Star gazing at Lion's Head Marina

While looking at a map of the Bruce Peninsula, the area where we were at the time, I saw a little section detailing astronomy evenings on Fridays and Saturdays at the Lion's Head Marina which is part of where we were camping in the trailer. Being interested in astronomy we all took a walk across once it got dark to see what was going on. I think we should have gone earlier as the event was already under way with telescopes of varying sizes set up and short rows of people lined up eager to look into the Milky Way. At each telescope was a very knowledgable person to explain what was being viewed on his apparatus.

John explaining the wonders of the Universe at his telescope

The first one we looked at was a low power view of the planet Saturn. It was as clearly visible as we had seen it through Phil's telescope in Stratford - a very clear dot with a ring around it and some moons nearby. The owner, John, was also pointing out other stars and constellations with a laser pointer, most of which I as a Southern Hemisphere dweller have never seen, like The Swan, Cassiopeia and the North Star which points to the north celestial pole around which all the stars appear to rotate as the earth spins. John changed the magnification of his telescope to a higher power and we were able to see a somewhat closer view of Saturn and with a bit of intense staring through the viewfinder and possibly imagination, an area of separation between sections of the rings was visible. The bands of rings around Saturn he said was from 1 to 10 meters thick, and there we were looking at all this. Unfortunately I was not able to take any photograph through the viewfinders but was able with the group's permission to take one of the telescope.
We were shown a star cluster called M13 and the Swan nebula through a much bigger and more powerful telescope which was amazing to see.
The International Space Station came hurtling past at about 11:30. The ISS  circles the Earth every 90 minutes at an incredible 7 kilometres a second. That speed is unimaginable.
Something which I noticed, but didn't seem to be interesting enough for the astronomers to focus their telescopes on was a large, very distant glow on the waters of Georgian Bay. Both people I pointed it out to said it looked like the lights of a distant city but there were no cities for many kilometres in that direction or the northern lights but it was the wrong shape and colour. Both then went straight back to explaining some distant star system or galaxy, leaving me even more curious about the lights on the water. It seemed to me that astronomers prefer glows billions of light years away in the sky to odd glows a few hundred kilometres from them in one of the Great Lakes of North America. I may never know what it was... unless I go and search Google for an answer. I'll post any explanation I find here.
(Update: no further explanation found yet)

(VIDEO) Tobemory Revisited and Harbourside Music

I awoke before the sun rose again with messages about kitty Abby and that she was still in the ceiling with food and water and the hole she got in, blocked up so at least she would be trapped until it was possible to get her out. Being a feral cat she is terrified of strangers and would only run away. I am the only person they trust. In the mean time I had to wait until they could get someone to trap her.

So we drove up to Tobemory at the head of the Bruce Peninsula to await the arrival of the Chi-Cheemaun, a large passenger and vehicle ferry which travels from mainland Canada to Manitoulin Island about 45 kilometres north west. This island in Lake Huron is the largest freshwater lake island in the world.

Being a Friday evening in summer here at Lion's Head means there is music entertainment on the lake shore. Brad and I spent as long as we could stand listening to 2 of the 3 musical performances lasting half an hours hour each. A trio including a female vocalist were almost at the end of their act and followed by our neighbour here at the camp site who played a guitar and sang. He was quite good in comparison. The (mainly elderly) audience seemed to be enjoying the show.
We went back to the trailer for supper.

(Note: this isn't a fantastic music video because I didn't want to impose on the audience as I shot with my phone.)

From my Window the... Lake

Dawn at Lion's Head Beach

This morning I watched the sun rise over part of the Niagara Escarpment on Georgian Bay, a bay off Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes of North America.

We set up the trailer on the edge of the inlet at the Lion's Head Beach Park Camp ground yesterday after a 2 hour drive north from Stratford. Lion's Head is on what is known as the Bruce Peninsula a large spit of land dividing Georgian Bay from Lake Huron.

This morning, from my bed in the trailer, I watched a humming bird flit around in the shrubbery on the edge of the lake.

The lion's head 

The town is called Lion's Head after a rock formation in the end of the cliffs on the small bay which in certain light conditions resembles the head of a lion. Something I have noticed on my trips to Canada is that no matter where one goes, there are always gulls and one doesn't necessarily need to be anywhere near the sea. The gulls here are particularly raucous and are always patrolling the lake edge by the camp sites looking for food scraps. Mallard ducks also swim backwards and forwards doing the same thing. Even Canada geese do the same thing.

It's 8 am and already it's hot in the sun. The temperature is expected to reach 29°C later today.

We drove to the Grotto, a cave system on the lake, but we were turned away at the gate as the place was full. At 8 o'clock this morning 200 cars had already passed through the gates so we headed to Tobamorey a lake-side town at the end of the Bruce Peninsula for coffee, but the place we wanted to go to was closed. ???? So back to Lion's Head it was and a visit to the Lion's Head lookout through a walk in the forest on the headland. We found numerous lookout points, but unfortunately didn't venture further along enough to get to the actual lion's head rock formation. We took some photos then headed back to camp for lunch as we were expecting friends of the family to visit later in the afternoon.

After lunch the boys and I went to find another cave system nearby, but I wasn't allowed to go to the caves as I was not wearing closed shoes. The owner at the pay office asked me if I was seriously going to walk through the caves in slops, and I said yes, I had just walked to the lion's head in them and was told that I couldn't go to the caves in them, so I stayed in the car while the boys ventured off. At least they showed me some pics. We may visit again another day. (We didn't.)

When we returned to the camp I was greeted by the news via Whatsapp that one of my young kittens had escaped from the cattery where they are staying, and she had climbed into the ceiling of the house there. She is one of two 9 month old feral kittens I adopted and tamed from a litter of four from work. She is very adventurous and it's hardly surprising that she made an escape. I felt very helpless so far away but was assured by the owner of the cattery they would do their best to capture her and return her to her brother in the pen. I didn't sleep too well.

From my Window the... Street

SABC orchestra conductor Dr. Edgar Cree used to record a radio programme at the SABC studios in Durban in the eighties called "From My Window, the Sea". I worked on many of these recording sessions, hence the title of today's post.
It's another lovely day in Stratford this morning. A gentle breeze was blowing but later in the day it became very hot with the temperature in the shade reaching 30 degrees C.

Big cumulus clouds came up later in the day but no sign of a thunderstorm or rain in Stratford.

Stratford on Monday

Today is a civic public holiday - I'm not sure what or why but it is. 

With Brad and Glynis out at work, and Mark going out, Bruce and I went into town for coffee at Balsak's... sorry that should be Balzac's followed by a short walk down to the lake edge and lunch at The Boat House Patio where we sat and watched people boarding the small pleasure boat for a trip around the lake and others on small pedal-powered boats made for two.

Charm making machine

 Next to the Patio is a small hand-cranked machine for making little Stratford themed pendant charms. I made 2 as gifts.

After lunch we drove back home and Bruce cut the lawn while I wrote this.

Oh,  now it's raining so I'll have to go inside.

We've been having a few showers lately, with a few rolls of thunder as storm clouds pass by. It'll be over in a few minutes.

The Docks at Bayfield

The Village of Bayfield is situated on the eastern shore of Lake Huron with it's pleasure craft harbour on the mouth of the Bayfield River.

The 70 km drive north west from Stratford took us through quite a rain storm just outside Mitchel where we stopped at Tim Hortons for coffee.

On the other side of town the rain stopped and we continued past numerous wind turbines towards the coast.

RV Hunting... just for fun!

Class C Motorhome

Fifth wheel RVs

Saturday morning dawned overcast and much cooler (temperatire 15ºC) with some early, light drizzle which had stopped by the time Bruce, Mark and I left for a little outing to McPhail's of Harriston (click the link if you really want to see where it is on Google Maps).

The object of the exercise