Manitoulin Island Wrap-up: Matt's pictures

I'm going to try something different this time.  Instead of placing a whole bunch of images on here, I'm going to link to a Flickr slideshow.   Enjoy!

Here's a little teaser...

Update on Tuesday, October 26, 2010 at 3:02AM by Cess

Drum roll, please!

Yes, it has taken a while for me to get organized enough to post up my photos from this road trip.  I've actually been working on it gradually and I think it is mostly done.  I may still add a few photos to the colleciton.  So here it is: my own Flickr slide show!  Please click here and enjoy my little photo set. =)

Day 4: Long boring drive...

Ok, so this is a few days late but hey, I promise you're not missing much.  Day 4 of our Manitoulin Island trip (Monday) was pretty uneventful.  We had a leisurely breakfast at Green Bay Lodge and started making our long drive home.

On the return leg, we drove the entire way without taking the ferry.  As we left the island we stopped off at Whitefish Falls.  This waterfall was rather small and we couldn't really get a good view of it to take any worthwhile pictures.  The remainder of the day consisted mostly of me driving home while Cess slept in the car.  500+ km later, we were home!

Day 3: Running salmon?!

On Sunday morning we were up early hoping to see the beginnings of a beautiful sunrise.  Unfortunately, when I woke up at 6:30 and looked outside, I could see the sky was completely overcast.  Clearly, there'd be no sunrise photography this morning.

After a pleasant breakfast at the Green Bay Lodge we made our way to Kagawong.  Kagawong had several places we wished to visit: Old Mill, Pioneer Post Office, Lighthouse, Church, and several other historic buildings.  Having said that, by a large margin the highlight of the excursion to Kagawong was Bridal Veil Falls.  This awesome waterfall is situated on the outskirts of the village.  The drop in the waterfall is several meters, so we were able to get some great long exposure shots.  Little did we know that we would also be treated to the tail end of this year's salmon run!  Salmon were still working their way upriver and were congregating and spawning at the base of the falls.  Having never seen a salmon run before, this was certainly a great experience.  It was interesting to see the instinctive drive that salmon have to swim upriver and spawn.  Clearly, survival of the fittest was in the works as there was quite a number of fish that obviously had not made it all the way to the base of the falls.  Their corpses littered the river and surrounding shoreline.

Next up, we drove to Misery Bay and did a 7-8 km hike along the eastern side of the bay.  The hike itself was quite easy and we were treated with many photographic opportunities, including very surreal rock formations called alvar.  The specific type of alvar we got a chance to see is only found in two places in the world; Manitoulin Island and the northern shores of the Baltic Sea (Sweden & Estonia).

We finished the day's travels with a visit to Gore Bay.  For the first time on this trip we were treated to a bit of sunshine.  As such, we decided to stay at Gore Bay to catch the sunset from a lookout point overlooking the bay.

After a quiet dinner back at the lodge (we were cooking ourselves!) we ventured outside with all our gear to do some night time photography.  For a bit of fun, we even did some light painting!

Day 2: Island Time!

Remember how I said we hoped the sunrise photos would actually happen?  Yup, they didn't.  Matt took a look out the window at 6:00am and it was still overcast.  I guess we'll try again tomorrow from the Island.

We drove to the ferry dock and got our tickets.  We would be taking the first ferry of the day from Tobermory to Manitoulin Island.  We parked the car and quickly hunted down breakfast before boarding the ferry.  3 eggs over easy, a thick slice of ham, homefries, and toast.  Oh, and all you can drink coffee.  Not bad!  Too bad I only had time for a few sips of coffee.  That was probably the fastest I've ever shovelled breakfast into my mouth before.  It was a record-setting 10 minutes!  We boarded the ferry, climbed upstairs, and prepared to set sail.

I spent the majority of the crossing asleep.  Matt, on the other hand, spend a good deal of time outside taking photos.  End result:  we were both in need of hot beverages once we got onto the Island.  We stopped in at one of the motels by the ferry dock and warmed up with a hot chocolate for me and a coffee for Matt.  We also browsed the local wares and picked up a few things.  Once we finished our drinks, we set off to continue our sightseeing and photography tour. 

Today we saw a few more lighthouses, several historical buildings, and a decomissioned ferry.  The ferry, named Norisle, ended its active service in 1974.  Since then, it has been sitting at the Manitowaning Harbour.  There have been plans to restore it, but they seem to have stalled.  It now sits silently in a rather sorry state at the harbour.

Some of the historical buildings we visited today include the Manitoulin Roller Mill, the Batman Mill, and St. Paul's Anglican Church.  We also made a quick stop in Providence Bay to see the boardwalk.  A few broken down, abandoned looking trucks also became subjects of our photographic excursions today.

The weather was pretty overcast and gloomy.  The only time we saw any sun was just after debarking from the ferry.  Hopefully we will see some sun (and sunrises and sunsets!) in the next two days.  This is getting frustrating!

Day 1: And I'll huff, and I'll puff ...

Wow.  We were rather unprepared for how windy it was throughout the day.  It's still blowing like crazy outside as I am typing out this entry.  Today we visited 5 lighthouses in the Bruce Penninsula.   As it turns out, they are all open to the public for tours.  Unfortunately, most of them are only open until Labour Day.  Drats!  We came, saw lighthouses, and took pictures of them.

When we finally arrived at our motel in Tobermory at 6:15pm and checked in, we were informed that most restaurants closed at 8pm.  We decided to try and eat dinner quickly and then attempt to get some sunset photography done.  We quickly ate at a local fish and chips place (they were out of chowder!).  Our potential sunset photos were a bust.  It was far too overcast.  Oh well.  Perhaps we will have better luck once we get onto Manitoulin Island.

Our final outting for the night took us to the ferry dock at 10pm.  The wind was still blowing quite strongly.  We watched the final ferry arrival of the day as it came into the harbour and docked.  It was quite an undertaking with lots of turning and adjusting.

Tomorrow we plan on getting up early and getting some sunrise photos.  Wish us luck!   

On the road again

No.  I don't believe we get tired of sightseeing.  ;)  We are leaving in about an hour to start our next road trip.  This time, however, we will be driving.  The main purpose of this trip is to follow a rather detailed itinerary up to Tobermory and then on to Manitoulin Island for great photography opportunities.  I actually have no idea where we're going (in terms of specific destinations) and what we'll be seeing.  How exciting! 

We're pretty much all packed up.  I've made breakfast.  I can hear that Matt has finally gotten out of bed to do some last minute tending of our plants.

Onward, ho!