Our second Lake huron trip is over, and as usual we summarize the trip’s route, highlights, and stats.
Below is a map of our escapades (minus the route from home and back).
Click on any of the links below to read more about a specific location.
Our first destination was Pinery Provincial Park where we spent two nights. There are plenty of trails throughout the park and we sampled some of them.
From Pinery we took a day trip to Kettle Point and the unusual rock formations that are scattered along the beach. We stopped at Ipperwash beach where we tried metal detecting (found pretty much nothing) , and discovered a part of Canadian history involving explosives and land appropriations with deadly results.
From Pinery we continued north and stopped at the spectacular, wide and long Grand Bend beach and tried our hands at metal detecting again. Nope, still nothing to report.
We drove through Vanastra and its unique history, and spent two nights at the Falls Reserve Conservation Area where our chairs and other camping gear were stolen from our campsite. We spent most of our time in beautiful Goderich walking along the shoreline, wandering around town, and exploring the trails. What a great little town!
On our last day we continued north along the shoreline with a stop in Bayfield before veering inland through Clinton and Blyth and home.
This trip definitely takes on the theme of “small towns along the shore”. Although travelling during the pandemic can be a different experience due to closure and limited social contact, we still managed to keep busy and discover a few gems along the way.
Below are the stats for this trip.
By The Numbers:
- 6 days, 5 nights
- 867 km / 539 miles
- Camping/park fees: CAD$217
- Fuel: CAD$127.5
- Fuel consumption: 6.7km/l 15.6 mpg
- Average cost per day (fuel, park and camping fees): CAD$60
Our next (and last trip of 2020) took us to another shore destination: the north shore of Lake Erie. We’ll probably have a Coronavirus Diaries installment before that, so until next time, stay tuned and stay safe!
I’ve been for the pinery and grand bend and loved them
They are pretty special places!
Wow. Now that is a low budget trip. I always said I would like to travel like that except not so much now that I am retired and lazy and realized that The Doc is so quiet when we drive anywhere that it drives me crazy. I may be an introvert but I still need conversation. Plus he is a person who likes to drive straight through hardly stopping. So needless to say I decided to forgo that dream for others. I do enjoy your trips and am so glad we connected.
Haha, I would have enjoyed Doc’s company. I like long, silent drives 🙂 Tony used to be one of those drive-straight-through-never-stopping kind of guy, but years of bitching and complaining on my part seem to have worked and he even initiates impromptu stops himself. I am also glad that we connected!
Congratulations on years of successful bitching and complaining. 🤪
Planning on many more of those 🙂
I don’t know why but getting your camping stuff stolen at a campground feels worse. We just returned from our first major trip since Covid. My big truck doesn’t fit in the garage, so I left it in our turnaround area (we only have a few neighbors). Somebody stole like half a tank of fuel while we were gone.
That’s awful! I makes me so mad that people do things like that! At least they didn’t empty it completely…by the way, your trip looked great!
What a terrific trip you had! The scenery was awesome! Don’t let the bad part take away from all the good.
Thank you for sharing.
It was really good and the good definitely outweighed the bad! Thanks for visiting with us and I hope all is well!
It looks beautiful, though I’m sorry to hear about your stuff being stolen. I hate it when things like that put a bit of a dampner on a trip – but looks like the positives outweigh the bad 🙂
It was beautiful. Lake Huron is definitely gorgeous and made us forget our stolen stuff very quickly.
It is a good summary of the previous articles and the map helps to visualize the area. It’s probably too close to Toronto, I tended to head straight for Tobermory and its peninsula.
I know! This is also probably why we haven’t been to this area before. We always just headed north. Thanks to the pandemic (and one business project in that area), we had the fortune to explore more close-to-home destinations and just love the area.
Lovely summary of your road trip around the lakes! It must be so rewarding to hit all of them, the “HOMES” (Huron, Ontario, Michigan, Erie, Superior). Thanks for sharing!
Haha, yes it is! Thanks for joining us on this trip!
To to you for exploring your own region. I’m sure you have discovered gems that many people don’t consider.
This was part of the fun and kind of a revelation as well. We always eyed far destinations, and although we did go on trips in our area before, it always seemed like they were fillers until we can go somewhere far. There’s a lot of pleasure in finding joy and beauty wherever you are!
Thank you for the story and the photos. I was fascinated by some of the similarities with parts of Australia and some of the amazing differences. We have wide open spaces and no permanent lakes.
I did not know that Australia doesn’t have permanent lakes! We do have vast open spaces in Canada, but not around here, and not much in terms of deserts. I was once on my way to Australia, but never made it all the way there…maybe one day…thanks for stopping by!
another successful trip. I love the map that highlights all of the places you have visited. These blog posts are such a great way for you to remember the details of your trip.
Very much so! I sometimes wonder whether we travel too much…it’s hard to remember some places and details without going back to check our posts 🙂
that’s the beauty of having your posts, and the photos!
I suppose not finding metal in a UXO area is a good thing. Looks like a great trip. Allan
Haha, that’s very true 🙂
Beautiful place to travel. Love to visit this area
I think you will like it. Hopefully it will be safe to travel between provinces again soon!
Yes. I am hoping we can get going again soon.
Sounds like you had a wonderful trip (minus the campsite bandits) and were able to visit many of the small towns along the shores of Lake Huron. I had no idea there was so much interesting history and stories here. We’re planning on visiting Lake Huron at the end of June, so fingers crossed that stay-at-home order is lifted by then.
Yes, fingers crossed! did you book anything ahead? It looks like everything will be much busier this year.
Oh gosh, reserving a campsite during the summer has become cut throat. I booked everything as soon as that reservation window opened up at 7a.m. Even then I sometimes had to go with my second, or third or fourth option as someone had beat me to reserving the site I initially wanted. I’m so not looking forward to dealing with the crowds. It won’t be so bad once we get up into Manitoulin Island and come back around Sudbury as those parks are generally smaller.
Hopefully it won’t be too bad. If you are taking the ferry make sure to book far ahead as they may be operating at 50% capacity!
Thanks! I made sure to book our tickets as soon as they were accepting reservations. We also plan to take the ferry on a weekday as we figured it would be less busy than on a weekend. I can’t wait to take time off work and go on our road trip!
With or without crowds it will be fun! There’s lots to see and do and the Lakes are gorgeous! Can’t wait to read all about it 🙂
What is the most interesting thing you’ve found while
Metal detecting?
We just started so basically we haven’t found anything yet 🙂 We did find on the surface, and without the aid of the metal detector, a silver plated spoon that I would like to believe came from a shipwreck… I am an archaeologist so just looking for stuff is in my blood and I’m happy with shells, rocks, and sea glass as well 🙂
A nice adventurous getaway with abundance of the scenic beauty and a path to discoveries! Thanks for sharing the stats… very affordable. Would love to travel soon. Great pictures!
Glad you enjoyed it. Thanks for coming along with us!
Looks like both an economical and highly enjoyable road trip. It’s an area we know very little about. Thank you for the tour.
It was! Thanks for joining us on this trip!