My plan for the island is slightly more sinister though; I'm making the voyage in search of ghosts. Halloween may have passed, but a trip to the Lighthouse has been on my to-do list for some time. And while I'm approaching my trip with a heafty dose of journalistic skepticism, I should admit that — should I be successful — this won't be the first time I've seen one.

My first encounter wasn't even that long ago — about a year.

I had gone to sleep relatively early, before midnight anyway, and all I remember is being jolted awake very quickly. Not by anything in particular, just out of nowhere I was wide awake and standing up when I should have been laying down and fast asleep. I looked forward and there was an apparition standing in my closet doorway, staring at me. It was a man wearing a tattered suit, but I didn't recognize him &mdashh; his is face was difficult to make out. He stood there, staring at me, face stone cold emotionless. At first I didn't know what to make of it, I've never been one to buy into paranormal phenomena, but there it was right in front of me.

I shouted "hello."

But there was no response. He just continued to hover there and stare.

"Hello," I shouted again, louder this time with even the slightest sign of fear in my voice.

Still nothing.

I rubbed my eyes and stretched them open as wide as I could to prove to myself I was awake, but it was still there. I was awake, I knew it for a fact and yet, there I was standing in my apartment staring ahead at a ghost. I know it sounds crazy, but I don't know what to say — it happened.

Thankfully, it hasn't happened again, allowing me to move forward and mostly forget about the whole experience. Mostly, because here I am, at dawn, on a boat, actually looking for a ghost.

The ghost I'm looking for is John Paul Rademuller, the first operator of the Gibraltar Point lighthouse. Rademuller was murdered at the site in 1815; the case was never solved and at this point, probably never will be. As the story goes, he died at the hands of a couple of soldiers from Fort York looking to get their hands on moonshine.

It turns out, in addition to keeping the lighthouse wick wet with whale oil, J.P. was also a formidable bootlegger and when he refused the soldiers a second helping from his keg, they turned violent. No one really knows what happened next, but it was the last time anyone ever saw J.P Rademuller alive.

Soon after his death, stories of unexplained phenomena began to spread, with reports of eerie moaning on the grounds near by. Then in 1893, George Durnan - another lighthouse keeper - discovered a jawbone buried in the sand near the light.

As I pedal west from the Ward's Island ferry docks, it finally strikes me just what I'm doing. A couple of years ago I would have thought it impossible, but I saw one before. How do I know it won't happen again, and if it does, what do I do?

It's hard to get too worked up over the whole thing though, the scenery is gorgeous and it's rare I find myself on these paths when they're so empty. When I get to the site, the first thing that strikes me is how small the tower looks. It's a hexagon, barely a couple of meters in diameter, and it's not even close to the shoreline. It seems that over the course of the past 200 years, the island has grown and the beach has been extended. When the lighthouse was built it stood at the very edge of the island facing south, but today it's sheltered in a meadow by a thicket of trees.

I wander the grounds, hoping to find a grave marker from where Rademuller was buried, but if it was ever marked, it's gone now. The area does have atmosphere, although I can't say if it was actually super natural, more of a quiet little clearing. I sat down and put my back against the brick for a minute, envisioning spending any extended period of time in the building, being there alone at night, concentrating on the place, summoning the spirit.

Still no response.

It turns out Rademuller's ghost is a shy one. I imagined the bloody battle that happened in that very spot and while I never really felt a ghost, the historical presence was palpable. This lighthouse is among the City's oldest landmarks. A long line of service people kept the flame ignited until 1958 when the flame was permanently extinguished, occupied only by the supposed spirit of a bootlegger.

The museum is more like the life-size manifestation of a basement, model train set. The men (it's mostly men) who run the Halton Radial Railway Museum are just train nuts for whom models just weren't enough. So instead of a replicas, they've laid their own track, run their own wires, and built a real working railroad that, along with some examples from elsewhere, essentially displays the entire history of public transportation in Toronto.

There was a time, before the automobile, when electric railways were the thread that sewed cities together — and to each other. The first line to enter regular service in Toronto was in 1882 1892 on Church Street, and over the course of the next three decades the network expanded into a complex system "radiating" out from the city centre. Cars improved and streetcars became the lifeblood of the city, shuttling thousands of people to and from work every day. There were also inter urban lines like the one stretching from Keel and St. Clair all the way to Guelph, for the first time, making travel between towns far quicker than before.

With rise of the automobile, most towns tore out their tracks to make room for roads. The exception to that trend of course, is here in Toronto, where electric streetcars have been in operation for over 115 years.

I drove right by the Radial Railway Museum the first time I went. From the road it looks like it could be an orchard, or a famer's market closed for the season. The parking lot is dirt and gravel, which means at this time of year, its pretty mucky, but beyond that, most of the museum is obstructed by trees. I was surprised then, to see how many people were happy to brave the dwindling temperatures and drizzle to come out to Halton for the afternoon.

Once there, there's plenty of opportunity to wander around and take a look at the different vehicles, but the real draw is getting to ride them. Each day they'll have a few cars out on the track and patrons can hop on and hop off as they please. The ride is short, but the scenery is lovely, and as you cruise through the forest one of the volunteers (the place is run entirely by volunteers) tells you a little about the car's history. The nice part of this is that there's really no script for them to stick to; it's a casual experience more akin to a conversation than a presentation, and there's usually plenty of other people on the ride to add to the story. The vast majority of people there are members and everyone seems to kind of know one and other, but there's no air of exclusivity. Quite the opposite actually.

It doesn't take long to start to understand the enthusiasm that fuels the railway, taking a ride on a Peter Witt Streetcar does something to simultaneously excite the child and the historian inside. Nearly a century ago, these cars were all over Toronto, and as transit continues to be a concern downtown, it's nice to harken back to a time when we had it figured out a little bit better.

Located north-east of Oshawa, my trip to Jungle Cat World began with the acquisition of an automobile. Theoretically, this place is reachable through GO Transit, but it looked like one giant headache, and the possibility of being stranded in a place where the streets have no name didn't have the romantic undertones one might expect.

But with the help of Autoshare, I was mobile. It's rare I get the chance to get this far outside the city, the drive east was kind of an exciting proposition. Unfortunately, the eastern corridor of the 401 isn't much for sight seeing, but traffic was light and the drive only took a little over an hour.

Jungle Cat World doesn't look like much from the road, just a network of chain linked fences spread across a pretty vast property. It actually looks, well, kind of dumpy. But that impression changes pretty quickly once inside the gates. This place may have started out as a hobby, but today is a pretty impressive organization. And although a wolf escaped from the premises last March, the operation is anything by amateur.

My guide today is Sarah Law, a zookeeper and wildlife rehabilitator at the park.

One of the wonderful things about Jungle Cat World, as opposed to say the Toronto Zoo, is that because of its small size, you're able to get much closer to the animals and, when appropriate, the animals are able to get closer to one another. There are alpacas roaming the grounds along with an incredibly tolerant donkey — Daisy.

My first thought when meeting Daisy was how closely her disposition mirrors Eeyore's. Not that she seemed depressed, being out in the general population at the zoo certainly comes with a whole lot of love and affection from staff and guests alike, but donkeys just seem to have a naturally lethargic temperament. Despite my poking, prodding and petting, I couldn't get her to acknowledge me.

Of course, when attending Jungle Cat World, donkeys are hardy the draw. At the park, they have a wide collection of large and small cats, many of which were born and raised on the premises. The first new addition I met was a baby cougar, just a few months old. When they're this young, their behaviour is motivated almost exclusively by play (rather than food), which makes for some pretty adorable interactions.

Another thing that Jungle Cat World does, besides its zoological activities, is outreach programs. That means that for a fee ($300-$600), a school, community organization or even a private citizen can hold their own event featuring an assortment of animals like baby cougars or, his pen mate, a baby tiger.

It's easy to forget she will grow up to be roughly 600lbs.

After spending time with the cats, we head to the Hyena pen. I didn't know what to expect from these creatures. In the movies they're always sinister little scavengers, vicious and selfish. Of course, I realize these are all projected human emotions, but some animals are more skittish than others, and I'd never met a hyena in real life before.

These ones have only been on the premises a few days, having just arrived from a zoo in Italy. But apparently the flight was easy on them because after a few minutes, they were approaching us with caution, sniffing at my outreached hand.

Still, the hyena's were unsure, as they should be I suppose. New surroundings and lots of new people, I'd be shy as well. After time she would lick my hand, but still wouldn't let me pet her — she wanted to keep me in sight.

I had a completely different experience in the lemur pen. I've never met an animal as friendly. The very moment we entered they were on top of us, climbing and jumping and hanging--no fear, no hesitation. Although it might have had something to do with the container of blueberries we had, these animals seem like the perfect house pet. I'm told such is not the case, and they're far from domesticated, a boy can dream though.

One last unique feature here is the bed and breakfast. For as little as $150 per night, guests can stay in an enormous suite and roam the grounds at their leisure. The prospect of experiencing Jungle Cat World at night is both exciting and terrifying, I'm told it's even more active when the sun goes down and with over 98 different species on the premises, there's plenty to see — definitely worth the drive.

Jungle Cat World is located at 3667 Concession Road 6 in Orono near where Taunton Road hits highway 115. (905) 983-5016. Adult admission is $15.

But the vast nothingness that surrounds Woodbine only serves to heighten the experience of the approach; you don't so much drive towards the racetrack, as at it. The mammoth grandstand juts out into the sky with colossal lettering spanning the front entrance; when you pull off the 427 onto Rexdale Boulevard, you're immediately caught in the tractor beam; there's really nowhere else to go.

The races start at 1:00p.m. on Sundays (and happen everyday except Monday and Tuesday). We got there about a half hour early and were rewarded with a prime parking spot (lucky day?). But the real reason for the unusual punctuality was that neither of us had any idea how to bet on a horse — not how to pick them, how to place a bet, or any remote knowledge of strategy.

Luckily the good people at Woodbine Racetrack are more than happy to walk a newcomer through the process of building your wealth at exponential rates by the simple process of picking horses. Here's the deal: first off, you can place a bet with a real flesh and blood human being, or you can step up to one of the automated tellers and just feed in bills. Either one is pretty straightforward once you know what you want to do.

When betting on a horse there are a number of options at hand. You can bet to win (first place), place (first or second place) or show (top three). Obviously, payouts are best for each particular horse on a win and degrade down to a show. However, depending on a horse's odds, betting on one horse to show could pay out better than picking another to win — this is worth keeping in mind. Things can get even more complicated (and lucrative) by picking multiple horses, but I'll leave that for the experts at Woodbine to explain.

Also important are the odds, which are in constant flux right up to the moment betting stops. That's because they're not directly based on the horses record, or the opinions of the racing oligarchy — they're based on bets. The more money being laid down on a specific stallion, the better its odds become — or, to put that another way, the smaller the pay out if it wins. The more faith the greedy gambling public puts in a pony, the less money there is to scoop up. This complex system is set up to track the wagering on site, but also at hundreds of off track locations across the continent.

So because of that, the odds aren't totally reliable. Sure, there are thousands of experts laying money down and that is reflected in the odds, but there are also thousands of inexperienced idiots like myself doing the same thing. Anyway, lets get to the races.

The first one I didn't have a clue what to do, I went the "even more complicated (and lucrative)" route I mentioned earlier. It's called a triactor, basically you pick three horses in a specific order and they need to place first, second and third. Needless to say, I lost $10 on that race when only two of my three picks cracked the top three. Ironically, it was the favourite, a horse named Young Bohemian, that let me down.

For the next race I took an entirely new strategy. I picked one horse — based on name alone — and I picked him to win. Three Hour Tour had a bad start out of the gates and trailed for most of the race, but remarkably, in the final stretch he pulled it together and made me a cool $35 by beating Fashion Jenny by a nose.

At this point I'm hooked, completely. I turned $5 into $35 in a matter of about 90 seconds. So, high on victory and with the confidence that by the end of the day I would dominate the pseudo-sport of gambling on horses, I chose my next horse — S S Seraphim — and laid down a $4 bet to Win or Place. This horse was a long shot 12-1 odds, but I had a feeling about him and if that feeling were right, I would walk away approximately $40 richer. Of course, I'll never know the exact amount, because S S Seraphim is a bum and actually finished close to six seconds behind, and in a race that only lasts 90 seconds that's atrocious.

The next few races I experimented with various bets, combining horses and wagers with no real luck. But my Dad (did I mention I brought my Dad?), he hit the holy gambling grail on what some might consider kind of a stupid bet. He bet three horses to win, which doesn't really make sense because no matter what happens you're going to lose at least two wagers. Anyway, one of those horses had 50-1 odds against him. Also kind of a stupid bet (but who am I to judge, I'm basically throwing money away at this point), but I'm sure it's clear where this is going. The damn thing won; and on a measly $4 he picked up $218.

I continued to lose money for the rest of the day until the very last race when I laid down my final $10 and scooped up $57 in return, just enough actually to make all my money back with a few bucks to spare. All in all, it was a super fun afternoon. Watching the horses run is a good time on its own and putting small, insignificant amounts of money on one of them just increases that — I love gambling!

The night sky on the shores of Canal Lake, just outside Bolsover, is black — pitch black, save for the billions of tiny pinholes puncturing the sky. It's 100km away from anything that could even begin to be considered a major city and with no light pollution, and the calm of the lake laid out in front of you, it was the perfect site to stare upwards in awe.

It was a short-lived hobby, but it left me fascinated with outer space. Many years later, with that memory in mind, I took a first year course on the subject at Carleton University. That decision, however, turned out to be misguided. It turns out university level astronomy is much more science than philosophy, and "awe" doesn't get you grades. It's chock full of math and equations and chemistry, when all I wanted to do was look at stars.

So, it was with that memory in mind yet again a decade later, that I skipped all the hard science, borrowed a car and took a drive out to the David Dunlap Observatory in Richmond Hill.

Every Saturday evening, from July to October the observatory opens itself up to the public. The evening begins with a talk, something fun and interesting, but easily digestible for mass consumption. Then afterwards the crowd is invited to take advantage of the facilities and look to the heavens.

The talk I attended was titled "Mars Attacks," a brief history of our cultural obsession with the Red Planet, both in science, science fiction and popular culture at large. The speaker, Michael Lennick, used slides from various movies to talk about what it might be like up there and the probability of the red dust ever mixing with human toes.

It was fascinating and fun, but it was really only a precursor to the main event. The David Dunlap Observatory, I'm told, houses the largest open-to-the-public telescope on the planet. Back when it was built in 1935 its 74-inch mirror made it the second largest telescope in the world.

So, after Michael Lennick wrapped up the discussion, we all headed out of the main building and over to the steam-punk dome where the telescope lives.
The crowd is a mixture of tourists, young couples on dates and families with fascinated children who — despite me having 20 years on them and first year astronomy under my belt — know waaaay more on the subject than I do.

Outside the giant dome a trio of amateur astronomers set up their telescopes for public view — this is the wonderful b-side to the evening. Besides housing one mammoth telescope, the DDO has become somewhat of a gathering place for enthusiasts and as a result, a wealth of knowledge congregates on Saturday evenings on the front lawn, just outside the dome.

Here we're given the opportunity to look at star clusters, planets and whatever else is in view on any given evening.

Inside the giant dome, I encounter the enormous 28-ton telescope that was once among the biggest and best on the planet, but even to this day (73 years later) remains the biggest in Canada. It's an impressive site even on a cloudy day, but on this night I'm lucky that the weather is cooperating and the stars are out.

The giant scope is pointed to the southern sky, while the clouds have been kind tonight thus far, the cloud cover is moving in and our options are becoming scarce. Tonight's subject is a small star cluster that to the naked eye simply looks like a twinkling pinpoint of light. One by one everyone takes their turn, climbing the ladder and peering through the eyepiece. When my turn comes I make the same procession up and look through.

You'll won't see anything that can compare to those Hubble images of deep space, but pressing an eye up to a 73-year-old machine and seeing a small point of light in the night sky transform into and entire cluster of stars, shimmering blue and red is something that, even now, is enough to capture the imagination.

It translates so easily to all those cliches: our own insignificance, the possibility of extra terrestrial life — everything races through your mind. It's impossible to ignore, just the enormousness of it all.

It might be the science that informs astronomy, but it will always be that state of awe that inspires it.

After over a decade in this city, I feel pretty comfortable getting around. In that time I've lived on Queen West, Little Portugal, the Danforth, and in Bloordale. I've worked everywhere from Bay Street to Downsview and I've bicycled from the Etobicoke to Scarborough. But despite, or perhaps because of that familiarity, it's easy to let the form of the city fade into a list of tasks, deadlines and impending social engagements.

I know in my head that it's so much more than that, but it's so easy to get stuck in the kind of rut where you realize you don't remember the last time you even looked up. That's one of the greatest perks of being a tourist — you spend a lot of time looking up.

I was in New York City back in June and I swear I had my neck craned back so much I'm surprised I didn't get hit by a car. There's a Zen-like element to relinquishing all sense of duty for a great view. It's something that's easy to do when in foreign lands, but something equally as rewarding at home, but it often requires a little nudging.

That's where this tour bus comes in — it's tasked with the responsibility of offering new perspective, at least for a local who hops on for a tour of his own city. It feels a little phoney getting on one of these things after such an extended stay, but perhaps sometimes you need to fake it, as they say, to make it.

And what constitutes making it? Total Toronto Tourism Enlightenment. I want calm and a new perspective; I want to learn something new and maybe get a few nice pictures along the way.

Unfortunately, in this town enlightenment costs $35, but it lasts a whole week and includes a free boat tour, so you know, it might just be a bargain.

I hop on the bright red City Sightseeing double decker bus just down the street from the Harbourfront Centre at stop number three. There are 25 stops along the route for passengers to hop on or off as they see fit. The route may be short from a local's perspective, focusing strictly on the downtown core — it stretches as far north as Casa Loma, East to The Distillery District and West to Spadina — but actually has a larger footprint than BIXI (frowny face, BIXI).

Once on the bus, I quickly snagged myself a seat up top. Since it's midweek, and early, there were plenty of spots to choose from, but during peak hours it's not uncommon to get forced down below.

The tour begins with a little boasting about skyscrapers, particularly the bling heavy Royal Bank Tower (there be 24 karats in those windows!) and the startling admission that had we taken this tour 13,000 years ago, we'd all be under 100 metres of water right now. It seems Lake Ontario (the smallest and coldest of the Great Lakes) is but a puddle compared to the glory of the ancient Lake Iroquois that stretched all the way up to Davenport Road.

Next we zoom over to the Distillery District, our tour guide giving us the gist of the area (a former distillery [duh!], now pedestrian mall with no big box stores or chains). I don't know how much of his spiel is scripted and how much is improvised, but he's good. He speaks comfortably and confidently and manages to inflect his narrative with just enough humour to keep things light and entertaining.

Next it's north, up Yonge Street, through Yorkville and towards Casa Loma. Once into Yorkville we learn about the $50 cup of coffee at Pusateri's, the crazy expensive condos going up at the Four Season's Private Residences ($28 million for the penthouse!), and are treated to a little celeb-bragging, a bad habit in Toronto that reeks of civic insecurity.

At Casa Loma we learn of the heartbreaking story of Sir Henry Mill Pellatt, a man who at one time controlled all the electricity in the city, but was ruined in part by the City of Toronto who seized first his business, taking control of the electricity in Toronto in exchange for nothing, and then his castle for a paltry $27,000 in back taxes he owed after he had been robbed of his business. He ultimately died penniless, living above his former chauffeurs garage.

From here it's back downtown, past the ROM and the Bata Shoe Museum, through Chinatown and the Entertainment District, where we learn more of fabulous celebrities and the Toronto Film Festival.

To be honest, the two hours fly by. A lot of what is covered is rudimentary Toronto history, and most of it will probably sound familiar. But it's still nice to hear, and there's sure to be pieces of new information to be picked out. The biggest discovery for me came at the University of Toronto. Apparently Robarts Library was not, in fact, designed to look like an evil fortress or futuristic space-prison, but a peacock — the bird of wisdom.

The whole ordeal has a bit of a meditative quality. It's amazing to sit down and focus on the things around you, not on a destination, but on the places you see every day, but rarely pay much attention to. And being elevated just that little bit leads to discoveries of things you won't believe you never noticed before, like the remnants of Toronto's first fire station perched above a sushi restaurant on Yonge Street.

After the tour is complete you're encouraged to take a free boat tour along the harbour. This has an even greater meditative quality. As the boat cruises through the inner islands, the guide stays silent — the view speaks for itself.

With over 2400 acres of gardens, restored woodlands, and seasonal attractions like the lilac dell, the iris beds, and the spring bulbs in the rock garden, it's a place for sturdy walking shoes. Well, I've missed the spring attractions this year, especially with our early
spring that was just a lttle bit earlier due to the Royal Botanical Gardens' location.

I take the GO train to Aldershot, and Burlington Transit the last 3km. Thought about bringing my bike on the train, but am glad I didn't, due to road construction near the Aldershot train station and lack of bike racks at the Royal Botanical Gardens.

I start off inside the building to see what's up: I'm given a site map and get my hand stamped when I pay the admittance fee. A board indoors describes what areas are good bets now. The rose garden is highlighted. But first I decide to check out some of the areas that are only accessible from the centre, since it closes at 5.

The Royal garden isn't much, but I do like the papyrus, with its mad pom-pom flowers, and what looks like Actinidia kolomikta is a stunner with its pink and green leaves: who needs flowers when the plant has it all just with leaves?

The Mediterranean Garden has me longing to return to Tuscany, even though the garden encompasses plant material from all Mediterranean climate regions, not just Europe. I wish the olive tree was in blossom.

I think I see pink peppercorns growing, but the shrub/tree doesn't have a label.

The cork oak is labeled, and the texture of the trunk makes me want to reach out and feel it all over, but I don't because I am unsure about how the cork would react to thousands of people touching it and leaving skin oils on its surface.

There's a sign warning people to watch their step: as part of their integrated pest management strategy, they've got three different types of lizards in the garden to eat bugs. Alas, I don't see any of them.

The kids' discovery space approaches gardening from a different vantage point: in the exhibit, the emphasis on the senses of smell, sound, and touch. There's a beautiful smoke bush just coming into bloom, and Japanese maple, red standouts among all the greenery. A prickly pear cactus is flowering.

The ceramic-tiled tunnel leads me under Plains Road to the rose garden and reflecting pools (top photo).

The roses are just about at their peak - some are past, and some have yet to bloom, but it's a good time to hit the Royal Botanical Gardens for some stop-and-smell-the-roses in your life.

Especially the Gallicas: they have a bed of their own, and they smell the way a good rose perfume smells. A walk through the arbours, covered with climbing roses, lets me get up close to some beautiful and fragile looking flowers.

I had to take a picture of this signpost to give an idea of the diversity here, and this dosn't list all the features, just the ones within shouting distance.

The native species and woodland gardens are my next destinations.

Both provide lots of ideas for the home gardener. Some plants are in bloom in the native species garden right now, like the columbines and prairie smoke, and others will come into their own as summer progresses.

The deep shade in the woodland garden has different types of plants, and many tree species. A wooden walkway leads slowly down to the bottom of the ravine.

The trilliums are finished, of course, but their leaves haven't died back yet. Hostas and ferns fill in the areas around the dense tree growth.

Next, I cross over the rose garden again to see the scented and medicinal plants sections, and on the way, stop to admire the dogwood trees, which are in full glorious bloom.

The scented garden has peonies still flowering, and the Russian sage, blue-green, is great to brush against so it releases its scent. It's a formally laid out garden.

The medicinal plant section has lots of signage to read and understand how plants were used for heart, eyes, and other ailments.

The plants are clearly labeled, and some of them we still use today. Digitalis is derived from foxgloves. On the way out, different culinary herbs are labeled with names and uses. Some of these herbs, like Purslane, aren't used much at all in North American cooking, and are treated as weeds by most of us.

To finish up the day, I head over to the rock garden. To get there is a short drive or 1.75km walk down Plains Road West, across the Wolfe Island Bridge, to York Blvd. I see a towering flowering tree along the way. It's definitely over 30 feet high, and has trumpet-shaped flowers. I look for a label, but don't see one.

The bridge over Wolfe Island has a great view down at the island.

A sign alerts me at the entrance to the rock garden that they've had to turn the water feature off due to a leak, but water is still coming down the waterfall and running along the stream to the pond. All the spring bulbs are gone, and a number of beds have been set up to receive some summer annuals, but they're not in the ground yet. Maybe that has happened this week (I was there on Tuesday). It's still a very pleasant garden to visit.

All in all, I walked for about three and a half hours, and covered a fair bit of ground. There is still lots more to see: I didn't go to the conservation area this time, or explore the full extent of the Hendrie gardens. My brain is definitely full from all the information provided.

To get there:

Public transit: GO train to Aldershot, Plains Road West bus to RBG.
Car (directions are from the RBG website): Queen Elizabeth Way to Highway 403 West (Hamilton). Exit at Highway 6 North. NOTE: road construction has redirected traffic and signs are now dated: travel 800 metres north along Hwy 6 to York Road. Exit York Road, turn right and then turn left onto the new Plains Road and come south along Plains Road crossing over the 403. Turn left at the lights to continue on Plains Road West for about 1 km, passing the glass building. Turn right into the parking lot.

For more and larger images, see my Flickr.

No, the Cheltenham Badlands, she said. In Caledon.

Oh. There are badlands in Caledon?

Another friend then piped in and suggested that if we headed that way, we should visit the waterfalls as well.

There are waterfalls in Caledon?

Okay, to anyone from the Caledon region, I apologize and profess my ignorance. Up until now, I only knew of your town as that place north of Brampton, a place I occasionally drove past when I was visiting my relatives in the suburbs. But yes, after spending a sunny afternoon in your home, I admit that a lovely land of rivers and waterfalls and alien hills lies just an hour north on Hwy 10.

First stop: a visit to the Badlands.

The Badlands come up on you quickly. Real quick. Off of Hwy 10, you turn onto Old Baseline Road, and from there, it's up and over a few hills before you are literally on top of them. There's a small parking lot off to the side of the road, then a small embankment, and then, you're there.

And I must say, they're pretty impressive - all red, rolling hills with streaks of greyish-green, and a few jagged trees for that creepily beautiful look. The whole scene is a bit hypnotizing.

The term "badlands" refers to land that is highly eroded, barren, and dry. The Cheltenham Badlands are the result of a delicate, soft rock called queenston shale. Because the rock is so sensitive, it erodes easily, creating those rolling, red dunes that look like another planet. Badlands are rare in Ontario because in most spots, rocks, sand, and gravel cover and protect any shale, but Cheltenham is considered to be one of the best samples of badlands topography in the province.

They started forming back in the early 1900s, when the land was cleared for farming. The combination of removed vegetation and grazing livestock exposed the shale, and, even though it's no longer used as farmland, Mother Nature has been eroding it ever since.

But, as we reported a few years ago, the Badlands are in danger of their own popularity. When I was there, a handful of people and some rambunctious children were scrambling all over the hills, which as I previously mentioned, are extremely delicate. (Not only that, but there were broken beer bottles scattered in the dirt.) Anyway, the problem (besides the beer) isn't lack of signage, as there's a sign right next to the site, asking people to respect the trails, to stay off the hills, etc.; the problem is that the signage isn't obvious.

I know that large signs would litter up the place, and I definitely don't want a viewing platform installed or a fence marking off where you can stand, but the warning sign is easy to miss. I admit that I walked right past it, and, in my own ignorance, I ventured down onto the hills. It wasn't until I looked down and saw the cracks in the ground beneath me that I thought "hey, maybe I shouldn't be walking here," and then I noticed the sign as I was leaving. Note to hikers: the Bruce Trail passes by the Badlands, but unfortunately, this section of the trail is currently closed for environmental regeneration.

Second stop: Forks of the Credit.

Back in our car, we returned towards Hwy 10 and ventured further north, to Forks of the Credit Road. From there, it's an up-and-down and twisty ride, with the Credit River babbling alongside you. We parked at the railway overpass and followed the nearby Tramble Trail up onto the Niagara Escarpment. The trail starts out steep, but then tapers off, and from there is a lovely shaded walk, past rock cliffs and steep drops, with the rush of the river far below. The entire area is remarkably pretty, and feels completely remote; as we wandered the trails, it was easy to forget that we were only a short drive away from Brampton and Mississauga.

After wandering on the trail, we headed back towards our car and drove further along the Forks of the Credit (more twists and turns, and an uber steep ascent up the Escarpment), towards the tiny village of Belfountain. The town was adorable, but I had yet to see the elusive waterfalls my friend had told me about, and, much to chagrin of my boyfriend, I was getting frustrated and irritable. We spent some time traveling back and forth through town, then back and forth again, looking for a trail marker or some sign from the heavens to guide us. Finally, a local shopkeeper pointed us in the right direction: head north on Mississauga Road, towards Forks of the Credit Provincial Park.

We followed her lead and ended up at the Elora-Cataract Trailway - part of the TransCanada Trail. From there, it's a 20-minute, hot, shade-less walk to the Cataract Falls and the ruins of an old hydro-generating station dating back to 1899. While the falls are pretty and the ruins are cool, they're a bit anti-climactic. The viewing platform doesn't offer the best view, and because of erosion, it's impossible to get any closer to the falls. But really, with how pretty our day tour had been, I couldn't complain.

Tired and feeling a bit sun-stroked, we headed back to our car and ventured home. Dear Caledon: I apologize for ignoring you all these years.

Writing by Tammy Burns. Photos by Stefan Wege.

Our first thought, being members of one of the most equality-drunk societies going, is that, yes, of course we can. Conservatives and the unimaginative love to pat us all on the back by saying that we listen to a white rapper and watch a black golfer, that women can play hockey and men can do, oh, some girly thing. It is in this spirit that I can test-drive a Rolls Royce. Or so I believed.

I could even get up in arms about it. Like, who would the dealer be to say that I can't take a half-million-dollar übermachine out for a joy ride? How does he know that I don't have trunk loads of cash at the ready to fling at such a thing? If he were to refuse me I could accuse him of socio-economic profiling. I have rights!

Despite my rights activism, I thought I should at least look the part. I needed an adult, not some twentysomething wiener in tight jeans and a stamp on his wrist from last night's show (like me), but an adult-adult. Someone over 40 who looked like he could have money.

Luckily my father was in town last week, visiting from Halifax (902 what!), and he had a good pair of shoes with him.

Wearing our best, we arrived at Grand Touring Automobiles on Dupont where we met Dean Jordan, one of the dealers. Mr. Jordan's specialty was the Aston Martin, and although it wasn't the most expensive brand on the lot (that went to Rolls Royce), it was what I most wanted to test drive.

Dean was the real deal. As British as the cars he sells, the man worked for 15 years at the Aston Martin plant building the machines by hand. In his great Midlands accent he delivered a Tommy gun of factoids for us:

• The leather used on the interiors is procured only from cattle farms in northern climates because there are less biting insects to compromise the hides.

• The common leather interior aims to use the whole cow, Aston Martin instead recognizes that the read-end of the animal offers the softest, smoothest leather and so each of its interiors is created by sewing nine cow asses together.

• The cars are made entirely by hand and they produce less than 1000 of them per year.

Interesting enough, but I hadn't come to chat. When I asked about test-driving one, the man looked at me a moment, and then to my cohort, and then, with magic words that I cannot recall, we were rendered completely powerless. (He may have just used that flashing memory-eraser thing from Men In Black for all I know.)

We would not be test-driving a car today.

This is the sort of magic that men like Dean have. He was able to tactfully rearrange the situation so that we were not going to be test-driving anything, but we weren't any worse for wear for it. An artful manipulation.

Just the same, there I was, 10 minutes later, behind the wheel of a V8 Vantage Aston Martin. Under my fingers, through the cow-ass leather steering wheel, it was pure power and precision. Dean came with, in the passenger's seat, and so we got to talking.

He told me about his days working in the Aston Martin factory, and about how he had test driven the famous DB9 (the "James Bond Car") on a track in Spain. And then it hit me: this kind man who had spent his life building and selling one of the most beautiful things humanity has ever produced has never owned one himself and could probably never own one. An injustice, I thought. Dean has a right to an Aston Martin!

As I drove and he drew my attention to the shifting suspension system, I found myself saying "Top gee-ah" automatically in an exaggerated English accent. I hoped I wasn't offending my kind British ride along, but I couldn't help it.

When we returned to the dealership I finally steered the conversation toward my angle: how can the average Joe show up and test-drive something exciting? The short answer, he said, is that he can't.

"We'll look at his watch. We'll see what kind of car he shows up in," said Dean. It makes sense: the dealership is concerned about possible damage, but even more than that, they don't want to log any extra kilometres on new cars, but still, as a hyper-sensitive Canadian, the idea that I can't do something because of my socio-economic standing sets off (ludicrous, foolish) alarm bells. So difficult is this life of non-millionairedom.

The other option, he said, was that average Joe can lay down five or 10 grand as a deposit to test-drive one, but then again, said Dean, "guys like us can't do that."

Photos by Stephen Reynolds.

But before we tell you the tale of the horrible, gruesome day trip we took through the GTA's most sinister community -- The Township of King(!) -- let us cast the first bit of black magick together:

If you're reading this on an Apple computer, invoke the following spell: Say "Humba Fumba Bim Bam Boo Chris Rules" three times and then hit control+option+apple+8. You are now cursed to read this story in the dark! (Unless you invoke the spell again right away -- your call.)

If you're reading this on a Windows computer, I don't know, go turn some lights off and maybe remove some clothing so that you're chilly. Now, read on, if you dare...

Our tale begins on the highway, heading north, where our brave travelers covered themselves in garlic for protection against vampires and our photographer Petia's driving.

In setting out on our quest for evil we brought with us our friend Thom, the White Giant, for luck, and Hye Jung, the Korean, 'cause she told us that Koreans are more superstitious than Canadians and so she'd probably be really good with ghosts and that kind of stuff.

When we rolled into the Township of King, Petia commented that small towns are always creepy. We all agreed. "Township of Stephen King, more like it."

The place begged the question: What does one do in a small town like this? A small town of Victorian houses fixed with widow's walks, dilapidated barns and hard-staring folk? (And why do all small towns have these three things?) Murder, be murdered or maybe visit the local pet cemetery when you're tired of all the death, we supposed.

Eventually Hye Jung sensed something. An evil presence, she was sure, was at a farm just ahead.

Sure enough, there was something there;Puck's Farm, a sort of farm-like theme park, just ahead on our left.

Puck's was full of children, all of whom seemed gleefully unaware that they were in the midst of evil. We said a quick prayer for their souls and then set out to explore.

There were many activities and distractions at Puck's. Amusement rides, a couple of mazes, and scores of animals for the petting, riding or smelling.

The animals seemed a little off to us at first, but then we started noticing them acting strangely. Their eyes were all glassy and they seemed to be passing gas far more than we thought normal. Horses, chickens, cows, ducks, donkeys, goats, pigs -- each of them eventually seemed to us to be possessed. At one point, a vicious and infected goat attempted to eat my notebook, but I fought it off.

I think the goat knew something. Earlier, I had copied a series of spells I found on the Internet into that notebook for protection. It was trying to disarm us and render us helpless against the malevolent forces in the air.

After the incident with the goat, Hye Jung had a vision. She suggested we use our Luck Giant Thom and a spell from my notebook to try to appease the malicious animals surrounding us everywhere. A sort of ceremony, a gesture of solidarity with the wretched, accursed beasts would ensure us safe passage.

We gently approached one of the beasts, a cow deceptively named Sweet Marie. We found something in the Internet spell notebook that involved sharing blood to settle mortal feuds. Since Sweet Marie's keeper didn't seem keen on us sharing blood with his heifer, we settled on milking her.

"Oombah goombah ballawalla hey!" said Thom, as he squirted some fresh cream into his coffee and then knocked it back. "Ha! And with that we are one."

"But wait, you have not yet drank of me!"

The cow didn't seem to understand, but its face had softened and become friendlier, so we assumed that the spell worked.

And then, just on the other side of the cedar maze, we saw him, finally. Hye Jung seemed to sense that it was him, but the rest of us recognized him from his modeling work he'd done on all those black metal album covers.

Satan. The Devil. Lucifer. That four-horned goat that rules the netherworld stood before us and frankly, we were really surprised by how big his balls were. They were practically down to the ground. I mean, how are you supposed to be all evil all the time and cause all those diseases and wars when you're constantly bumping your sack on rocks and logs and smaller goats? No wonder he's so angry all the time.

The goat devil must have heard us making fun of his balls, because as we left Puck's Farm, we all abruptly stopped dead as a wave of evil penetrated us. We got back into the car and tried to laugh it off, but after a few kilometres down the road, it was unmistakable -- the goat devil had cursed us.

We consulted the spell book. We'd need candles, incense, rose petals, a chalice, an athame (ritual dagger) and some rosewater to rid ourselves of the curse. We had most of those things on us (go figure), but we had to substitute a rum bottle for the chalice, a pair of scissors for the athame and a bottle of Hugo Boss cologne for the rosewater.

We stopped and Hye Jung sensed-out a good spot on the side of the road. As we were setting up our ritual objects for the exorcism, the owner of the property, Dan, stopped by and asked us what we were doing. When we explained our wretched predicament he gave us his blessing, a wish of luck and jogged away.

An auspicious visit it turned out to be. With Dan's luck, the luck of our Luck Giant, Hye Jung's powers and my book of Internet spells, we managed to pull ourselves out of the accursed grip of the goat devil and drove home safely to try on our Halloween costumes in the mirror.

Photos by the evil eye of Petia Karrin.

To get there we took the 191 Highway 27 Airport Rocket from Kipling Station. Aside from a lone condo building and some sports fields, the Arboretum remains 200 acres of mostly untouched nature reserve. All that land would likely have become a subdivision long ago if it weren't for the expansive flood plain inhibiting development.

Humber College students are fairly lucky in that respect. The Arboretum is walking distance from campus, and I imagine a backyard like this would offer some amazing stress relief after midterm exams. When the wind is blowing from the west, the aircraft approach path to Pearson International Airport is directly over the reserve. The high vantage point of the hill makes for a clear view for avid plane-spotters.

Butterfly enthusiasts frequent the reserve to watch smaller things in flight. The flood plain's abundant milkweed provides monarch butterflies with plenty of space to lay their eggs. August, their migratory season, is an especially good time for monarch sightings. Blue herons, frogs, snakes, and crayfish are not uncommon in the river and ponds. The Arboretum is also a birdwatcher's paradise. Winter chickadee-feeding, anyone?

The Arboretum's Centre for Urban Ecology offers a variety of nature programs for community and school groups. In the '90s, the arboretum was plagued by a purple loosestrife infestation that choked out neighbouring bulrushes, such that it became a summer nature camp activity for kids to pull out whatever purple loosestrife plants they came across.

For those with younger friends, it may be worth noting the Arboretum's upcoming Haunted Halloween events for kids aged 5 through 14, as well as a winter camp in late December. More information for both can be found on their events page.

Photos by James at Middle Age, Don MacKinnon and hitchontheleaves on Flickr.

Megan at the White Squirrel Cafe across from Trinity-Bellwoods Park says white squirrels sightings are most likely around 7 a.m. near the corner of Shaw and Dundas St. W. Last week she saw two white squirrels together. There may even be a third white squirrel in the park.

Unsatisfied with my chance encounters with an albino squirrel in Toronto, I took a day trip to Exeter, Ont. where white squirrels are not only the town's mascot (Willis The White Wonder), they're there in abundance. Or so I thought.

It's just over 200 km from Trinity-Bellwoods Park to McNaughton Park in Exeter, where they're said to roam. Not the only place to claim to be "Home of the white squirrel," Exeter decorates the lampposts, garbage cans and retail stores of their Main Street with the image of the white squirrel. They even host a white squirrel festival once a year.

The origins of Toronto's white squirrel(s) remain a mystery. One theory is that a white squirrel hitchhiked on the back of a truck in Exeter, bound for Toronto. But that doesn't account for the difference in type of white squirrel. The white squirrels in Trinity-Bellwoods have red eyes, making them albino squirrels.

The white squirrels in Exeter aren't albinos. Thought to be a genetic mutation from centuries ago, they frolic in the backyards and parks alongside their grey and black brethren. Technically, they're all Eastern Grey Squirrels, but due to a different amount of melanin, the squirrels that predominate Toronto, and most of Ontario, appear black.

After about an hour of stealthily hunting the cute, furry creatures in vain, I took a pee break at the Esso station. I quickly whipped out my camera just in time to catch a glimpse of one awfully agile white squirrel darting across the fence across the street.

I followed the white squirrel with my telephoto lens, hoping to get a closer glimpse but it was gone. Moments later it reappeared on the front porch of a nearby house. Before long I spotted another white squirrel nearby, appearing to kiss the tree it was climbing.

I hung out by this house at the corner of Simcoe St. for several minutes, stalking the little white wonders. Turns out they get along just fine with the black and grey squirrels of Exeter. Can you spot all three in the photo above?

Not content with this happenstance, I ventured further afield into the Ausable Bayfield Conservation area, starting at McNaughton Park, where white squirrels are said to roam free.

It takes a lot of patience and stealth to capture white squirrels in their natural habitat. They're not as prevalent as the black squirrels in say, Toronto's High Park. Eventually I found one munching on a cob of corn from the adjacent corn field.

A little further down the path, a startled white squirrel leaped in front of me and scurried up a tree, where I caught a glimpse of its bushy, white tail.

I counted six white squirrels throughout my afternoon jaunt in Exeter. It was well worth the two-and-a-half hour drive to see more of these rare squirrels frolicking about. It made for a fun little autumn road trip.

Do you have a white squirrel sighting you'd like to share? Have you seen a white squirrel outside of Trinity-Bellwoods Park in Toronto?

Photos by Roger Cullman.

Dear Girls,

As my unending quest to understand you rolls on, I'm faced with yet another question: do you ever come across certain objects, places or situations that inspire your inner child to mutiny, the little bastard charging forth out of your chest, rendering your adulthood utterly meaningless?

You'll have to forgive me, I come from a place of limited knowledge on the subject, but, do you ever see -- oh I don't know -- a pony or a rainbow or some messy hair attached to a plastic toy that clearly requires brushing, and then suddenly you're a kid again and against every mature inclination you've cultivated over the past decade or two you're oohing and awwing or brushing the shit out of that hair despite yourself?

Thanks (I love you),

Chris

----

This was me last weekend, pretty much -- only I was in the cockpit of an F-101 Voodoo fighter jet. As soon as I sat down I was no longer an adult. Finding the triggers to be sadly unresponsive, I immediately started singing out the sounds of my firefight, Pchew Pchew Pchew!.

Bill, the museum's volunteer front desk attendant that day, was walking by at the time and laughed at me. But it wasn't a laugh of pity (as were the laughs coming from our photographer and resident Girl expert, Petia), but a laugh of understanding.

Other than the real kids, and the part-time kids (like me), the Canadian Air & Space Museum is the playground of the airplane and war buff. And there's plenty to get nerdy about here: the world's only full-scale Avro Arrow model, a Lancaster (currently being restored) as well as a host of other military and experimental aircraft.

The Arrow is probably the biggest deal here (lit 'n' fig), and people come from all around to look up (waaaaay up) at its tragic splendor. For airplane nerds, or even simply the patriotic, the Arrow is a tragic dual symbol of Canada's aerospace technology potential and the tragedy (as is argued by many) of the project's premature discontinuation.

For most of us, the Avro Arrow is a Dan Akyroyd-related thing, like Ghostbusters and unpretentious wine, but for many it represents one of Canada's most amazing achievements.

The other giant plane in the building, the "Mighty Lanc" was impressive also, despite being in several pieces. The beast is famous for carrying the heaviest payloads during WWII -- up to 12,000 lbs of bombs -- for the RAF out of England.

Standing next to the Lanc was one of her original WWII pilots, a Scotsman by the name of Philip Gray. Mr. Gray was selling copies of his book Ghosts of Targets Past, a story about his tour of duty in the skies of Europe.

Part of Mr. Gray's job was to answer simply "yes" to questions like did you really fight in World War Two? Did you really fly this huge plane? Did you really bomb Nazis? But he also spent a good amount of time explaining the way things were to a few seriously interested history buff fellows, who asked deeper questions like how cold was it in the belly of that thing?

While it was indeed interesting and definitely humbling talking to a WWII veteran, something across the room from his table caught my eye. It looked like a plane, but the wings were bent upward. As I approached, I saw that they were attached to the fuselage with hinges. It was then that I knew it must be, that's right, the ornithopter!

What? Oh, you haven't heard of it? It's a plane that flies like a bird, by flapping its wings. Actually, you can buy toys in Chinatown that'll take care of that job, but in fact this machine, I learned, is the only one in the world to ever fly a human being through the air, and it was only achieved in 2006. Right here, too, at Downsview Park, by a professor and a bunch of grad students from the University of Toronto.

The "Space" in Canadian Air & Space Museum is really just a series of small models on the mezzanine level of the building, and looks more like a high school science fair than a proper museum, which is unfortunate because my inner kid loves space stuff. Though the museum changed its name in February of this year to match the similar institute in Washington D.C., it is desperately underfunded in comparison, and so this is what we have to live with for now.

To the average Canadian, our country's air and space history probably feels only deep enough to warrant a science fair-caliber exhibition like the mezzanine here. But as I learned on this trip, we do have a proud, impressive and groundbreaking legacy here that demands more.

The meek metal, mirror and glue gun model of Canada's first orbital satellite does no justice to the proud fact that the Alouette made us only the third country to have scientific instruments in space, following the U.S.S.R. and the U.S.A.

It makes me a little emotional to think about (and this, I know, isn't just a guy thing, it's a Canadian human thing). And speaking of emotions, put that beautiful little thing in your mind, and read this quote from the museum's free pamphlet:

[The Alouette was] built to work for one year - a truly remarkable accomplishment at the time. It was still functioning ten years later. At that point it was remotely shut down. Alouette still orbits the earth.

Photos by Petia Karrin.

Well, not quite. Traditionally, a high tea would be an early evening meal combining afternoon tea and the later evening meal. The Americanized term now simply refers to a fancier afternoon tea.

Fancier means pricey, right? Not here. What drew us to Etobicoke's Montgomery's Inn Museum was the fact that their high tea costs a mere $5, as opposed to that of say, Le Royal Meridien King Edward ($28), the Windsor Arms Hotel ($27), or the Old Mill Inn & Spa just down the road ($17). It's generally difficult to find high tea service for much less than that.

Granted, $5 is just that, and high tea at Montgomery's is nothing too elaborate. But that's not the point. The point is that you get to take a tour of the museum beforehand, for only an additional $5. Think of it as a fascinating glimpse into a 19th century Torontonian family's life, with tea and treats to boot. You could spend a whole afternoon there, and learn something new. I did.

Admission into the museum set us back $5.71. It was only early afternoon, so we were led by a kind and extremely knowledgeable guide through a full tour of the museum, through room after beautifully restored room. High tea would come after, as the tea room was only open from 2pm to 4:30pm.

Built around 1830 by Irish immigrants Thomas and Margaret Montgomery, the inn (and farm) housed the Montgomery family and countless tenants, servants, and farm labourers on a 400-acre property. Business was good and the Montgomery family enjoyed a relatively wealthy lifestyle, even adding a new bar room and second kitchen, as they ran the inn until the mid 1850s.

Each room of the museum was meticulously restored, containing countless real artifacts from the time period. A dessicated goose wing hung over the fireplace, once valued for its fire-resistant properties and used to sweep ashes from the hearth. Miscellaneous jars sat in the pantry, sealed with pig's bladder to keep the contents from spoiling. Even the inn's original signage was on display, rescued from the trash at the building's restoration.

The sitting room was a personal favourite. Beautifully furnished and one of only four rooms with a painted floor, it was also the only area of the house the Montgomery family had wallpapered.

The master bedroom was the most elaborate of all the bedrooms in the inn, featuring its own commode chair, a chamberpot politely concealed inside a wooden seat.

The many-windowed ballroom once held local meetings, small concerts, and dances. Records show that it was the site of at least one political campaign meeting.

There were about twelve rooms in all, and each room's sights were accompanied by stories and interesting trivia courtesy of our guide. We finished up just as the museum's high tea service began at around 2pm. We were given a choice between tea and cider, and a sweet or savoury plate. Intrepid as always, we decided on both.

The sweet plate (pictured in the leading photo) featured a peach tea cake, a double ginger crackle cookie, a chocolate nut wafer cookie, and a quaint iced sugar cookie shaped like a teapot. And a full pot of tea, of course.

The savoury plate consisted of traditional oatcakes with butter, cheddar slices, crackers, and another teapot cookie. A cold glass of cider washed it all down.

I'll reiterate that this was a far cry from royal treatment, but this was an inn, after all. And a museum. The whole thing including the tour cost about half of what you'd pay for high tea service alone, elsewhere. All in all, my thirst for both knowledge and tea were well sated, and I was a happy camper.

On October 18th, a special Apple Harvest Tea will be served and prepared with the Montgomery's Inn Tea Room's original oven. Rumour has it that treats will include warm apple crisp served with ice cream, and visitors will be able to see and taste things just as they were done back in the 1840s.

The town overlooks Georgian Bay, and though it is famous mostly for being a skiing place, there is one more tourist attraction that people everywhere should consider, even if only by reading this story. The place is Scenic Caves Nature Adventures, a privately-owned piece of historically-significant mountain speckled with spelunkable caves, gifted with pause-causing vistas and bedazzled with a series of modern "light adventure" facilities allowing visitors to zip-line, "treetop canopy walk" and pass over a locally-famous suspension bridge to nowhere.

The first and only downside to this place is that it is a tourist attraction. This means that it is attractive to people engaged in tourism, but more than that it means that somebody owns this attractive thing and thus we must pay them to see it; twenty-one dollars per adult, to be exact, for the privilege of walking around this bit of nature, and to play on some of the facilities. It's not an unreasonable cost - the owners have invested a lot of time and energy to make this place easily navigable to those interested in the lighter side of adventure - but this place would be so much better if it were still the attraction that had attracted so many for centuries before the land here was introduced to the notion that someone standing on it could own it.

(I've heard that to the various native peoples who inhabited and warred over this place over the centuries - the last being the Ojibwe who handed it over to the British by signing a piece of paper in 1818 - this concept would have seemed uncomfortable and alien. From our modern perspective it just might feel analogous to a situation like this: Imagine someone from a distant world coming and choosing an interesting friend of yours, sticking a flag into his/her flesh and then charging admission for you to hang out with him/her.)

The first thing we checked out was the bridge. This week's GTA Trippers and I are firmly afraid of heights, so we thought we'd get the tough stretch of the journey over with while we still had the nerve. The bridge stretches 300 meters over a gorge on the side of the mountain with Georgian Bay a billion miles below.

Our inner duels with acrophobia here were made more complex by the trees below us. Each one, mostly outstretching, graceful oak trees, reached almost to the platform of the bridge, and so rather than feeling like we were suspended high in the air, it felt more like we were suspended on a soft bed of safe green, gold and red leafiness. But then we'd catch the odd glimpse of the forest floor through the holes in the canopy and our stomachs would fall right through, sucked into gravity by nauseous vertigo, crashing into the undergrowth below.

But then on the other side of this adventurous and action-packed suspension bridge in the middle of the wilderness all we found were five signs and a lot of trees. Four of them said things like "If you build it..." and "Owner Rob Thorburn has visited suspension bridges all over the world...". The fifth sign said, "Turn around now and go back."

On our way back up the mountain heading toward the caves, we visited a small wood cabin devoted to the zip-lining and treetop canopy walk (and a hip hop and you don't stop) tours. Inside we spoke to a woman who told us we needed to register in advance and pay $95 if we wanted to join this type of tour. We decided that this would probably be a fun thing to do when we become older and have more money, but just then an elderly woman approached us. She came at us like a soothsayer out of the mists, her blue eyes blazing with some bit of key information she believed we would be requiring to complete this long mission called Life. The treetop canopy walk, she said, was a very memorable and affecting experience and we really ought to experience it. We believed her.

Munching apples we found scattered all over the grounds, we finally arrived at the top of the escarpment and to the famously scenic caves. All of the caves were along a trail that looped through the forest and they varied in depth and penetrability.

Each cave had a name telling us about its defining characteristics: Ice Cave retains snow and ice until the early fall; Natural Refrigerator is next to Ice Cave and as such is much colder than the world around it (we could see our breath in here despite the t-shirt weather outside); Fern Cave has ferns; Bear Cave was a possible former home to some bears. My favourite, Fat Man's Misery, is a cave in the form of a tunnel that gets progressively narrower until you are wedging your side-turned body, its heart pounding, up through a 36 cm crack in the world.

Though the cave names are perfectly fine and work well for avoiding confusion among light adventure adventurers like us, we did find ourselves giggling about how unimaginative they seemed to us. But then on the way home we noticed that this unimaginative naming of things is common in this part of the world. First there was the place we were visiting, Scenic Caves; the road we took to get there, Country Road 124 (which runs over Pretty River and intersects Golf Course Road); a shop along the way called Doorland (they sell doors) and a neighbouring village that was clearly not Ottawa calling itself Nottawa.

Before we left, we stopped for a little tuckered-out time at a spot along the trail called Lover's Rest. Here we met a coin-operated set of binoculars named Hi-Spy Masterview II. It may have just been the oxygen ratio in the crisp, clear air, but in that moment it looked to us like a sadder cousin of famous robot Johnny Five, except where there should have been mobilizing treads there were only bolts affixing him in place, a prisoner. We gave voice to the character, doing our best impressions of what we thought he might like to say, and then we gave him a hug and thanked him for his hospitality.

Photos by Petia Karrin