Scenic Caves at Collingwood..

We decided to visit finally the Scenic caves [on Saturday Aug 12] at Collingwood. We had missed it previous time because by the time we reached it was closed. Scenic caves are part of the beautiful blue mountains where we had Skiied last winter. The weather was pretty good but the Barrie highway 400 was pretty busy. It was a stop-go traffic and it almost took an extra hour and half.



Our first stop was ofcourse our regular Tim Horton's in Barrie. We had the French vanilla coffee to start off. We drove past the Barrie beach where Saanvi played in the water for sometime.. But looks like she didn't like it that much because of sleepy mood.


We continued our journey and finally reached the scenic caves around 2:00PM. The first thing we did ofcourse was having lunch. Archana had prepared Chapathi-Dhal and I my favorite & easiest Vangibath. We had a good lunch and then hiked towards Scenic caves. The Scenic caves aren't really big caves except for couple of them. On the top we could see the Georgia bay and the blue waters. It was good to hike through the lush green rocks in between.

We had taken a combo ticket along with Mini-Golf. So, when we came down the caves we tried our hands at golf. It was a mini 18 course golf and was fun. Pach scored 64 and was clear winner. I scored 68 and was second followed by Archana at 73.



We then went to see suspension bridge. It was a small bridge but
we could see it sway as we crossed the bridge.
It was almost 7:00PM and it was time to close. We hurried past to our cars before they shut the doors.



On our way back we stopped first at SunSet point and then at Wasaga beach. The Sun was setting and we caught a very good glimpse of the setting sun in its orange color. Wasaga beach was pretty good. The sand on the beach was silky and as we watched the sun just disappeared far away. We started our car to head back to home which was other 2 hour journey.




On our way we stopped at Pizza Hut near Hwy 26 & 400. Had a
good dinner and headed back home. It was yet another good and memorable trip.

Humber Park, Bluffers Park & Lakeshore Boulevarde Drive

It was a long weekend as August 07 being a Civic holiday. We weren't in mood to go out of Toronto a instead decided to visit some places in Toronto itself.

On Saturday Aug 05, in the evening we went to Humber Park. This park was kinda in wilderness and has a small Humber river flowing. There was small trail which led us to the river side. There was thick growth of shrubs on either side of trail and there was no one except us. We saw lot of birds in near the water-side. I tried my hands on the bird photography which requires immense concentration and patience. The birds used to fly off whenever I was ready to take a snap. Anyway, I was able to take couple of snaps. We had Khara avalakki snack and decided to come back home. Saanvi had some good place to run around.

The Next day, we went to Bluffers Park & Scarborough heights. The Bluffers park was crowded by Toronto standards. In fact, getting a parking space was itself difficult. We spent around 15 minutes trying to get a space. There were lot of Indian families and people were busy near the beach, some of them had tents and they were enjoying in their own way. We went a little further
where there weren't many people. Had some icecream and spent time watching the vast open space and the Ontario lake. Some people boating and flock of birds forming different pattern of "V" returning home. It was good evening well spent.

We continued from Bluffers park and stopped at Scarborough heights which is a very high point where we could see the Ontario lake and the boats passing by at a distance. We then decided to drove all the way on Lake Shore Boulevard. This is a good road that runs parallel to the Lake Ontario & Gardiner expressway. It was getting dark and the downtown was lighted. The Chinese Lantern festival had lit up the Ontario place and we stopped by Pizza Pizza for our dinner. We had a large veggie Pizza and ate on a table on the beach in moonlight.We headed home after that. It was a relaxing long weekend in Toronto.

Les Jardine Botanique Royaux - Royal Botanical Gardens @ Hamilton

Les Jardine Botanique Royaux - Royal Botanical Gardens [RBG] @ Hamilton



We left Toronto in the morning around 10:30AM on Sunday 30 July 2006. The pleasant cool air from Lake Ontario passed over us while travelling away from Toronto on Gardiner Expressway. However, this was only temporary.. As we moved towards Hamilton the mercury started rising. It was a hot day with no rains which were expected in the past two days.

We reached Royal Botanical Gardens around noon. We first visited the Rock Gardens which had numerous collection of flowering plants. We were totally hungry and had the dhal-dosas made by Archana. Only, after that we got a bit energy for the photo session. The rising temperature was sapping our energy too.

We next drove past the Arboretum then the RBG Centre. The RBG centre had a mediterranean garden with the right environment created inside the building for variety of plants from that region.

The Hendrie park is pretty big in area and reminded me of Lalbagh. The only difference is this is neatly maintained. We saw numerous flowering plants in rose garden, scented garden, Lilies and numerous other plants. I was able to try the macro-mode in my camera too. The fun part was Saanvi was so happy to see the enormous vast space and she just began her sprintathon. The moment she saw someone coming near her made her to run faster.

We later relaxed sometime in the DunDurn castle park and then continued towards the Laking Garden. This was a small garden with lots of small green plants.. Well.. we were so tired that we didn't go into details as to what the plants were.. All of us were hungry by then, we had Saboodana prepared by me. It gave us great relief. After sometime, we continued our journey further..

Pach wanted to visit the Rock Chapel sanctuary. But, later we found out that it was a trail for hiking.. So, we decided to drop that but instead went to see the Webster falls at Spencer's Gorge. It was a nice little falls. We spent sometime there and on the way the usual Tim-Horton's French vanilla with Tim-bits took us back home.

Click here for more photos.