Port Perry - A Good Day Trip Option from Toronto

About 85 km north east of downtown Toronto, or about 40 km away from Scarborough, lies a small community in Scugog, Ontario called Port Perry. Port Perry serves as a hub for many small communities in the Scugog area. Located at the basin of the Trent-Severn Waterways is Lake Scugog, one of Ontario's largest man-made lakes. Port Perry was used briefly as a small town in New Hampshire during the sixth season of The West Wing.

On a warm, nice, sunny day, the marina and waterfront of Port Perry can be a nice spot to walk or have a small picnic lunch. Port Perry's Victorian-era downtown is a tourist destination, with clothing stores, restaurants, cafés, bookstores, galleries and antique shops.

The Lake Scugog shoreline offers two popular lakeside parks, Palmer and Birdseye. We visited Palmer park recently. The big red structure in the photograph below is The Port Perry mill and grain elevator, circa 1930. Originally built in 1873, the building remains a major landmark to this day. The original line of the PW&PP Railway can be seen in the foreground.

Lake Scugog is also known for fishing. There are active fishing seasons, both winter and summer. In the winter months, Lake Scugog is dotted with ice-fishing huts and is a destination for ice fishermen and snowmobilers. However, in recent times, you cannot fish for Walleye anymore. As you can see in the sign below, the levels of this magnificent fish has fallen so low, that fishing for Walleye is no longer permitted.

Of course, as these are COVID-19 times, sadly, there are gathering and meeting limits everywhere. Even though most people did not wear marks while outside (and maintaining social distance), masks are currently mandatory when you are inside any business establishment.

In the summer, this is also a favourites place to launch boats from. The Trent waterway system is the gateway to many lakes and small rivers.

All in all, on a nice, sunny, warm day, Port Perry waterfront offers a great place to have a small picnic, a day trip from Toronto, and a small vacation without much hassle. 

You can bring your own lunch, or grab some fish and chips from one of the few places nearby, and watch the activities on the pier. Here's hoping we can soon fight covid-19 off and can enjoy these places properly, as they are meant to be.

Sibbald Point Provincial Park (in the Spring)

 Sibbald Point Provincial Park is a mid-size provincial park about 1 hour north of Toronto.

This week (from today, Thursday) the new provincial stay-at-home order comes into effect as Ontario fights the 'third wave'. Last weekend, my family and I decided to visit this park, given that it was a warm spring day (15C!) and there is nothing much else to do in these lockdown times as we wait for the vaccine and a return to normalcy. 

The attraction of this park is a large sandy beach on Lake Simcoe.

The water is very clear, as you can see, but it was colder near the water. 15C can feel like 10 or even 5 as you get close to the cold water, so you really need to prepare accordingly. There are lots of grassy areas for picnics (and even some picnic benches).

As usual, there was no lifeguard. In fact, there was no one at the entrance to the park. You take an envelope from the entrance booth, put your daily usage fee there (in cash) and then close the envelope. There's a piece you can tear off to put on your dashboard as your parking permit, and you put the envelope in the deposit box.

The beach would be really nice in the summer. Since it's Lake Simcoe, you can fish from the shore for perch (and later, bass). There's a forested hiking trail as well.

In the picture above, you can see some of the embankments from the beach. These are huge bunch of irregular large rocks that are in place that you can walk over to go deeper into the lake. 

Of course, when you reach that pathway, you are warned that these rocks are slippery (they are, obviously, wet from the waves). And remember, no life guards.

However, it's not really that difficult, and even my 6 year old had no difficulty navigating the rocks (with a little bit of help). Do have extra pairs of socks for the kids if you are going to do this in the spring!

The water was so clear. So blue. It looked so nice and refreshing.

It's not hard to imagine how it will be in the summer on a hot day. I just hope we can get through this pandemic by then, and get vaccinated, so we can enjoy a proper summer.

Reptilia Zoo in Vaughan, Ontario

In these Covid19 times, it is hard to schedule activities for children. We are home all the time; we cannot visit friends and relatives; in-person school is now closed. Wondering where we can take the kids, my wife stumbled upon Reptilia Zoo.

Reptilia is Canada's largest indoor reptile zoo, with 25,000 square feet of indoor exhibits featuring over 250 reptiles, amphibians and arachnids. 

Currently there are two Ontario locations, one in Vaughan and one in Whitby. We decided to visit the one at Vaughan. The social distancing protocols were very good. Masks were mandatory (of course!) and they gave us a time slot for the visit. When we went there, we shared the whole museum with only 3 or 4 other families.

I was really surprised at the number (and variety) of animals there. Although it's not a very big place, if you take your time to enjoy each exhibit, you can easily spend an hour or a couple of hours there, especially if you are into photography.

They had quite a number of large crocs (or were they alligators) on display. It's hard to imagine, just looking at them as they just stayed there, lazily bathing in the heat lamp, that these were ferocious creatures who could move fast if needed.

There were also quite a large number of tortoises (both small and large) on show. In addition to spiders, tarantulas and other creepy crawlies. 

The snake exhibit was one of the ... longest .... no pun intended. They even had an anaconda, along with various species of pythons and other common snakes. 

We were actually lucky to be there around feeding time, so we actually saw how a snake eats a mouse! Poor mouse. 

Another large crocodile surfaces from under the water in a large tank. This was next to the place where they had live shows. In normal times, you would touch and pet some (small) reptiles, but due to covid times it was only "see but don't touch" show.

The odd thing was, during the live show, there was actually a marriage proposal! The zookeeper who was conducting the show asked one of the ladies to come join her on stage, and then she was asked to pick a small box from a tray. There was a diamond ring inside, and then that lady's boyfriend went down on one knee to propose!

She said yes, by the way.

Also, given that they already had a kid together (they had a baby in a stroller), the risk of a no is minimized, I think. 

The guy is smart. Proposed at a reptile show, and will marry during covid times. Saved a lot of money.

These are the general show times, and feeding times (they can change, of course). If you do visit, try and schedule your visit around a feeding time.

Overall, this was a great place to take your kids (and your camera). It's not too expensive (especially if you book online), and is a great way not only to spend some time, but also to support your local businesses during these tough times.