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Published: August 31st 2013
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August 29, 2013
Slept in a bit, had breakfast at the Coachhouse Inn in Tobermory, then it was off to see more of "The Bruce." I'm realizing that in this part of the world, and probably for a good portion of the rest of this trip, that when people say "great scenery" they are referring to water, trees, and a lighthouse or two. But it was pretty good scenery taking Dyers Road to the Cabot Head lightstation. We followed the Lonely Planet's suggestion to avoid the poison oak on the side of the road and took a short walk at Cabot Head instead.
Then it was time to get out of the boonies and travel on to Canada's largest city. Our impressions of Toronto: big (6 million people), full of construction (must do it all in summer before the snow comes), friendly people, lots of bicycles, and DIVERSE in its population. Plain looking white people blend in with Asians, Indians (dot not feather), Muslims, and we rarely heard English being spoken. It's obvious that there is a large gay/lesbian population here. It's also obvious that everyone lives together with peaceful acceptance of all this diversity. It's a good thing.
Georgian Bay of Lake Huron
A lot of "The Bruce" driving was looking at the lake. Guidebooks said we had to see the Toronto Musical Garden. It's an interesting concept, a garden that reflects in its landscape "Bach's Suite No. 1 in G Major for unaccompanied cello" and it was designed by Yo Yo Ma. Maybe I needed to have more of my creative and imaginative parts of my brain working harder, but somehow I had trouble relating the different movements of Bach's work with spiral walkways, rock gardens, trees, and flowers. It does make for a pleasant stroll, though.
The garden is a part of Harbourfront Centre and that is fun with the usual marinas, restaurants, buskers, and shops. Watch out for fast bicyclists, though. We didn't go up the CN Tower, after paying $22 to park we decided to skip that rocket ride.
The best part of our time in Toronto was the ferry ride to and time spent on the Toronto Islands. The islands are gorgeous and there are no cars allowed. They are connected by a series of foot bridges, 800 people live on a few of them. To visit all of the islands would have taken hours, we walked about seven miles as it was. We went late
in the day so that we could watch the skyline of Toronto slowly light up, a lovely sight. As we queued up to get on the ferry back to the island we just missed it and had to wait for the next ferry in a three sided "cage" along with about 500 other people. Many of the people weren't tourists, but just locals that had spent the day on the islands for work or pleasure. It was a long wait, but people were good natured and at one point a small group starting singing "Happy Birthday" to a friend and the rest of us (pretty sure it was all 500 of us) quickly joined in the singing. Made me feel like we were all in it together, I understand this "acceptance" thing. My heart was joyful on the ferry ride back to Toronto.
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Barbara
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Aren't you tired yet?
My only time in Toronto was to go to a Blue Jays game. Guess I missed a lot. Love the skyline