Water Tubing

I am surprised that most people don't know they can water-tubing in Ontario. Out of all the people I've talked to, only 1 person knows it, but none of my friends/coworkers have ever tried that.

Well, a group of us went to Elora Gorge Conservation Park for water tubing last Saturday (2011-07-16). Yes.  I am back at Elora again.  I was here two weeks ago. :)

At 7:15am, we (me, Wen, Sampson, Anna, Jason, Chris, Bosky) started heading to Elora. We arrived at the tubing registration place at 9am. There was a huge lineup. We were all worried that they'll run out of tubes. We felt much better when we saw there were still lots of people behind us. We were located approx. 3/4 of the lineup. Luckily, we got our equipments: helmet, safety vest, and tube... even though we had to wait in line for 1.5 hours.

We took a shuttle bus (yellow school bus) to the launch site. Never thought tubing is dangerous... Two from our group felt into water in the first little rapid. They got hurt and lost their flip flop. (We eventually found most of them them in downstream ;P )

It took us a bit more than 1 hour to go from launch site to exit site. It was fun even thought we had those injuries. The view is beautiful. Hiking is looking at the scenery top-down. Tubing is looking at scenary bottom-up. Green trees on both side.... Blue sky... White clouds... Grey/brown rocks...

At the exit site, we had to wait 45 mins to get onto the shuttle bus to go back to registration site. The shuttle bus went by twice but was full. :( While waiting for bus, one of the tube exploded. We were all surprised how easy the tube explode. Not too long ago, someone was saying that the warning sign at registration site was there to scare us. The tube shouldn't be able to explode so easily. We were worried that we had to pay for it even though we didn't think it's our fault since we had to wait so long for shuttle bus.

When we were back at registration site, we thought we had to negotiate with the staffs, but as soon as we took the broken one back, they gave us a new one. They didn't even ask what happened.

We had lunch (hot dogs, fries, pop) at the registration site.

Around 3 something, we decided to hike to launch site for our second round. This time, half of us started tubing before the first rapid. The rest started tubing after the first tube. This time, the rest of us felt down into the water at the first rapid, except for Chris. Of course, we all hurt ourselves. The rest of the ride was very smooth. :)

At the exit site, we hiked back to the registration site, returned our equipments, and headed back home.
Even though I got hurt, I do want to play tubing again. :)

Now that I have experiences, here are my advises for playing water-tubing:

• must wear running shoes or sandles while playing.  I wore my running shoes.
• put lots of sunblock
• When felt into the water, just try to swim to the shore.  Don't try to stand up even though the water is only knee height.  The river floor is very slippery and full of stones.  If you try to stand up, you'll hurt yourself.
• If you are really scared of getting hurt, put on those knee guards and arm guards for bike/roller blade.

Check out the photos!

Elora Tubing Web Site (You can check out the price.)



View Elora & Fergus in a larger map

Day Trip to Elora and Fergus

The morning of July 2 was cool and cloudy.  I was kind of disappointed.
We had breakfast at the nearby Starbucks... I needed coffee... ;)

On our way to Elora, the weather became sunny...  It was wonderful!
Thanks God for giving us good weather for our trip! :D

First, we stopped by the Tourist Information in Elora getting the maps.
We walked around the Elora Downtown.  It's a beautiful small area.

Then, we went to Victoria Park.  Inside the park, there's Lover's Leap Trail and Lover's Leap overlook.
It is called Lover's Leap to commemorate a legendary Indian princess, said to have leapt to her death here after her beloved had been killed in battle.
The trail was very short.  Because of all the trees, I couldn't really tell which rock is the Lover's Leap.  I guess it didn't really matter. ;)

After that, we went to Bissell Park.There was a farmers market there.  When I was there, they are near the end.. a lot of stuff had been sold.  I just quickly looked around.  They had fruits, vegetables, honey, bread, socks, etc.  I did buy a bottle of cedarwood honey.  :)

We had lunch at Metcalfe Restaurant.  It was a very popular restaurant.  The patio was full.  We had to eat inside.  I ordered sweet potato fries.... yummy...  :9

After lunch, we went to Elora Gorge Conservation Area.  Tubing was all sold out.  We continued with our first choice of activities: hiking.  There are 3 trails in this conservation area.  The trails are short.  We hiked on all three of them. 

Then, we went to Elora Quarry Conservation Area. Lots of people were swimming there.  There were one crazy person jumping off the cliff.  I think he got into trouble since I saw a security guard walking toward him, but I didn't stay around to see.  The water was good for swimming but not clean enough for me to want to swim in it.  I wished I had a floating boat. :)

We've decided to go to Fergus, since it's very close to Elora.
First stop in Fergus, of course, is the tourist information.  It's a bigger office than the one in Elora.
We walked around the Fergus Downtown area.  It was like a semi deserted town. 30-40% of stores were closed and waiting to be sold.  It didn't look anything like the photos from tourist materials.  Those photos have tons of people on the streets.

Well, we decided to head back to Elora downtown since I wanted to eat ice-cream.  ;)
We went to Jenny's Place (one of the Elora Mews Shops) for ice-cream.
I had green tea ice-cream and mango sorbet.  The green tea ice-cream is different from the usual green tea ice-cream.   It had darker layers that had stronger tea taste with a slightly rougher texture.  Wen had watermelon sorbet and mango sorbet.  The watermelon sorbet is very interesting.  It has chocolate chips representing the watermelon seeds. :D

Click here for my photos on the trip.



View Elora & Fergus in a larger map

Day Trip to Prince Edward County

May 21, 2011 is a beautiful day to go on a day trip...
After approx. 2 hr of driving, we arrived at the tourism office in Picton. 

First Stop - Main St., Picton
We walked around Main St... saw the Regent Theatre, the Shine Hall, the Crystal Palace, and the Picton Harbour.  There were some nice houses in that area.

Second Stop - Bird House City
I heard a lot of birds singing, but I hardly saw any birds.  I guess all the birds are hiding in the bird houses.  The Bird House City is not very well maintained.  A lot of posts are missing bird houses. 
I did discover a McDonald for birds... hahahaha... :D   It's probably selling MacWorms... worms burgers... hahahaha....


Third Stop - Glenora Ferry
It's basically a part of the Loyalist Parkway. The ferry will take cars across the Picton Bay. According to the guy at tourism office, the ride is approx. 7 mins. Since there was a line up of cars and ferry frequency is every 30 mins, we decided not to go.


Fourth Stop - Lake on the Mountain
This is exactly what the name implies... A lake up on the mountain...
I think this is the most beautiful place in Prince Edward County.
There is a restaurant there.  If I go to Prince Edward County again, I would try this restaurant since it has nice view.

Fifth Stop - Millennium Lookout
We could see the whole town and Picton Bay from this location.
This place is not very well maintained. It could be skipped if someone is planning for a visit.

Sixth Stop - Sandbanks Provincial Park
The map that we got is kind of confusing.  Overall, it's a nice Provincial Park.  I think it'll be better in the summer time when there are more greens and more flowers.
We went to Cedar Sands Nature Trail first... lots of leaves-less branches on the way.  The trail was kind of brown in colour.
Then, we went to Dunes Beach and Dunes Nature Trail.  This trail was more difficult to walk than the Cedar Sands Trail because a lot of the trail areas were sands.  This trail was kind of grey in colour. We saw the sand dunes.
Since this provincial park is called Sandbanks Provincial Park, we have to visit Sandbanks Beach.  The beach is nice, but the water seemed dirty.  I guess Lake Ontario is polluted.  Comparing to Dunes Beach, I would rather swim there even though the water is not that clean. 


Seventh Stop - Huff Estates Winery & Inn
Two wine tasting for $1.
I ended up trying 4 wines.
Their red wines are more acidic.  It's good but not really my taste.
I did buy a bottle of first frost.  It's a fruity and playful wine.  ;)


After a long day, we decided to head home...


Click here for my photos on the day trip.


Map of Prince Edward County