Sandbanks Camping 2021

Welcome to Sandbanks Provincial Park camping extravaganza 2021!

This story really begins 5 months ago when we had 3 families trying to book 2 campsites at 7am before the sites all filled up. Two days and we were unsuccessful. The third day Chris and I, working on separate computers, were able to snag 2 sites! Phew! When Chris went to book his time off, however, the first week had already been booked by his colleague. So the rest of the Toronto Taylors travelled to Sandbanks while Chris enjoyed being in a house all by himself for the first time since March 2020. He then travelled by train to Belleville on Friday evening to join us for the last 4 days.

We were welcomed to the park on Sunday August 22 with a heat warning that would remain in effect for the next 5 or 6 days. We did a moonlight walk on the beach under a full moon. Two of our crew did their own full moon by skinny dipping in the lake.

The full moon rising above, and the full moon setting below.

Luckily, the lake always had a breeze so we spent most of our days at the beach swimming, playing cards, reading, and relaxing

Almost every night consisted of a campfire sing-a-long. Michael had the job of strumming while Maryke was in charge of the chords AND the harmonica for piano man. We did not have a piano... We did have back-up guitar players. Lucas's Whiskey in the Jar was a favourite and Thierry added some Arkells to the mix.

Time at the campsites were spent eating, singing, chatting, playing games (Secret Hitler was a favourite again), teenagers charging phones, and reading or napping in the ever popular hammock. Our beloved hammock did not survive this last trip and is now retired from service. 

A second annual wine tour was a huge success. We started with sparkling wines at Hinterland Winery and purchased a bottle there.

Next stop was the charming Grange of Prince Edward Vineyards and Estate Winery where Chris and I both sampled the tasting box and all 4 of us had some gourmet sausages. Yum!

Our last winery of the day was Closson Chase Vineyards which had a very professional feel to it. A talented pianist moonlighting at the winery wowed us with her wine glass dexterity, easily handling 10 of our 12 glasses in one hand.

 We finished off with some delicious coffee at an Italian café the Piccolina in nearby Wellington.

The next day, on advice from a good friend, the adults had dinner out at Harry's Charbroiled food truck. Delicious burgers outside of the Waupoos Pub where we purchased some locally made Cressy Mustard. We also take a pretty awesome photo there. I think we look like a tourism brochure!

While we were eating, the kids rustled up their own food and spent the sunset playing games at the beach.

Our final tradition was ice cream scoops on our way out of the park and back to Toronto. Another fantastic year! Love all these people so much!

I survived a 2 week camping trip

I wanted to try to come up with a nice, well-crafted piece over-viewing our 2 week vacation. I have a feeling that if I wait to do this, it will never get done. So in the interest of expediency, I will try to forgo the literary excellence to which you have all become accustomed.

The camping was great. I was so worried about being in a tent for 2 weeks with 2 preschoolers, a guy who doesn't handle lack of sleep overly well, and myself who will bottle up frustrations instead of dealing with them until I become quite unpleasant myself. Night one, the boys snuggled into their sleeping bags and then out of their sleeping bags. They talked and giggled and fought and tickled until finally they fell asleep. The first few mornings M would get up between 6 and 7. After a few days though, the later nights kept both boys asleep until well after 7am. There was no way we could adhere to the normal 7pm bedtime routine.....it was still far too light out.

The trip was hardest on M. He is the youngest, and at 3 years old he was quite preoccupied with missing his toys. He was also missing a routine. He would not eat much at meal times, but then whine incessantly through the day that he was hungry. Nothing makes you feel guiltier than having your child proclaim to everyone within a kilometer radius that HE IS HUNGRY! I believe he was actually homesick/bored/tired/out of his element and he expressed this by saying he was hungry.

I was surprised that L handled it so well. Perhaps because he has been looking forward to "going camping" for so long. This is a kid who does not always do well with change. If something is different than normal, or even just not what he had imagined would happen he becomes very upset. Sometimes it seems like he is just being difficult, but when he gets into one of these irrational stand-offs, it is easy to see that he is quite viscerally upset. So, for a vacation with something new each day, he did very well.

The driving up and down mountains was good. I quickly became accustomed to all the shifting up and down mid-turn. Thankfully I had my "Aussie-bubble" and didn't care (too much) if there was anyone behind me waiting to pass. I even passed one or two slow drivers myself! I learned the hard way that it is best to gear down rather than use your brakes all the way down a pass. The squeaky brakes got a little bit squeakier after having taught me that lesson.

C was also great. He was wonderfully supportive the whole time. As he is the one with the kids 24/7 at home, the increased exposure of 24/7 and ALWAYS together (no playing quietly in a separate room) was harder on him, but he managed the extra stress very well.

While the kids got less sleep, we adults actually got more. Unlike North American campgrounds, European ones are essentially an open field of tents and campervans. Open fires are not allowed. Without a nice cosy fire to sit in front of at night, we usually went to bed ourselves shortly after darkness fell.

So the general synopsis is: we all survived, we even enjoyed ourselves. The boys loved it.
I will do some future posts more on what we did in the coming days. I will try hard to keep them as succinct as possible, but I do have the propensity to go on, and on, and on, and on...