06/05: Explore the Bruce 2015 Edition - Day 1
Category: General
Posted by: The Agnew Family
Another beautiful spring day for us and a perfect day to start Explore the Bruce in the sports cars. In this year's edition of Explore the Bruce there are 5 stops south or west of Walkerton, so we decided to explore them today.
Here we are ready to hike to the first passport stop. This year we all remembered to wear our Explore the Bruce T-shirts.
First stop was Carrick Tract Trails just south of Mildmay. The trails are set up for mountain biking but if you don't mind the winding trail it works fine for walking as well.
Next stop was the Bruce Botanical Food Gardens in Ripley. The gardens is a non-profit corporation with the Mission Statement "Through tourism, education, hands on experience and cultural activity, to address the issues of food insecurity, sustainable agriculture, and the issues faced by the small family farm." All of the plants, trees and shrubs in the garden can in some way be used for food. As we are early in the growing season the garden was a little bare though we did see garlic and walking onions. I think we'll need to visit it again late in the summer when the garden is in it's prime.
Pine River Cheese just south of Kincardine was our third stop. If you had lots of will power you could punch your card and continue to the next stop or you could be like us and wander inside the store to look around. We picked up a 9 year old cheddar, an award winning asiago and chocolate raspberry cheese fudge. Looking forward to trying all of these cheeses.
There is a small museum and a view of the cheese making area. Unfortunately, we didn't time our visit very well as we got to see the clean up not the making of the cheese.
Kincardine is always a nice place for a visit and is a stop on the Explore the Bruce. This year, not only was it a stop but there are an additional 5 stops that qualify you for a special Kincardine prize.
One of the extra stops took us to the Labyrinth Peace Garden.
That is snow on the beach .... yup snow. Ed and I were surprised to see the snow but Ellen and Rob weren't. They were in Sauble beach a few days ago and said there was still ice in the water and lots of snow on the beach.
Last stop of the day was passport stop 2 Folmer Landscaping, Gift Shop and Garden Centre just outside of Walkerton. This is a pretty place to go shopping for plants as there are gardens everywhere. It really gets you in the mood to buy plants, and yes we did but only a couple as there isn't much room for cargo in the sports cars.
The Folmers have a very sweet golden retriever who loves the water. They couldn't keep him out of the pond at the garden centre.
A couple of the wood carvings we saw today. The piper was at the town park in Ripley where we enjoyed our picnic lunch. The Selkie (a mythical creature that lives as a seal in the sea but shed their skin to become human on land) was in Kincardine.
We had a great day and are looking forward to visiting the rest of the stops on Explore the Bruce.
Here we are ready to hike to the first passport stop. This year we all remembered to wear our Explore the Bruce T-shirts.
First stop was Carrick Tract Trails just south of Mildmay. The trails are set up for mountain biking but if you don't mind the winding trail it works fine for walking as well.
Next stop was the Bruce Botanical Food Gardens in Ripley. The gardens is a non-profit corporation with the Mission Statement "Through tourism, education, hands on experience and cultural activity, to address the issues of food insecurity, sustainable agriculture, and the issues faced by the small family farm." All of the plants, trees and shrubs in the garden can in some way be used for food. As we are early in the growing season the garden was a little bare though we did see garlic and walking onions. I think we'll need to visit it again late in the summer when the garden is in it's prime.
Pine River Cheese just south of Kincardine was our third stop. If you had lots of will power you could punch your card and continue to the next stop or you could be like us and wander inside the store to look around. We picked up a 9 year old cheddar, an award winning asiago and chocolate raspberry cheese fudge. Looking forward to trying all of these cheeses.
There is a small museum and a view of the cheese making area. Unfortunately, we didn't time our visit very well as we got to see the clean up not the making of the cheese.
Kincardine is always a nice place for a visit and is a stop on the Explore the Bruce. This year, not only was it a stop but there are an additional 5 stops that qualify you for a special Kincardine prize.
One of the extra stops took us to the Labyrinth Peace Garden.
That is snow on the beach .... yup snow. Ed and I were surprised to see the snow but Ellen and Rob weren't. They were in Sauble beach a few days ago and said there was still ice in the water and lots of snow on the beach.
Last stop of the day was passport stop 2 Folmer Landscaping, Gift Shop and Garden Centre just outside of Walkerton. This is a pretty place to go shopping for plants as there are gardens everywhere. It really gets you in the mood to buy plants, and yes we did but only a couple as there isn't much room for cargo in the sports cars.
The Folmers have a very sweet golden retriever who loves the water. They couldn't keep him out of the pond at the garden centre.
A couple of the wood carvings we saw today. The piper was at the town park in Ripley where we enjoyed our picnic lunch. The Selkie (a mythical creature that lives as a seal in the sea but shed their skin to become human on land) was in Kincardine.
We had a great day and are looking forward to visiting the rest of the stops on Explore the Bruce.