Bruce Peninsula – A piece of wealthy land dipped in a huge lake. Day 2

Link to Day1 (If you have not visited yet)


We are yet to make a debut entry in our history pages for being on time.  We had a plan to leave 7:00 am.  We could manage to start by 8:30 am.  Pilot fed Tobermory address to navigator. Day started with little planning for the day.  On the way we found a Tim Horton for our breakfast in fact that was birthday girl’s treat. Co-pilot and budding photographer went to get the breakfast. That was quite longer queue.  After 20 minutes we broke our fast and got back to the highway.  The organizer came up with small exercise to know who all are thinking alike. Exercise goes like this, think of a number and multiply that by 9 and etcetera. While it goes like that, many of us cracked it. The passenger unwrap the puzzle before it matures, despite organizer kept saying critics come at end of the puzzle.

One hour went easily with music & sightseeing.  Oh my god, that’s a massive mustard field. It was in absolute yellow, yellow and yellow. That should be at least 1 square km.  Pilot parked the car on road side. That must be a reflex action. Crossed the road to catch-up the big yellow field.  D/SLR snappers jumped into their favorite job. If Shankar (a south Indian film director & renown for shooting films at grand locations) happen to see this place. He will immediately book the place for next song shoot at any cost. It was beautiful on burning hot day.

Journey was back on the track. We could see water poured on the road little ahead. I was thinking how could water dripped there, was it rained? No chance. Water tanker could have leaked. Hey come-on, this is Canada. We would have reached the wet place but no water and no wet road, but I still could see the water 100 meters away and could see the cars shades in water and observed that water is also moving in same pace as we do. That was a perfect mirage occurrence. When I realize that was a mirage, It was Barathiyar’s (A renowned Tamil poet lived a century ago) lyrics flashing in my mind. “காண்பவெல்லாம் மறையுமென்றால் மறைந்ததெல்லாம் காண்பமன்றோ? - If it is true that, whatever we see will vanish eventually, would we ever be able to see that whichever vanished?” Computer world answered the poet’s question by inventing data recovery software.

We reached “Tobermory” in 2.5 hours of lovely ride. Planned activities for the day were to catch-up the Bruce trails and to go flower Pot Island in glass bottom boat. We stopped at city information centre and Inquired about boat timings and Bruce trail spot. We favored to hit the Bruce trails.  Vehicle accelerated towards Bruce trails entry point.  Organizer had map of trails, trails were classified as easy, medium and tough. Everyone preferred medium trail. After couple of wrong turns finally we reached the spot. But the lady duty officer has broken our trekking desire simply with two words “Parking full”.

Hungry was pulling us back to Tobermory restaurants, we ate lunch in a French restaurant. Since we felt it was too late for boats to Flowerpot Island. We had no options but to go Bruce tail to check if parking is available now. Again “No” from same lady. In these to and fro we found a little attractive “little cove”. Let’s try this. Five minutes drive on a sand dust forest road Thank god we found a place to park. And five minutes’ downwards walk.

That was a complete transition into a new earth. Everyone must have stunned for minutes seeing the place.   Cristal clear lake challenges the purity of water I had in my back bag.  Smooth pebbles on shore. Color transformation of the lake properly indicates that it’s getting deeper. The rough ‘U’ shape shore looked like a 3 year old innocent kid’s first attempt to write ‘U’.   Coast covered by thick green forest. The Nature lady must have been in joyful mood to expose her beauty to such an extent. Bright and hot sun light decorated  the place to its best appearance.

I was gradually getting back to normal and walked little ahead and saw a private property sign board. Some time I couldn’t understand own human community which trades the beach, falls and to the worst I heard people started buying soil in Moon. Who gave the rights to trade the resources in which millions of other species has equal stake?  “Survival of the fittest/dominant race” could be the brilliant answer for such a nonsense question. The board meant for a small portion of the beach. The board brought a little distraction but it fell extremely short to restrict our freedoms.

As always, we needed someone else to experiment. We were waiting for someone to get in the water.  By seeing a brave man getting into water, few of us also jumped quickly into water clothing. Pebbles looked soft and smooth, but reality was completely different when we walk in bare foot. This pain was the result of forgetting bare foot walk for years.  Put right foot into water, felt the shocking cold. I didn’t expect this ice cold from the water exposed to burning hot sunlight. Sun’s attempt to heat the water had literally zero impact.  As usual we felt Ice cold for just few minutes. It seems our body manufactured auto adjusts for the circumstances.

Lake gave a great visibility inside water. With swimming goggles it was fantastic view. We would have spent 2 hours easily. Came out of the lake on time compel. We saw a walk way into forest and gave a try walking inside to see if we find any trail notations. But couldn’t find any and time constraint pulled us back to car. Gave a third attempt to Bruce trail change was just duty officer not the answer. We inquired her for any another place around.

“Singing sand” wow what a name! We are there to meet Mr. Singer in five minutes. Ohh no… it’s again a Lake Beach! We had a trail with three exits (will take to beach) we all decided to take second exit. Walked over and over couldn’t find anything mentioned in the trail’s testimonial. Finally we realized took wrong direction and returned on same route and taken correct turn. That trail was not great at all. It was just a walking on edge of the forest. We took the second exit to meet singing sand. The sand was so fine like grained.

Lake was so flat and we could walk for kilometers in less than knee deep. Walking in water with non stick sand was pleasure. We sat on lake for some time. Very small fishes were scratching foots. Passenger took the challenge to catch a fish. Spend time and more time but couldn’t catch one. When everyone about to pack up he came with a fish in hand and it was dead. He explained terribly that how he caught or killed such small and cute fish. It was a powerful smash with two hands. Everyone must have felt bad. Rewind back to few minutes…. Passenger lost his hope to catch one and that’s time to leave.  When walked over a rock and saw a fish floating.

It was 8:30 pm and we started back to Motel. Co-pilot had a convincing point to go to Bruce trail fourth time. “How can they say that there is no parking available so go back? We will go now and say that we don’t have time to visit the place and we will return”. But this time nobody there we went little further and came back to highway. On the way we were looking for a restaurant.  Found a restaurant in a small town called Wiarton. But lost the turn, so took next turn and we were fortunate enough to have parking place right there. There was a Tim Horton and subway nobody was keen on them. That morning only we had lots of Tim stuffs. Walked over for 5 minutes. But it was too late they didn’t entertain any new order. Saw a super market. We walked in and packed fruits and cake & bake items. Since next day was holiday and likely no shops may open tomorrow.


Colorful sky crackers reminded us that was Canada day! We gathered around the fireworks field. It was non-stop and non repeat vibrant Skyworks. It was gentle but wonderful. I got a different meaning for firework celebrations. I still remember my childhood deepaavali celebrations by knotting crackers in my dog’s tail.Finally we had our dinner subway and Tim Horton’s foods. Thanks to these chains for working round the clock. We headed back to hotel with true tired. We couldn’t make to planned spots, so what? The day went well beyond our expectations. We must be thankful to long summer days.  It was longer days who allowed us to cover more spots with lots of time.

Bruce Peninsula – A piece of wealthy land dipped in a huge lake.

Day 1.

That was a stunning Saturday morning in London, a south east municipality of Ontario, Canada.  Six Indians, who came to London for their oversea assignments, are all set to rock their Canadian day long weekend.  Team comprises of a pilot, a co-pilot, an organizer, two photographers and a passenger.  Plan is to hit Bruce Peninsula, the land in the Lake Huron.  Pilot fed the motel address to the GPS lady tom-tom. Earlier the organizer had reserved motel rooms in Chatsworth a town near by the peninsula.  Since peninsula had no available room to accommodate us.

The vehicle has been geared up towards Chatsworth.  Tom-tom told us “you have 3 hours 15 minutes to reach your destination”.  This time it is not a highway route but it comprise of state and local roads.  Highway & local roads have its own uniqueness. On highway we can cover hell lot of distance quickly where as local roads are best for site seeing.  We were able to see many farm fields with variety of crops. Could make out only few of them like mustered field, apple field, corn field.  Landscape lovers would simply love & like this colorful route. We came to know that a Canadian farmer could own helicopter. We managed to reach the motel around 2:00 pm with a quick break in midway.

After about an hour of rest, headed towards Owen Sound, a town near peninsula.  Pilot’s familiarity with the place helped us locating an Indian restaurant around. Everyone liked the food they ordered but unfortunately pilot’s choice went wrong and he didn’t like it. After the lunch we saw a Looney-tooney shop nearby, photographers already turned into in the shop.  Pilot took us to Harrison Park in five minutes.  While we enter the park we saw a beautiful nonlinear stream for boat peddling.

When we got out of the car and birds gave a loud welcome. Duck, goose and some other birds were swimming and singing. Some time it sounded like asking for food.  Unfortunately we didn’t have anything to feed them. One big sized goose with long neck dipped its head inside water and it took it back very rhythmic, that was repeatedly doing same action. It must have looked for food.   When we step ahead, I saw a small cute girl feeding some grains to one very big goose with no fear.  That was an awesome scene by itself.

We moved ahead to see a waterfall around there, but stopped walking after seeing our national bird in a prison cell.  She gave a pleasant look on her own wear which was neatly patterned and colored.  She got very lengthy and beautiful feathers. Her attractive crest was telling me the story of fall of her ‘Queen’dom. She was a great queen of a wealthy forest. Everything was well until humans invade into the forest, during the invade she fought bravely for her homeland and paying the price now.  Being a queen she got a royal cell in the prison.  When we just about walk ahead to the falls. She again attracted the crowed by spreading her feathers. Oh my god! I don’t find words to describe it. It was almost round in shape.  We can say it as the shape of a pizza where a 1/8^th piece taken out. We were not able to stop our photographers.  Finally we moved from the spot. Our pilot was lucky enough to receive bird shit right on his head.  

Finally started walking towards the water fall. It was about a 20 minutes pleasant walk on bank of the stream in a green forest.  We are almost reached the fall it was very small but beautiful.  Nobody was there except six of us. And we saw a sign board saying stop here as it was a private property.  The Photographers were too busy during the course of walk. The place was pleasant on hot sunny day. And the place already has carefully broken my belief that a tourist spot will always be crowded. There was a bridge made by a natural event, a big tree had fallen across the stream. That had perfectly connected two banks of the stream.  The bridge was not prefect horizontal, but its ~30⁰ slope made very difficult to walk over the bridge. But our organizer managed to touch the other bank and reach back safely.  We stepped into water, oh that was ice cold. Cleanliness of the water tempted and dared to drink that.  Filled into a water bottle, there were hesitations but we all drank.

Our mindset of covering most spots, didn’t allow us to stay longer in that place.  That would keep on reminding us ‘should move for the next’ and won’t let us enjoy the present moment. We had to move ahead for next spot for the day.

30 minutes drive transferred us to next spot “Sauble Beach”.  Even if you are a person who visits many beaches but never get into water, cleanness and shallowness of the lake will definitely pull you down to water.  But when you foot into water the coldness will simply bring you back to sand. That’s the real beauty even in a hot summer day. We forcefully dipped ourselves completely into water to get our body used to the temperature. We had a tennis ball to play “catch the ball” and we would have easily spent 1 ½ hours in water.  It’s time to get out of water.

Hot chili bajji or hot onion bonda would have made us to heaven. But what to do? We are obligated to pollute earth for some more time.  So we had to choose options available to us.  With pizza and burgers we witnessed the quick sunset from a restaurant which gave an amazing view of the beach. Next day was birth day for the leading photographer of our group. Experts would have suggested giving a surprise cake at mid night. But Co-pilot had other ideas, to let birthday girl to choose her own Birthday cake. We headed to the motel we stay. We played poker until 12. We arranged the cake table. Birthday girl started cutting the cake, first half portion was smooth and knife (it was not a knife but spoon had to played the role of knife) stopped. Later we realized that top portion was ice cream and base was Oreo. One or other way birthday celebration was different. Then we continued an hour of poker and went sleep to catch up next day spots.  

Day 2 Comming Soon...