Apr 30, 2010

The best Ontario beaches - Presqu'ile Provincial Park Beach

Presqu'ile Provincial Park Beach

The silver sands of Presquile offers remarkable site of still camping. This is a unique location in sandy peninsula on the way to Lake Ontario with easy access due to its geographical location between Kingston and Toronto. The famous Presqu'ile Park's is known for its focused efforts of the park authorities for renewed understanding of the nature. It is just about a couple of hour drive from Toronto. The park is home to thousands of birds. The beach around is obsessive in the summer months providing admirable grounds for camping. Most of the tourists repeat the visit to Presquile Beach with unforgettable camping experience due to lavishness of natural attraction.

The adventure never ceases to be on your side. Even when strong winds do not let the sea to be as friendly for kayaking, you have the option for canoeing in the lake; the huge body of Lake Ontario is good for continuing with water sports. Presquile Park has six trails for beach hiking; Pioneer Trail is the longest trail of 3.8 Km length in all with thrilling loops. Hiking on a wheelchair across Marsh Boardwalk is an experience for watching wildlife.

Presquile Beach has a long shoreline, inviting you to explore all its fabulous natural treasure along the lengths. You can explore the lengths of shoreline on a bicycle, well managed bicycle trails have been developed connecting the Presquile Park roads with the silver beaches. For visiting Macauley Mountain, you can take up the journey as a mountain biker in summer months.


The nature bursts out opening it secret beauty in Presquile Beach. Winter months do not leave you stranded up in the kingdom of ice, but again the place has plenty to offer you to keep enjoying touring Presquile Beach. Enjoy well-maintained ski trials with the snowshoes exploring the friendly countryside on cross country routes. It is a 16 km long cross country trail maintained by the park for the tourists to spend happy times. Specific trails are maintained for Macauley Mountain cross country hiking. The way to mountain trail starts near Picton in prince Edward County.

Presquile Park is a supportive habitat for a wide variety of flora and fauna. The low wet areas behind natural sand dunes are called panes. You may be aware that panes are habitat a number of particular rare species of plants, some of these plants bear very attractively colored flowers during summer bloom. For lovable shades of pink, Gerardias and Obedient are famous; Ladies' Tresses Orchids and Grass-of-Parnassus are known for the whites. Millions of Monarch butterflies come over to the park from Mexico. The admixture of sand and conifer forests, make this peninsular region a nesting ground of over thousand species of birds. Watching the Bird in the park is spectacular in spring. Presqu'ile Park gets hundreds of migratory birds everyday from areas all around. A t this place, you can see many birds waiting for the ice to melt to continue their journey further to the north. You will find a number of water birds like Herring gulls, Ring-billed gulls, great Blue Herons, Common Terns, Caspian Terns and more. You are bound to say a camping to be unique experience.

Check out cottages for rent near Presqu'ile Provincial Park on the map below, or visit Rent Cottage Canada for more Ontario cottage rentals.

The best Ontario beaches - Port Colborne beach

Port Colborne beach

Very common is the phrase ‘a place where the sea and sky meet’, but it is not common to hear of a place where water meets the air, rail and the road. Port Colborne beach is one such place, may be exclusively. It is a distinguished tourist destination today with white sand beach on the shore of Lake Erie. Although Colborne is a place of industries and port, with its geographical distinction it happens to be a perfect place of tourism. The name, Nickel Beach particularly announces its silver white sand. St. Lawrence Seaway’s Welland Canal is the most prominent waterway running through Port Colborne. Along the canal, there is a lovely walking and biking trail. This canal was built to support the marine and fishing industry.

Besides beautiful Nickel Beach of white sands, Port Colborne is known for a lovely docking facility for yachts and other luxury cruisers. The city has plush shopping districts, places for entertainment and art galleries. It is equally great for abundance of restaurants serving a wide variety of cuisines. Its golfing grounds are lovely. The summer season festival of Canal Days is a prominent annual event of the whole region and draws a large number of domestic and American tourists. During this festival, entire city turns into a fun and merry making spot of entertainment, sports, traditional cultural performances, antique car show, fireworks, live music and plenty of food delicacies. Though you will have plenty of festive indulgence throughout the city, much of it centers around West Street along the canal.

Other places of tourist attraction are Port Colborne Historical and Marine Museum, Showboat Festival Theatre and the heritage property, Kinnear House. The Historical and Marine Museum is a rich archive of local history with a substantial collection of artifacts. The jurist Helen Alice Kinnear was the first female judge in Canada and the Kinnear House property is associated with preserving her memory.

The white sand Nickel beach on the shore of Lake Erie is situated in the east of Welland Canal. The beach provides a lovely natural setting of sand dunes and a big expanse of forest. This place offers every facility for the tourists to have resting shelters or have refreshing drinks and fresh food from the stalls. The tourists get every facility for windsurfing. If you wish, you can go for swimming.

The charm of olden days is particularly enjoyable along with the modern facilities in this one-time renowned port city. Recognizing the great prospect of tourism provided by Port Colborne, the authorities have drawn up plans as a part of Niagara encompassing tourism development strategy. The place has plenty of smaller sandy beaches like Cedar Bay and Sherkston Shores. You will find plenty of hotels, inns, restaurants and more like bed and breakfast type accommodation all over the place including the smaller beaches. Whichever beach you choose to go, the long expanse of white sand is waiting to welcome. The Long Beach Conservation Area on Lake Erie is another is the upcoming place for picnics, fishing, beach games and sunbathing.


Check out cottages for rent near the Port Colborne beach on the map below, or visit Rent Cottage Canada for more Ontario cottage rentals.

Apr 22, 2010

The best Ontario beaches - Cobourg Beach

Cobourg Beach

Cobourg beach is the most enchanting beach for sun and fun on the soft white sand, enjoyed by the children and grownups alike. If you have not seen the blue water and the contrasting expanse of white sands of Cobourg, you have not seen a pretty beach. Cobourg is the sought after destination of the beach lovers. This get away place is adjacent to Victoria Park for shelter under the shades if you have had enough sunbathing. The snack bars in the garden have sufficient verities to go with liking of your palate. The beach is perfectly safe for kids to play with soft sand in a clean environment. More charming are the lawn chairs for those who have difficulty sitting on the ground.

Victoria Park has much more for entertaining the tourists. In evenings, you can enjoy the old-styled band played in the park. Movie and live performances are also a regular feature. On occasions, you will have the charm of the music from Cobourg Royal Marine Concert Band. It is a close knit place and you will find everything within a close distance, whether looking for shopping pleasure or cozy restaurants for dining or want to go for nightlife. Everything is with a perfect semblance for the tourists to spend every hour with something exciting without having to cover miles. Incidentally, the location of Cobourg is right across the lake in Rochester, USA. As such, this place has been an established destination for vacation for the residents of Rochester for years. You will come to know of it the moment you are at the beautiful marina of Cobourg.

One of the major festivities of Cobourg is the Cobourg Waterfront Festival; a gala of fun and entertainment held for 4 days in July every year. This festival offers one of the major expositions of cultural heritage, arts, live performances and other human talents. During a waterfront festival, you must not miss the beautiful band and firework in the evenings in Victoria Park. You will have the opportunity of buying a plenty of lovely handicrafts cheap. The Winter Festival in Cobourg is equally popular for fun and frolic including exciting carnival games of Lumberjacks and Polar Bear Dip.

You will have a majestic feeling walking on Cobourg beach for the majestic blue water waves rolling down and breaking by your side. Lake Ontario’s pristine water is so clear that you can see the bottom to a considerable depth along the shore. Quite enjoyably, the shallow water runs to a distance of about 50 meters.
The most important piece of historical richness of Cobourg beach is over 150 year old Victoria Hall standing today with its imposing richness of architectural attraction and fabulous interiors. You will first encounter the impressive entrance with 4 Corinthian columns forming the speaker’s balcony. The exterior is stunningly beautified with carvings featuring symbols, intricately designed shells, dolphins and bearded faces. The Grand Concert Hall is the splendid room of Victoria Hall. Originally it had a nice wooden floor supported with pine wood beams. But, now the concrete floor is overlaid with a nicely finished hardwood. The interior and ceiling of the hall are magnificently designed.

Check out cottages for rent near the Cobourg Beach on the map below, or visit Rent Cottage Canada for more Ontario cottage rentals.

Apr 21, 2010

The best Ontario beaches - Thunder Beach

The setting is the township named Tiny in Simcoe County, Ontario, a region that is strewn with a number of pretty beaches. Thunder beach is one of around 50 lovely and calm sandy expanses along Southern Georgian Bay region of Ontario. This beach can be also described as the Canadian side of well-known Fort Erie for its rivers, large lakes and innate and unadulterated beauty. It is a destination now preferred by many for spending some days in summer to be with sand, sea and everything centered to the waters, and living as a cottage dweller.

Again it is worth noticing that all beaches are not same. With their individual naturally gifted qualities, every beach has its own distinctive feature to offer. The Thunder Bay Beach is popular for jet skiing. It is conveniently located at the terminating points of Thunder Bay and Bernard Roads. Whatever may be the location, for a large number of people Thunder Beach comes to be the coziest escape from monotonous and stressful life. It is a type of vacation that may even give you a mixed feeling of extreme relaxation as well as an extremely gloomy reaction.

The charm of coming to Thunder Beach comes from one confidence and that is very comfortable stays. The abundance of nice bed and breakfast type of accommodation is very suitable to a budget vacation. On the other hand, the cottages are lovely if you are prepared to go for the convenience. The gloomy feeling comes from the remembrance of inhuman atrocities of humankind generations ago. This was one of the prime points used by the slaves to run away from their treacherous masters to get lost in the unknown than being the subjects of every sort of cruel act. Of course, today there is every effort to erase the scars of the past with an annual celebration of grand Friendship Festival. It is a week long celebration of traditional shows and other events.

Here you will find the atmosphere a bit different than that of ways and dealings in typical places of business. Everyone means to offer a personal indulgence to make your stay a delightful one; the tourists who have already visited Thunder Beach know of getting something more of what they spend. With each passing day, the place is becoming a more refined and popular place of tourism. Now at Thunder Beach, you can expect to spend vacation with increasing number of water sport facilities. It is going as if the beaches of Ontario have taken the challenge to top in the region for attracting the tourists.

Besides jet skiing, Thunder Beach is a good place for Water surfing, sailing and kayaking for its natural characters. The discrete feature of this place is keeping with the nature in as an unadulterated way as possible. There is a sharp contract of Thunder Beach area with Buffalo in the United States of America; these places are located just across the river. Buffalo, with similar richness of natural setting and scope of tourism, has crumpled down under the huge urban developmental processes and lost to withhold its charm for the tourists.

Check out cottages for rent near the Thunder Beach on the map below, or visit Rent Cottage Canada for more Ontario cottage rentals.

Apr 20, 2010

The best Ontario beaches - Port Stanley beach

The finest sandy stretch of Port Stanley beach is located on the northern side of Lake Erie, dotted with large number of leisure vessels; the most inviting attraction to a large number of tourists every year. It is a place for boat rides of every sort as well as water recreational facilities in the summer months. It is a place of nice accommodations. You can go for a budget style bed and breakfast accommodations or even lovely cottages; everything is within easy reach from the beach. So, you do not have to waste time reaching the beach wherever you stay. There will not be any sacrifice of time for joining the charter boat or playing the beach volleyball, both are popular engagements in Port Stanley.

The place has plenty of food joints for culinary satisfaction for every type of dishes. So it is an equal situation for you, whether you are a foodie or want to spend happy time on the beach for water recreations, picturesque Port Stanley remains common. Your other half will certainly love evening hopping around the shops and restaurants, before taking a soothing walk on the beach before calling it a day or find a place for some engaging nightlife. The weekends are generally crowded in Port Stanley and you feel getting indulged in celebration to shed off the tiredness of slogging in the whole week. Surf the sea or relax on the clean beach or enjoy the tangy food and have leisurely stroll to see the must see spots, all suits well with your decision.

One thing is certain, the place is quite friendly and the people around are nice with welcoming smile in all the places. You can take a train ride or move down the historical bridges or have an energetic early morning beach walks, there is a pleasure in anything you like. This is a historical place with a large water transport system that was developed in the past for carrying coal and wood, though it is no longer in operation due to advancements in transportation. There is a pleasure ride train service between Port Stanley and St. Thomas.

For every enthusiast, Port Stanley has plenty of shopping, hopping from gallery to gallery and dining to offer. The tourists can otherwise have a busy time with sea shore activities, golfing and hiking in the well-laid trails. The place is flocked by many day trippers for a short relaxation without many hassles about reservations, since there are plenty of things to do or simply taking a stroll along the nice beach. As a day tripper, you will no doubt have an invigorating experience of venturing into the uncharted territories with lovely rustic settings through tall conifer forests for fresh breeze. This will be a lovely and memorable since you will have the freedom to take a route as it appeals to you, the guidance for navigation will be provided by the pleasure providers. You would want to get lost in the unknown and still be sure of getting back to spend a nice evening in the city.


Check out cottages for rent in the Port Stanley beach on the map below, or visit Rent Cottage Canada for more Ontario cottage rentals.

Apr 19, 2010

The best Ontario beaches - Huron County Beaches

Huron County offer unparallel grounds for camping, which is an added advantage of the place besides usual waterfront activities. You can take it as the common feature of Huron County beaches including Saginaw Bay. These camping grounds, plenty in numbers, have been developed focusing upon the dual attractions of waterfront experience as well as the thrill of camping. To add up a more closeness to the nature, one can choose to walk miles in the offensive silence of wood in the Wagener County Park. In contrast, at the Lighthouse County Park, you can witness the strident sound of crashing waves at lighthouse shoreline.

The place does not go short of offering variety for the tourists. You can surely balloon ride over the county, walk down the forest trails or explore the enchantment of wasters at Port Crescent State Park. It is all going to be a time packed up with fun and frolic. As additional inviting activities in this waterfront location, you can also go for exploring the trails on a bike or go for kayaking.

Huron County appears to have a special concern for the artifacts; most of the museums have rich collection of 19th century artifacts. For example, Bad Axe Museum is known for the local history or check the Allen House Museum for collections from Dutch colonial era. The Elkton Log Cabin Museum offers enough charm of the historic log cabins. There are two Harbor Beach Museums - the Grice House Museum is the place of antique machinery used in the light house and the old prism light; and the Frank Murphy Museum with preserved Victorian style Home Law Office Quarters of the famous statesman from Michigan. Other museums are Port Hope Museums, Huron City Museum, Stafford Park Historical Chimney, St. Mary's Historical Museum, Pigeon Historical Museum and more.
There are a number of natural trails for the pleasure of skiing and hiking through unforgettable picturesque scenario. Some of the prominent trails are Port Austin Nature Trails having two natural trails; these are Port Crescent State Park and Huron County Nature Center. The Harbor Beach Nature Trails is located in Wagener County Park. Caseville Nature Trails composes of two trails- the Sleeper State Park and Sand Point Nature Preserve. The Sleeper State Park offers you both hiking and skiing. At the Sand Point, you can go for around the year hiking.

Huron County Beaches will let you witness the old world charm of lighthouses. Port Austin Reef Light was abandoned in 1953. But, the building was taken up for refurbishing as a museum in 1990. Harbor Beach Breakwater Light is the lighthouse, which is still in actual use. Charity Island Light is located on the big Charity Island and can be accessed by boat, water ski or fishing boats. The island is known for some rare flora and fauna. There is well settled picnic facility and pavilion.

The balloon flights are scheduled at the Sunrise and a couple of hours before the Sunset; in simple words, dawn and the late afternoons. You can imagine the charm of floating over the spectacular scenario of Huron County.


Check out the cottages for rent in the Huron Country area on the map below, or visit Rent Cottage Canada for more Ontario cottage rentals.