, the grid road pattern didn't allow a straight run down but rather so many miles south, turn sharp left, so many miles west, then sharp right, and so on. That, combined with a surprising amount of stop lights way out in the countryside, meant a lot of stopping and starting, which played havoc with the gas mileage. Even at 50 mph, we still only managed 17.8 litres/100 Km which was worse than the motorway figures we achieved on the way up. Some of the roads were a bit, er, bouncy, too; what with the railways tracks to cross and the SatNav taking us on some fairly rural roads, poor old Towed Haul took a bit of a beating.
Emily Provincial Park is on the lower reaches of Pigeon Lake, where it's no wider than a medium-sized river. It's not a large park but has two beaches and two boat slips and two pretty big campgrounds to support them. That said, although we can hear the road outside, our pitch is surprisingly private and I'm sat here now looking at the mixed deciduous and conifer woods, listening the birds and I can only see one other site. The best bit is, though, that the bugs aren't biting so I'm outside writing this and enjoying every minute of it.
Once set up, we jumped into the Toadmobile and made for Bobcaygeon, about half an hour north of here, on the point at which Pigeon and Sturgeon lakes meet. Indeed, Bobcaygeon really only exists because a small canal and lock was built over 100 years ago to link the two lakes and to become part of the Trent-Severn Waterway between Trenton and Port Servern - you may remember Port Severn from a few days ago. This was actually a return visit for us because we'd passed through a couple of times on a houseboat a few years ago.
We parked up on the main street, free and for nothing, and walked the area looking at the shops. It was just 5pm and most were closing up for the night but we did a bit of browsing before settling down to watch some boats traverse the lock. A lot of the boats on the Trent-Severn are enormous and probably cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy and maintain. We watched one such vessel in the warm evening sunshine and wondered what the long haired, much tatooed man piloting it had done to have the money to own such a craft. We settled on drug dealer or pimp; not that we'd make any assumptions of course.
Supper was taken at Donatella's Restaurant on Bolton Street, just south of the lock. It was one of those rare restaurants that offered a wide choice that suited us both; home made mushroom soup was the order of the day, followed by pizza of various flavours. I had a draught Stella Artois which was nice at the time but gave me a bit of headache later in the evening. Donatella's could have done with some air conditioning, though, because we were dripping by the time we came out.
A longer than planned drive home (I missed the turning!) was a nice run through the corn-covered countryside. We arrived back at Towed Haul as the sun was beginning to drop, rigged the fairy lights on the awning and set off for a short walk around some of the camp sites in the fast fading light; quite dimpsy it was, but nice to see the lights and the camp fires in amongst the trees.
Tomorrow is art day, that is a run through the region to look at some galleries. The nice lady in one the shops in Bobcaygeon told us about a couple over towards Buckhorn so we'll head over that way in the morning, followed by Fenelon Falls and finally back to Bobcaygeon. What a pair of gadabouts, eh? We're making the most of our dog and tadpole-free time!
I shall report back in due course so please look out for the next installment...
$1.239 for gas as opposed to $1.399 on the way out of Toronto the other day - I had to put that in as my dear old dad would have loved to have known.
It was a leisurely start to the day and as Mrs T did what she does in the mornings, I packed away a few things outside, aware that the bugs were getting quite viscious. When it came to do doing the joint things like hitching up, poor old Mrs T needed to nip in under cover at every opportunity to avoid the biting little blighters. The thing is that we had the site cleared and were away out of the Park gates in under an hour; it's amazing how a lack of dogs and children can speed things up.
So, it was off to Emily Provincial Park, some 90 Km south-west of Mara, smack in the middle of the Kawartha Lakes region. As is often the case, the grid road pattern didn't allow a straight run down but rather so many miles south, turn sharp left, so many miles west, then sharp right, and so on. That, combined with a surprising amount of stop lights way out in the countryside, meant a lot of stopping and starting, which played havoc with the gas mileage. Even at 50 mph, we still only managed 17.8 litres/100 Km which was worse than the motorway figures we achieved on the way up. Some of the roads were a bit, er, bouncy, too; what with the railways tracks to cross and the SatNav taking us on some fairly rural roads, poor old Towed Haul took a bit of a beating.
Emily Provincial Park is on the lower reaches of Pigeon Lake, where it's no wider than a medium-sized river. It's not a large park but has two beaches and two boat slips and two pretty big campgrounds to support them. That said, although we can hear the road outside, our pitch is surprisingly private and I'm sat here now looking at the mixed deciduous and conifer woods, listening the birds and I can only see one other site. The best bit is, though, that the bugs aren't biting so I'm outside writing this and enjoying every minute of it.
Once set up, we jumped into the Toadmobile and made for Bobcaygeon, about half an hour north of here, on the point at which Pigeon and Sturgeon lakes meet. Indeed, Bobcaygeon really only exists because a small canal and lock was built over 100 years ago to link the two lakes and to become part of the Trent-Severn Waterway between Trenton and Port Servern - you may remember Port Severn from a few days ago. This was actually a return visit for us because we'd passed through a couple of times on a houseboat a few years ago.
We parked up on the main street, free and for nothing, and walked the area looking at the shops. It was just 5pm and most were closing up for the night but we did a bit of browsing before settling down to watch some boats traverse the lock. A lot of the boats on the Trent-Severn are enormous and probably cost many hundreds of thousands of dollars to buy and maintain. We watched one such vessel in the warm evening sunshine and wondered what the long haired, much tatooed man piloting it had done to have the money to own such a craft. We settled on drug dealer or pimp; not that we'd make any assumptions of course.
Supper was taken at Donatella's Restaurant on Bolton Street, just south of the lock. It was one of those rare restaurants that offered a wide choice that suited us both; home made mushroom soup was the order of the day, followed by pizza of various flavours. I had a draught Stella Artois which was nice at the time but gave me a bit of headache later in the evening. Donatella's could have done with some air conditioning, though, because we were dripping by the time we came out.
A longer than planned drive home (I missed the turning!) was a nice run through the corn-covered countryside. We arrived back at Towed Haul as the sun was beginning to drop, rigged the fairy lights on the awning and set off for a short walk around some of the camp sites in the fast fading light; quite dimpsy it was, but nice to see the lights and the camp fires in amongst the trees.
Tomorrow is art day, that is a run through the region to look at some galleries. The nice lady in one the shops in Bobcaygeon told us about a couple over towards Buckhorn so we'll head over that way in the morning, followed by Fenelon Falls and finally back to Bobcaygeon. What a pair of gadabouts, eh? We're making the most of our dog and tadpole-free time!
I shall report back in due course so please look out for the next installment...
