On Beaches Travel Journal

Exploring Collingwood’s Scenic Caves and Suspension Bridge

Administrator — Wed, 06 Jul 2005 00:30:01 +0000

The rain fell on and off throughout the night. In the morning, we got a little more. And the raccoon that we’d seen the night before had returned while we slept. The bagels that were in the cooler were out and the bag was opened. Scary what an animal with an opposable thumb can do. So there we were, with wet tents, a camp site that was getting a little muddy, and our food picked over by a hungry little critter. My daughter had been promised one of those cinnamon-raisin bagels for breakfast. Life away from home was starting to take it’s toll on us.

The mosquitos were coming out in force with the dampness all around us. The citronella candles from the night before had been rained in, so they weren’t much use. Everyone put on some bug repellant and took care of the bites we had already received with some Burt’s Bees Res-Q ointment. It worked pretty well on the kids; I was too busy to try it. We decided that the best thing we could do was to cut it short one day. The clouds overhead didn’t look too friendly and I didn’t want to know what it was like to sleep through anything more than a drizzle. We started getting packed up to leave. Since we’d slept in we had to rush to make the noon checkout time. I can’t believe how long it took me just to pack up a couple of sleeping bags. I didn’t pack a sleeping bag in the first place - we picked them up for a couple of us at the shopping centre in Wasaga Beach. To tell the truth, the real reason was just this moment. I’ve hated wrestling a bed roll into those undersized bags ever since Cub Scouts. Honestly, it’s not like we have to carry these packs up Mount Kilimanjaro. If they made the bags three millimeters larger, would anyone suffer?

I rolled up my daughters twice before it went in, but mine was more stubborn. I leaned on it, layed on it, pushed, pryed and prodded it. That thing did not want to go in the bag. I rolled it up over and over, first one way then the other and when I finally got it small enough to stuff in the open end of the bag I had to poke it an inch at a time to get it in. If you have trouble with sleeping bags like I do, the only advice I can give for this is to make sure you’re alone when you do it. And sit on it. Sitting on the thing is easier than squeezing it with your arms.

Taking Company to Wasaga Beach

Administrator — Mon, 04 Jul 2005 22:41:10 +0000

This morning was a hot one. My sister and her boyfriend drove up from Toronto to see us. Thankfully they brought lots of ice-cold bottled water. We showed them around our little home in the wild. The kitchen, the dining room, two bedrooms, laundry room, the family room and of course the en suite bathrooms. They must’ve thought we’d been out in the woods too long.

On the way in to town, we stopped at a laundromat. For around $10 they washed and dried up to 10 pounds (about 5kg) of clothes and bedding. This was a real help given the size of our group. It means that we can get away with packing a little bit less clothing and still have something fresh to wear every day. The place we went (Baywash Laundromat) is in a little plaza with a Chinese restaurant called Canton Buffet. We ended up having dinner there on the way back.

Wasaga Beach area 1 was a little less packed than the weekend, but it was still full. We found parking for $10 right on Main Street. The municipal lots in that area charge $4/hour and there are meters available as well. The washrooms next to the lot aren’t bad as far as beaches go, but they’re not too great for changing in. We loaded up all the gear from the van and found a nice spot by the water. If the first day we spent on the beach was about sand, then today was about the surf. We played some keep-away, took the inflatable boats out and walked almost all the way out to the markers. Wasaga Beach is a great place to take kids because the water is so shallow for so long that the rule is they can’t go too far, not they can’t go too deep. This also means that you don’t get a lot of fast boats or sea-doos really close to the beach. They’re out there for sure, but the marker buoys (the orange balls you see floating way off in the photos) are far enough out that you can swim without being disturbed by the noise.

A Picnic in Collingwood’s EnviroPark

Administrator — Mon, 04 Jul 2005 00:46:58 +0000

Our second day of camping and already we were sleeping in. Breakfast dragged on as kids and grown-ups alike rose late and wandered out of tents in pyjamas. Some outhouse trips were arranged, first one has to go then another decides that they’d better run and catch up. As trivial as it sounds, it’s a good idea to arrange some kind of protocol for the morning call if you’re camping with kids. In outdoor trips I took before, with a camper van or trailer, there was generally a building with shared community washrooms within visible distance of the camp site. Wasaga Dunes (where we stayed) definitely has adequate clean facilities, but they’re a couple minutes walk from the wilderness tenting site we stayed in.

I guess there’s a trade-off that’s inherent in choosing a spot like we did. The great thing about the site was that it’s less crowded and has much more of a feel that you’re in the woods. I’ve got plenty of pictures that attest to the real, natural outdoors that surrounded us, so it was a success in that respect. (There’s lot’s more to read - click more to read on) Other parts of the campground have less trees and more people. More people, their pets, their cars and so on. It wouldn’t have felt like we were roughing it, even though we could still have set up our tents and cooked over a fire all the same. Bathrooms are the convenience where I draw the line though. I’ve never said I was a big camping enthusiast, just an amateur with a great fondness for being closer to nature. That said, I guess I make an exception for modern plumbing.

Anyways, back to my little morning memories. The clever thing that we did when we packed for the trip was to bring along a pair of FRS walkie-talkies. If you’re not familiar with them already, these are kind of like the walkie-talkies that were around years ago, but with a few important differences. First off, they’re cooler. Just like other technology has become better over the years, walkie-talkies have gotten smaller and can do more. FRS walkie-talkies are the size of the average cell phone, but they only talk directly to one another. Since they only communicate directly between the handsets, there’s no need for any cell towers and no dialing but you have to be close enough for the signal to get through to the person you’re talking to. The nice thing about using them out in the woods (or on the beach as we also did) is that there’s not much interference out there. No tall buildings, no TV stations, no satellite dishes or microwave ovens. That meant that we had great reception between the walkie talkies we brought along. In places like this FRS radios are said to reach up to a few kilometers. Another difference from cell phones is that there’s no air time charge (at all, ever), so you can give one to your kids without worrying. The kids loved having them around since it gave them more independence. We loved it because kids that we knew were responsible could now have the freedom they deserved to explore the campgrounds. Walkie-talkies are a fun way for them to keep in touch with us while they did their exploring.

On that bathroom trip, we entrusted the oldest with one of the FRS walkie-talkies and kept the other with the grown-ups and the little one left at the campsite. It worked out so well that we picked up another pair later on that day so mor people could be covered.

As you might have guessed, we got off to a pretty slow start. We decided to head out to Collingwood and eventually on to the Scenic Caves. The Scenic Caves are the big attraction at Scenic Caves Nature Adventures, but they used to be the only attraction I knew about there.

Now they’ve been expanding with some new exciting family and grown-up choices. Before we went out there, we thought there must be some nice places in Collingwood that we could stop and have a picnic lunch. I was driving, so we headed out past the town of Wasaga Beach and drove out north along County Road 26. The road turns in to Pretty River Parkway then Huron Street. I think it was just as we hit Huron that we just chose a street and turned right, toward the water. The sensible thing for a town to do near the water is build a park. Collingwood certainly didn’t let us down. What we found is a park called Harbourview Park on the water side of the road and the signs on the opposite side say “EnviroPark.” The environmentally friendly title, I discovered later, comes from a cleanup in Collingwood Harbour that was completed over ten years ago. The harbour had been an “Area of Concern” but was the first such area to make a rebound. Today I never would have guessed it had ever been anything but a fun playground with a gorgeous view of the lake.

There are plenty of large picnic tables available with lots of shade from the many old trees there. We settled in to lunch and afterward the kids ran off to play on the equipment in the large playground. Besides climbing equipment and the usual swings and teeter-totters, there are a few nets for badminton or maybe volleyball on the far side.

A Sunny Day for Play at the Beach

Administrator — Sun, 03 Jul 2005 00:34:16 +0000

Saturday morning we broke out the cereal and soy milk and had breakfast together. The kids were excited to head out to the beach. They took a break reading books while the grown-ups packed the cooler for lunch. We planned to have fresh food that we packed ahead of time and brought with us for the first couple of days. This turned out to be a great idea. Fresh healthy food that your family is used to is a great way to bring something familiar along to an unfamiliar location. Our lunch included some foods that are versatile and keep well, here are some examples:

humus, peanut butter, almond butter and other spreads
flat breads like pita and tortilla as well as bagels and the usual sandwich bread
precut veggies like baby carrots, broccolli and snow peas
non-lethal snacks like corn chips and dried peas

Think of things that will work well for a couple of different meals. Don’t forget to pack the vitamins to help make up for the inevitable times when meals just don’t work out as planned. (There’s lot’s more to read - click more to read on)

After packing lunch, we all piled in to the van and cruised out to beach area 1 in Wasaga Beach. Beach area 1 is most often packed with the younger crowds. It was a big weekend for visitors, so we cruised through and took in the view but when it came to setting up for the day, we chose the less-crowded beach area 2.

Parking at the Ontario Provincial Park lot wasn’t cheap at $15 for the day, but a pass for the season was $70 so frequent visitors can save a lot. Don’t quote me on it though, check the details. For what it’s worth, all-day parking in area 1 can be found for $2/hour (municipal lots) or $10/day at a couple of other choice lots near the west end of the beach.

One thing about vacations, and camping in particular, is that things seem to take a little longer. After each meal at the camp site, we cleaned our dishes. Every time someone had to go to the washroom (which can be an emergency depending on the age of your young ones), it’s a hike. So by the time we were parked, changed into swimsuits, and sufficiently sunscreened, it was just about lunch time already.

We set up near the boardwalk, laid out the picnic blanket and opened up the cooler. The kids came and went, ate a bit and played a lot.

Sitting on the beach soaking up sun is a great pass-time, but I can’t be idle for long. I did a little people-watching. I saw the usual women in bikinis and muscle-bound dudes in their swim trunks all showing off for each other.

Following the Lake Huron Coast

Administrator — Fri, 01 Jul 2005 06:29:07 +0000

This year driving up to Wasaga Beach we decided to eschew the inevitable traffic on the 401 and instead found a route to take us closer to the water. Lake Huron flows down in to the St. Clair River which empties in to Lake St. Clair. We met up with the coast of Lake Huron east of Sarnia, somewhere around Ipperwash Provincial Park.
The roads are a little slower than the highway, but the scenery is fresh and different. Since we left early in the morning, it was easy to arrange to have a lunchtime picnic on one of the many easily accessible beaches that dot the coastline. We drove past the Pinery and through Grand Bend. We finally settled down to picnic on the beach at Kettle Point. In a small town like this you can drive right down to the beach. As a matter of fact, while we sat there we saw a tractor drive in to the water to launch a boat. (There’s lot’s more to read - click more to read on)
After lunch we continued north through Kincardine and up to Southampton. At Southampton we left the coast and started to head east. Given more time I would’ve like to continue north to Sauble Beach or maybe see some of the Bruce Peninsula. That wouldn’t have fit in the timeline this summer, though. We were planning to get set up at the camp site and down to the beach in time for the Canada Day fireworks.
We continued east through Owen Sound. It was a bigger city than I expected. Once we reached Meaford on Nottawasaga Bay, we were on County Road 26 which then goes south through Collingwood and curves around the bay as County Road 92. We followed 92 out of Wasaga Beach and up to County Road 29. Going north past the Township of Tiny, I started wondering if we missed the campground somehow. About five minutes later, we found Wasaga Dunes at 4300 County Road 29. The campground was farther than we expected from the town of Wasaga Beach. I think advertising that they’re a few minutes from Wasaga Beach gives the impression that it’s a short drive to the beach itself. In reality it’s at least ten minutes drive to the town. Once you get into the town it’s another five minutes to the water.
That said, the campground was nice. We booked for a spot in the Wilderness Tenting Area for $29/night. The spot was just a little cleared area surrounded by trees, pretty much what we expected but with less grass and more poison ivy. We set up two tents for sleeping and a screen tent to cover the picnic table. After we knew things would be ready for the evening, we piled back into the van and went out to see the fireworks. We got down to the waters edge and couldn’t believe what we saw. The sand was blowing in from the beach like a storm in the desert. Some of the younger crowd was still out there anways, covering their faces while they ran from the parking lots to the bars. With wind like that there wouldn’t be fireworks over the bay this year.