Things To Do In Cottage Country

Spotlight on: Bon Echo Provincial Park

Categories: Sandy Beaches, Things to do in cottage country
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In the first of our series of spotlights on Ontario’s Provincial Parks, Bon Echo stands out as a historical and naturally beautiful opportunity to explore this eastern Ontario leisure location. Found off Highway 41 north of Napanee and Kaladar and 6km from Clyne, Bon Echo’s most well-known feature is the massive Mazinaw Rock rising 100 metres out of Mazinaw Lake and boasting over 260 native rock paintings known as pictographs.

For the active, there are a number of hikes varying in difficulty and length, with a pathway that leads to the top of the rock that offers fabulous views. Canoeists and kayakers can explore the quiet backwaters off the main lake or smaller lakes within the park, and watercraft can be rented from the Park offices. There’s sandy swimming beaches to keep the children happy too. The Mugwump Ferry operating daily in the summer takes visitors across Mazinaw Lake to the Mazinaw rock.

Nearby Smart’s Marina, on Hwy 41 offers boat rentals from a canoe at $25 per day to a pontoon boat at $275 per day. With fishing in plentiful supply on the lake, a full day out will keep the whole family occupied.

Our closest cottage to Bon Echo Provincial Park is Stonewood – a 10 minute drive. Stonewood , on Little Marble Lake, sleeps up to 10 in four bedrooms and is privately located with its own sand beach. A complimentary Park pass will give you access into Bon Echo as many times as you want during your stay. The park is within an hour from many of our other eastern Ontario cottages

Photo of Mazinaw Rock by Napanee Gal on Flickr

Winter Fun in the Kawartha Region

Categories: Things to do in cottage country, Winter Activities, Winter Cottage Rental
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The Kawarthas or Kawartha Lakes region of Ontario is located one to two hours by car (depending where in the region you are travelling) North-East of Toronto, and is considered part of Central-East Ontario. This is one of Ontario’s prime cottage and vacation areas, encompassing the County of Peterborough and the City of Kawartha Lakes (formerly Victoria County) and is encircled by Durham region and Haliburton, Northumberland and Prince Edward Counties.

The only ski hills of note are in Durham region which is not technically in the Kawartha’s but if you are vacationing in the Lindsay, Beaverton, Scugog or Pigeon Lake areas they are easily accessible. Devil’s Elbow, Lakeridge, Skyloft & Dagmar all have snowmaking equipment so skiing can start in December. Check the sites for opening hours.

Finding a comprehensive list of cross country ski areas, or places for snowshoeing has been a bit of a challenge. There are groomed trails at Devil’s Elbow and Dagmar, and to the east of the region near Apsley, the Kawartha Nordic Ski Area in Apsley has a wealth of groomed trails. Just to the west of Norland in the north west of the City of Kawartha Lakes, the Norland Cross Country Ski and Recreation Park is home to a number of trails as well, although I haven’t been able to find a site dedicated to it, you can contact them on 1 705 454-9518 for more information.

Trails for Health list a large number of trails open for cross country skiing and hiking.

I’ve been doing a bit of foot stamping as I search for winter activities in the Kawarthas. I know there’s lots going on, but there’s not much on the web pulling it all together. Come on Kawartha Tourism – this is something you should be doing.

Winter Adventures in Muskoka

Categories: Things to do in cottage country, Winter Activities, Winter Cottage Rental
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The great advantage of Muskoka is the easy access, with Hwy 400 and Hwy 11 delivering you to the region in a little over an hour. In winter there won’t be the hordes of traffic heading up there every Friday night although do expect it to be busy, given its popularity for winter activities. You should also expect and respect the conditions you’ll find!

When we used to fly in from UK in the winter, I always loved the ‘instant winter’aspect of driving north. We’d arrive, often to find some snow around theairport, but nothing spectacular, and start heading up the ‘400. By Barrie, winter was definitely in progress and once we got to Bracebridge, we reached the snowy wonderland we had come for. Lake effect snow can bring massive amounts of the white stuff to the area when the city has just a few centimeters, so if you are planning a trip, make sure you are well prepared.

Once you get there, a wealth of winter fun awaits! If you have your own snowmobile, thousands of miles of OFSC trails are open to you and if not, you can rent one from Muskoka Motion .They can provide you with machine, helmet, gloves, clothing – in short, everything you need for a day out on the trails. And if you need a guide, then give them some advanced notice and they have those too.

Downhill skiers will love Hidden Valley. Located to the east of Huntsville off Hwy 60, there’s plenty of runs for all abilities, ski school for budding skiers and snowboarders, and enough lifts to get you up to the runs with little delay.After a day’s skiing, head off to Rock Ridge for an evening of floodlit tubing. I just love this. Sit on a huge rubber tube, get towed to the top of the hill, then the kind attendant will push you off the top and give you a spin as well. This is such a rush – go with a bunch of friends and hurtle down with three or four tubes together. There’s a licensed restaurant too so you can take a break amidst all the fun for a burger and a beer.

Cross country enthusiasts can get there fill of some easy to difficult trails at Arrowhead Provincial Park. Cross country ski, and snowshoe rental is available there too. If you have never done cross country before, qualified instructors with Ski for Life will have you skimming the trails in no time. Visit the site for a list of workshops held on Sundays throughout the winter in Gravenhurst and Huntsville.

How about some dog sledding. Mushing across a frozen lake and through forest trails. Sounds cool doesn’t it? Call of the Wild has half day and full day trips to experience this unique winter activity north of Huntsville.

We have rental cottages available in winter throughout the Muskoka and Almaguin Highlands region. Take a look at the website and book an adventure weekend. The snow will be with us soon, so plan on getting active this winter.

Tomorrow: Winter fun in the Kawartha

Winter Activities in the Haliburton Highlands

Categories: Things to do in cottage country, Winter Activities, Winter Cottage Rental
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Lets kick off with my favourite area. When we first came out to Ontario from UK, we bought a cottage on a tiny lake in the Haliburton Highlands, and it was there we experienced our first real Ontario winter. I’ll never forget the quirks of the weather at Christmas, that gave a day of thaw and rain, followed by a trip back into the deep freeze. The lake that had been covered with snow was revealed as the biggest skating rink I have ever seen. We skated non-stop that day, along with other delighted cottage residents – a never to be forgotten experience.

This beautiful area has a lot to offer winter visitors. For starters it has a great downhill ski area at Sir Sam’s on Eagle Lake. Granted this is a ski hill, not a mountain, but it is great for a half day out, and will serve the beginner to moderate skier really well.

There’s a wealth of cross country trails in the Haliburton Highlands with over 100 kilometres of groomed trails maintained by Haliburton Nordic Trails. A day pass will allow you to ski at Glebe Park in Haliburton, Moosewoods, the Leslie Frost Centre trails, Camp Wanakita, and the Resort Trails (including Wigamog, Pinestone and Willow Beach).

The Trails and Tours Network is a really comprehensive site covering all winter activities across Haliburton. It includes all trails, dog sledding, and a great list of tobogganing hills. And don’t forget the luge at the Redstone River Luge Club.

And for snowmobilers, the region is blessed with a great network of OFSCtrails, and the The Haliburton Forest was rated by “Supertrax” as one of the top-10 snowmobiling destinations in North America. Daily snowmobile rental is available here too. And for those who like to be shown the way, try a guided snowmobile safari. Highland Wilderness Tours offer the complete package – sled, all equipment and clothing, and a guide – for your supreme snowy day out.

And last but not least….you’ll need a cottage to stay in while you enjoy these great activities, and you’ll find those at CottageLINK Rental Management. Visit the site and take a look at our range of fully winterized cottages.

I’d love to hear about your winter experiences, what you like to do, and where your favourite place is, so just leave me a comment.

Tomorrow: Muskoka and Almaguin Highlands

Where to go in Cottage Country this Winter

Categories: Things to do in cottage country, Winter Cottage Rental
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This week I am on a tour of the popular places to see and be seen in Ontario this winter. We’ve already had a little taster of the white stuff and it brought with it images of sparkling days spent cross country skiing, or snow shoeing; thoughts of snug cottages with aromatic smoke curling up from the chimney of the wood burning stove, and of moonlit walks across a frozen lake. I’m already excited! We can’t get away from the fact that winter is on the way, but we can sure start planning on how to enjoy it.

From Prince Edward County to Parry Sound, and Blue Mountain to Glengarry County in Eastern Ontario, there are wonderful places to go, to stay, and to enjoy our wonderful winter. I’ll explore where to ski, both downhill and cross country; where you can rent a skidoo or take a snowmobile safari; and bring you ideas on activities like dog sledding and tobogganing and a few winter festivals along the way. And, I’ll be reviewing some great places to stay for short or longer breaks too. Cottage rental in winter is a great experience and we have some lovely properties where you can enjoy all these winter activities and relax in comfort at the end of the day.

By the way, as I write this I’m hearing gunshots from further down our lane, and it reminds me we are in the midst of deer hunting season. If you are out in the country this week, take care and don’t stray off marked trails. Wear something bright and avoid any clothing that makes you look like a deer! Seriously, I would avoid hiking or dog walking in any country area that is not designated as a no-hunting zone.

Geocaching in Durham Forest

Categories: Things to do in cottage country
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Since I didn’t complete my geocaching week as the Cottage Life Show came around and I was busy with our booth, I wanted to finish up with describing a day out I had this week with my son, his wife and their dogs. They are real geocaching enthusiasts and usually get out on a couple of days each week exploring the countryside, giving the dogs their exercise, and hunting caches of course.

We went to Durham Forest which is a wonderful area for walking, mountain biking and horse riding. What I like most about geocaching is that it gives a walk a real purpose – you have a destination, and no matter how long it takes, there is a motivation to get there. Which was a good thing on Thursday since the GPS showed it would be a 2 kilometre walk to the cache we had identified, and it turned out to be over 4km on a winding trail. But it was a beautiful day with light snow replaced with brilliant sunshine and the views from the higher parts of the trail were spectacular right across to Lake Ontario.

The cache was fairly easy to find once the GPS had got us within 7 metres. We usually take a few minutes to survey the area and can often identify where a good place would be to hide a cache. A hollowed out tree stump; a fallen log, or a thick bush, all make good hiding places. This one was just between a log and a tree, carefully hidden by fallen leaves.

Before we had set out, Mike had downloaded the co-ordinates of the cache from www.geocaching.com and had printed off the cache listing. This told us there were several Travel Bugs in the cache. Each one had a mission –“travel to Fiji”, “see the world”, “visit as many countries as possible”, so Mike decided to take just one whose mission was to simply “travel from cache to cache” as he was planning on another geocaching outing at the weekend, and could drop it off.

So, having located the cache and picked out the Travel Bug he was looking for, he put in a little model of a firefighter he’d found in a cache earlier in the day, and wrote a few notes in the logbook giving the date, weather conditions and saying what he had taken and what he had left behind.

Back at home, Mike went back onto Geocaching.com, and recorded the serial number of the Travel Bug, and wrote a few more notes about the find on the cache listing.

The great thing about the Travel Bugs is that you can follow them around the world. I left a TB in a cache in California in 2006. It is now in New Zealand, having visited a few more US states before making the long voyage down under.

To find out more about geocaching while you are staying at an Ontario vacation rental, visit CottageLINK Rental Management. Many of the cottages featured there have special geocaching packages for beginners, and you can even rent a GPS unit if you haven’t one of your own.

Have fun and happy hunting!

A brief guide to GPS and Geocaching

Categories: Things to do in cottage country
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Geocaching relies on two parties to play the game – the one who hides the cache and the one who finds it. The hider must log the co-ordinates of the cache, usually on Geocaching.com, inputting the latitude and longitude of the location. If this is inaccurate, perhaps because the hider didn’t pay attention to accuracy of the co-ordinates, then it doesn’t matter how smart or feature-filled the finder’s GPS is, he will still have difficulty finding it. So, if you are thinking about buying a GPS unit, a simple and inexpensive one, can be just as good as the one with all the bells and whistles.

There are a few things you should look for though:

A compact and lightweight model for easy carrying
Good battery life – you might be out for a full day once you really get hooked.
Easy to read screen with a backlight for nighttime cache hunting
Waypoint storage – waypoints are the cache locations so you want one that can store a decent amount of them for a weekend’s cache hunting

Other than that, if you want additional features go for it, but being WAAS enabled – giving you better accuracy – or having mapping capabilities to see the terrain, may make little difference in your geocaching expeditions

I use a Garmin E Trex Legend which retails at around $150, but the simpler Garmin E Trex at a round $120 is just fine (it doesn’t have the mapping capabilities). The Magellan eXplorist models 100 and 200 are also reasonably priced and have the features you would need for basic hiking and geocaching exploits. GPS Central is a great place to start looking, and you can compare models and read all the manuals before you buy.

Take a look at comparison charts so you can see which have the features you would like to have in your GPS.

Geocaching has its own language and tomorrow I’ll reveal the secrets of Travel Bugs, muggles, ‘cache-in, trash-out’, and a few other expressions you’ll come across on the geocaching sites.

Everything you ever wanted to know about Geocaching!

Categories: Fall Cottage Rental, Things to do in cottage country, Winter Cottage Rental
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What is this geocaching thing anyway? I’ve looked hard to find a neat and clear explanation that really describes the fun of the chase, but ‘Treasure hunting for the 21^st century’, and ‘Techno-hiking’ don’t really do it for me. Here’s one from Wise Geek that is not too bad:

‘Geocaching involves two separate parties, which are composed either of individuals or groups. One party hides a cache anywhere in the world and records the latitudinal and longitudinal coordinates using a portable GPS device. The cache is usually composed of a small plastic container that houses some small items such as toys or coins.’

Hmmm…still didn’t really grab me. This is a better description from Whatis.com :

‘Here’s one typical geocache hunt: The geographic coordinates of a geocache were described on a Web site, which the users followed to the cache. The geocache consisted of a plastic Tupperware box containing a little notebook, a disposable camera, a printed informational sheet about the location, and several trinkets (a pen, postage stamps, a rubber ball, and a local postcard). The finders were encouraged to write a short note in the notebook, including the weather that day, who was involved on the hunt, whether the cache was easy or hard to find, and any other information they wanted to include. One finder took out the rubber ball and left a little toy car in its place. The finder left a photo of her husband and son in the camera and then placed everything back in the box and rehid it for future geocachers to find. Back home, the finders sent a note to the Web site describing their experience.’

That is pretty much what it is about, but since I spent several hours trying to find an explanation and still haven’t found one that might really catch your interest, I thought it may be better to just walk you through a day’s cache hunting, which is what I will do this week.

Getting started with Geocaching

I mentioned Geocaching.com yesterday, and if you haven’t gone there and registered for a free account, do that now. Take some time to look at the Getting Started page.

The co-ordinates of hundreds of thousands of caches worldwide, are listed here. Click on Hide and Seek a Cache on the menu bar and it will take you here:

Click on Zip Code and insert your postal code, then underneath that put 10 (miles radius). This will bring up a list of all the caches within 10 miles of your home. I live out in the country near Havelock which is pretty rural. There are over 350 caches within a 20 mile radius of town.

Take a look at the individual listings for a few of the caches. Typically they will show how easy or challenging it will be to find; may give some indication of the general location; and may have a clue to help you out.

Now, you may be wondering how you can find these things given only the latitude and longitude of the location. Well, as with many outdoor activities, you will need some equipment, and in this case it is a GPS (Global Positioning System) unit. You might be familiar with the larger -and more expensive- units used in vehicles. GPS for outdoor activities are suprisingly inexpensive. Tomorrow I will review some of the more popular ones that make geocaching a really fun experience.

Geocaching Week

Categories: Fall Cottage Rental, Things to do in cottage country, Winter Cottage Rental
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My friend Julie, over at Cottage Daily, has been having a Beer Week on her blog. From posts on the best beer fridge, to making your own brew and cooking up a terrific Beer Can Chicken, she has been covering every angle on the subject. I am looking forward to meeting up with her at the Cottage Life Show in Toronto next weekend, and getting even more beer tips!

I loved the idea of a single topic for a complete week and since my current outdoor passion is Geocaching, that will be my subject for the next few days. After that I guess Julie and I will be competing for bringing you the best ideas from the Cottage Life Show. I have already found one product that has to be the neatest toy I have seen for a long time. It will make a great Christmas gift for anyone in the family and will bring hours of endless fun. More of that after the Show.

So, Geocaching it is!! If you haven’t heard of it, by the end of this week you will be fully equipped to get out into cottage country and have some fun. You’ll know how to start the hunt; the essential item you need to play the game; the best areas for finding caches; how to create your own cache, and of course, where you can find rental cottages to stay in on your Geocaching weekends in the country.

Before I start fully explaining the concept, I suggest you go to the official Geocaching website and sign up for a free account. This is going to be a fun week.

What to do for the Family Day weekend

Categories: Cottage Renters, Last Minute, Things to do in cottage country, Winter Cottage Rental
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I was a bit taken aback this morning to get a booking for a cottage for the Family Day in February. Being on vacation in Sedona this week, I haven’t been watching any Ontario news so it came as a real surprise that the long weekend has been confirmed so soon.

Having a long weekend in February means a great opportunity to rent a cottage and take a break in cottage country. Try out cross country skiing; go on a snowmobile safari; take a romantic walk on a moonlit frozen lake; sit in an outdoor hot tub as the snow falls, or just kick back and relax in front of a wood burning stove after a hike in the snow. There is so much to do, why not think about it now as the few cottages that are open in the winter will book up fast.

I’ll be putting up a Family Day page on next week – after my 3-day drive back from vacation!

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