Saturday brought the first temperatures above minus five for several weeks, so we took advantage of the balmy minus two weather to visit Toronto Island. We knew that the ice between the mainland and the island would be solid and we love standing on the deck of the ferry as it breaks its way through the ice, kicking up huge geometric frozen slabs as it goes.
On arrival we wandered round the small lanes of Algonquin Island and stopped to chat with an old man who was trying to take a broken microwave back to Canadian Tire in a trolley on the back of his bike. He had given up and gone back home as it was just too icy. All the islanders have trolleys to wheel over to the mainland for their shopping - cars are not allowed on the island.
As we came closer to the open lake we could hear a loud roaring that we took to be wind in the trees. But we couldn't see any movement in the branches and imagined we must be in a slightly sheltered spot. Then as we rounded a corner with a view out to the open water we realized that the sound was coming from the huge surf on Lake Ontario. The waves were massive, grey green colour and towering over the frozen shoreline. It was an awesome sight. We strolled along the beach, every so often getting a shower of ice pellets thrown over us by a wave.
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| Ward's Beach |
No trip to the island is complete without a stroll along the boardwalk and visit to the Rectory Cafe, so that's where we headed next.
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| View from the boardwalk back to Ward's Beach |
Then just time for a quick stroll over the bridge to view the Toronto skyline, watching some skaters on the way and a brisk walk back to the 2.15pm ferry - we kicked ourselves as we could have walked across the frozen harbour to get to the boat instead of taking the long route round; we saw some of the locals doing that once we got back to the boat.
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| Taking the shortcut home |
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View of ice sailor in front of the Royal Canadian Yacht Club
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