Cottage Time

One of the problems with travelling the world is you very rarely get relaxing holidays...There is always some ruins, church, museum or something that is the reason one goes to said place. As such I have never stayed at a resort and just  laid in the sun all week while a cute girl wearing a coconut bra bought me alcoholic beverages every 1/2 hour. Last week up at Stokes Bay on the Bruce Peninsula was pretty close. I went up in winter to check the place out & I could see the potential...even if it was laying under 3 ft of snow...I was not wrong.

So X & Hol flew in on Friday & we all met up at Panorama for some overpriced flavoured water drinks...the menu said there was a lot of alcohol in them but my taste buds disagreed...wicked view though. We then headed on to one of my favourite places in Toronto, The Green Room for dinner drinks & for Xavier to live vicariously through me by playing Uba wingman for me with a cute Columbian (I think he is still feeling guilty over his behaviour this last Christmas). The night defiantly kicked off as it has a habit of doing when X,H & I get together add Russ & Jill to the mix & I think we did well stopping when we did (An hour or so after the bars closed)

Saturday rose a little sandy but off we headed for the 4 hour Labour Day weekend drive to the cottage. Well done to Russell for not going crazy, the roads were packed, not just with cars but the OPP Yeah you know me!!! (Actually Ontario Provintual Police), we saw at least 5 cars pulled over during the drive. Unfortunately we only saw 1 solitary Mennonite selling their wares on the side of the road, I was waiting to see a entire group, gaggle, gang or whatever a gathering of Mennonites are called...I wanted to see if they really were that good at ten pin bowling.

Sunday I rediscovered a long forgotten hangover  cure...Going for a swim as soon as you wake up, I’m afraid it's not quite as good as a surf as lake water doesn't hit you back plus I think the salt water helps a little as well. Although I defitly got some use out of the swim cure throughout the week. Sunday we had an amazing dinner (Not that we ate like paupers at any time in the week) of ribs, beer can chicken, savoury/deviled eggs & a massive potato salad followed by fireworks...Long live Pirate Booty! Unfortunately come Monday Russ, Jill, Dan, Jess, Tom & Dan all had to head back to Toronto  for work on Tuesday, leaving Joan, X, H & I to work on  turning our skin to leather.

On Tuesday we went for a walk to Cyprus lakes for a spot of rock jumping, it's amazing the  difference in water temperature between the West side where the cottage is & the East side where swimming involved jumping in, freaking  out & swimming as fast as you can back to land and warm air. Also at the lakes, the old rule that you can't get away from Kiwi's no matter where in the world you  are raised its head...Wandering the trail we bumped into some peps from Rotorua over for their brothers wedding that Joan was going to on Saturday.

Later in the day we went to Tobermory, a very nice little tourist village that reminds me of somewhere I can't quite pick...Maybe Paihia but not quite. Heaps of cool little craft stores and a kick arse beachside (ish) all-you-can-eat fish &  chips cafe complete with extreme waiting staff. X & I were going to stop when we were comfortably full until I explained it was against the laws of 'All-you-can-eat' to stop then, so we had  another plate & waddled back to the car.

The next day we all went for a walk to Lions Head, this is definitely not the place for rock jumping unless you’re one of those weird extreme sport people that hangout at these kinds of places. There I  also attempted to find the bears that are meant to roam these parts…some people would say that I got Holly & I lost…but those  people obviously  have never gone bear hunting.

Emily turned up on Friday for the pre-run of Saturday’s madness with the girls from Guelph including, a dog in a life jacket, a sans pants party, watermelon punch bowls & the infamous Bruce Spruce.

So now I’m kinda on the home straight…it looks like I’m going to get back to NZ pretty much 4 years to the day since I stepped off the plane in London…I think it’s very feng shui.