A Little Piece of Paradise - Tobermory

There are some places you visit and think, well, that was nice. And then there are places you leave wondering why on earth it took you so long to get there. Tobermory was the latter.

My husband and I recently escaped for a couple of days to this little harbour town at the tip of the Bruce Peninsula. Not a week. Not a big vacation involving airports, planning and lots of luggage. Just two days. And somewhere along the way, I was reminded that sometimes two days is just right, just enough.

We left home at 3:30 in the morning because apparently when you only have two days, sleeping isn't that important and headed north.

I had seen all the pictures of Tobermory before. The beautiful blue water. The Grotto. The famous flowerpots. But we've all seen those travel pictures where someone has clearly found the very best angle and you arrive to discover it doesn't look quite like that in real life. Though Tobermory does. It really is that beautiful.

Our first stop was the Grotto. Now, when someone says "hike," I tend to picture a nice walk through the trees. Maybe a bench somewhere along the way. A coffee shop at the end would be perfect. This was not quite that. There were rocks. Lots of rocks. But then we came through the trees and saw Georgian Bay.

That water. It was so blue and clear that it almost didn't look real. The kind of blue you expect to see somewhere in the Caribbean, not a few hours from home in Ontario. We climbed over the rocks, walked along the shoreline and stopped more than once just to take it all in. Suddenly, the rocks were forgiven.

What we didn't know was that we apparently weren't the only ones enjoying the area that morning. The next day, while we were out on a boat cruise, people started talking about bear sightings at the Grotto. From the morning before. OUR morning. Excuse me? Was there actually a bear anywhere near us? I have no idea. But I'm very happy I didn't know about it at the time. Some information is much better learned the next day.

We spent the rest of our short getaway exploring Little Tub Harbour, Big Tub Lighthouse, Flowerpot Island, Singing Sands and the shipwrecks you can actually see below the water. And yes, there was more walking. By this point, our legs were starting to question the definition of a getaway. But somewhere between the rocks, boats and sore feet, something else happened. Life got very simple. Where should we walk? What should we see? Where should we eat? Should we just sit here for a while? That was pretty much it.

We sat overlooking the harbour. We watched the sunset. We ate outside. We watched boats come and go. There wasn't somewhere else we needed to be. And I loved that. There was also one thing I couldn't stop watching while we were there. The Chi-Cheemaun ferry.

I knew, obviously, that ferries carried vehicles. I just don't think I'd ever really stopped to think about exactly what that means until I stood there watching this thing being loaded. Cars. RVs. Transport trucks. Tractors. Huge rigs. One after another disappearing inside. At some point you can't help thinking: How is that thing possibly going to float? I understand that it does. I know there are engineers who understand things I clearly do not. But when you actually stand there and watch that much weight drive onto a boat, it seems slightly ridiculous that the whole thing doesn't just sink. Yet off it goes across Lake Huron. I'm choosing to trust the engineers.

When we got home, I did what so many of us do after a trip. I posted the pictures on Facebook. The blue water. The Grotto. The lighthouse. The flowerpots. The harbour. The sunset. And they were beautiful pictures. But somehow, they didn't quite do it justice. A picture doesn't tell you about climbing over all those rocks and then coming through the trees to see that incredible water. It doesn't tell you there may have been a bear somewhere around while you were walking through the woods without a clue.

It doesn't capture what it feels like to look down through the water at a shipwreck. There is something a little strange about sitting comfortably in a boat looking down at another boat that didn't have quite as successful a day on the water. But there is also something amazing about seeing that piece of history right there beneath you. And it certainly doesn't explain why two grown adults can stand watching transport trucks drive onto a ferry and become completely fascinated by how the thing is going to float.

The pictures show where we went. But the stories are what I want to remember. And maybe that's true of more than vacations. We take so many pictures now. Birthdays. Dinners. Grandchildren. Vacations. Sunsets. We have thousands of them sitting on our phones. But sometimes the thing we really want to remember isn't actually in the picture. It's what was happening around it.

For a couple of days, our world became pretty small. We walked. We explored. We ate. We laughed. We watched boats come and go. We watched the sun disappear over the lake. And we didn't have to watch a clock.

Life can get complicated without us even noticing it happening. There is always something that needs doing, fixing, answering or figuring out. Then every once in a while, you get a couple of days like these. You walk until your feet hurt. You eat overlooking the water. You watch the sunset. You stand beside the person you've built a life with and look at something beautiful together. And you remember that sometimes the best parts of life really aren't that complicated.

Maybe we don't always need the big vacation. Maybe we don't need to go very far. Sometimes it's just getting in the car, heading somewhere you haven't been before and spending a couple of days seeing what you find.

Although next time, I will check the bear sightings first. 🐾