I thought I’d post some autumn pics on this snowy, windy and freezing day. It was a cloudy and cold day when we went to Elora Gorge (about an hour west of Toronto) last October .. but now that winter’s here, that day was nice (it’s aaaaallllll relative. LOL)! 
It was the last day of their operating season, so there weren’t that many people around. We were the only ones BBQing there — nice, we could pick any picnic table we wanted! JW made some chicken satay .. and grilling them on a charcoal BBQ, it made them taste even better! YUMM!
After the yummy lunch, we went to check out the “Hole in the Rock”:
and a view of the Grand River:
Hmmm .. so the next time I think it’s already cold when I see this:
… I’ll just have to remember days when I see this:
More pics on the Elora Gorge flickr set.
After getting clouds and rains on Day 1 and Day 2, we were hoping for a nice Day 3 before we go back to Toronto.
Nope!! Still one cloudy day!!! Ugh, but at least with a lot less rain …
JW wanted to go canoeing in the morning .. I wasn’t so sure since all I could see was fog, and I don’t really like going places where I can’t see clearly around me .. but we did go anyway for a bit, took a few pics and had fun. 
After checking out from the cottage, I thought of taking JW to Dorset/Haliburton area and have lunch there, but it would be a bit too early for lunch when we got to the area. So, I changed my mind and we decided to go to Lake St. Peter Provincial Park on the other side of Algonquin Park. Do you know that we could use the Ontario Parks day pass to visit any Provincial Parks (pay once for a day)? We didn’t! But then again, it doesn’t really matter since usually we only go to one park in a day .. next year, though, I might consider getting their summer pass.
We hiked the two trails there .. the Lookout Trail for a view of Lake St. Peter and the Shanty Trail (a.k.a. the Cabin Trail, a loop from the Lookout Trail) to see an abandoned log cabin (the Ole Joe’s Cabin). We didn’t see anybody on the trail, maybe because they marked it as “strenuous” or maybe because it’s wet. But we did run into a chipmunk! Cute little guy, he looked at me only when I turned on my little camera but didn’t run away and then continued on to look for food.
More pics in my Lake St. Peter Provincial Park flickr set.
We went home from there taking the country roads instead of Hwy 400 — I find there are too many crazy drivers on Hwy 400 during the long weekend. Good thing we took the country roads, since we found out later that there was an accident that closed Hwy 400 that evening .. we would’ve gotten home very late, hungry and cranky …). Besides, I love the scenery on the back roads …
We were greeted with a fabulous sunset when we got to the 401 … no rain, no cloud.
But it was a nice long weekend.
First day, we were in Algonquin Park … it was cloudy, rainy and wet.
Still had dark clouds and some rains on day two … so we enjoyed a lazy morning.
Went out after lunch to Arrowhead Provincial Park .. checked out the Big Bend Lookout and hiked the Stubb’s Falls Trail.
The Stubb’s Falls Trail is about 2 km and easy .. the site says it takes about 45 minutes to hike, but it took us way longer because while taking pics of the falls, JW spotted a great blue heron standing very still on a rock (until some kids spotted it and started making noise startling the bird .. ugh, why? ). I ended up having more pics of the bird than the falls .. LOL!
More pics in my Arrowhead Provincial Park flickr set.
Still no stars at night that day! We had fog instead. Oh well, I have to try some other nights to take pics of the stars .. MLF has to wait for her Andromeda Galaxy pics until next time — provided that I can find the galaxy first and my camera can record it .. LOL!
Okay .. a break from the Chinese Lantern Festival posts … ;P
Last year, during the Canadian Thanksgiving long weekend, I had 3 different day trips .. I went with BF, MLF & Little J to Kitchener/Waterloo for Oktoberfest; went with SY to Balsam Lake Provincial Park; and went with SW to checkout the fall foliage along the Beaver Valley.
This year, I decided to go for a longer trip and spend a couple of nights at Oxtongue Lake (close to Algonquin Provincial Park) dragging JW with me. The trip started with a gorgeous sunrise (we left T.O. at around 6am) before dark clouds moved in bringing with it a lot of rain (we even saw a couple of lightning bolts).
It was still raining on and off when we arrived at Algonquin Park. The warden said that they had all 16 (or 17) trails open — and wet. So we decided to not go to the Centennial Ridges Trail and went to the Hardwood Lookout Trail instead .. an easy one for a rainy day.  Surprisingly, there are quite a lot of people hiking the trail (some were very LOUD, disturbing the quietness and peacefulness .. heh, so much for a solitude ).
One good thing about a rainy day .. the Lake of Two Rivers picnic area was nice and quiet! There were about 3 or 4 tour buses, but most of the people chose to stay in the bus (either that, or the busses were actually emtpy ).
The Visitor Centre, however, was somewhat packed! LOL! So we just watched their movie, checked out the exhibit, paintings, and went out to the viewing deck.
The rain didn’t seem to be going away soon enough, so we decided to go to the cottage. We rented a small cottage @ Lakewoods Resort. It’s facing the Oxtongue Lake .. very cool. The place is small, but we had pretty much everything .. they even provided us with plates, utensils, coffee maker (with paper filters! ) and stuff! Of course, I didn’t know, so we brought some of our stuff. Hehe ..
I like the cottage .. we had a squirell as a neighbour, he visited our porch several times. Canoe, paddleboats and kayaks were included in the rental price .. so they told us to help ourselves (just to make sure we wear the life jackets and return everything to its place aftewards). Didn’t go canoeing though .. we just stayed in the cottage and tried to start the charcoal bbq …
No stars that night .. only clouds … :/
It’s .. um .. Jay Cochrane. I’ve never heard about him before. Until one day about a couple of weeks ago, fruityoaty told me that her camera was dead (or so she thought) and that she went to Niagara Falls and saw this guy walking on a tightrope.
So she said if I wanted to go to Niagara Falls (and bring my camera with me. LOL), she’d tell me where *exactly* to find this guy. Fortunately for her, I wanted to go out of town that weekend and get some fresh air (I was having issues with some nameless person — can’t judge a book by its cover, I guess. Don’t ask. ). So I asked where to find this guy. She said “Go to the Skylon Tower area, and look for a crazy man up in the sky.” (or something to that effect. Haha). How’s that for an “exact” location?
Anyway, I managed to drag JW with me that Sunday, and here’s what we found up in the sky:
JW recorded some of the action in a handycam — I just haven’t had time to play with the thing to transfer it to my computer. I do have more pics in my Niagara Falls set though.
And apparently, this guy is trying to get permissions to walk over the Falls. Whoa!
… with a bit of fireworks (more in the fireworks set):
Side note: for those who are curious, the free fireworks over Niagara Falls is every Friday until October 5th, 2007 and Sunday until September 2nd, 2007.
It was pretty tricky for us to find this waterfalls last year .. we had to walk a bit from the parking lot, but the direction my friend had wasn’t too clear of where to go. So, we ended up walking along the Bruce Trails in the wrong direction (while trying to listen to any water sound .. LOL!). Then after a while, we decided to go back to the parking lot and tried walking along the road (instead of the hiking trail), and sure enough there it was .. right next to the ruin of an old mill.
The waterfall is in the Hamilton area .. hmm .. that area has a lot of waterfalls!! 
Just be careful when walking on the side of the falls …. ok?! Don’t injure yourself by falling into the water ….
[More pics on flickr]
Borers Falls is a neighbour of Waterdown Falls. So we decided to go there as well after we visited Waterdown. This falls is a bit hard to find (maybe easier to find in winter when there’s no leaves on the trees .. hehe), and when we found it, there was only a little water trickling down .. :/
There’s a parking lot just around the bridge, but we have to pay for it (hmm!) .. but we later found out that there’s this small “open field” that I assume we can use if we only want to see the falls for a few minutes. I guess it depends, if we want to walk the Bruce Trails, then maybe we should just pay for parking … juuuuuuust in case.
Apparently this waterfall is known by different names: Waterdown Falls, Smokey Hollow Falls or Grindstone Falls. It’s close to Hamilton (in a town called Waterdown).
There’s a little pathway on the side of the falls (right under the platform viewing area) leading to the bottom of the falls. It got easier after we passed certain parts of the path .. but use your own judgement. For me, I need to find that other path that the other guy used to go down. Hehe.
After my post about Christmas Lights, my friend MLF sent me an email telling me about another place up in Newmarket with a light show (featured in this Toronto Star article). Guess how happy I was to receive that email!
So, we (MLF, BF, Little J and I) went to see it last Friday night. AWESOME!!!!
I love the lights for the Superman Theme song. *grin*
This next picture was taken from the car just before we left .. it's a snowman on the neighbour's lawn just across the street — it was as though the snowman was watching the light show. Hehe.
Thanks for sharing, MLF!! (And for asking and taking me to go up there too!!)
COOL STUFF!!
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