Sunday 13 February 2011

Snowshoeing The Toronto Islands

Since we got our snowshoes, Teena and I have been out almost every weekend exploring places we never thought of visiting in the winter.

This week we thought it would be fun to take the ferry over to Wards Island and explore the Toronto Islands.

It was only $6.50 return trip on the ferry and a ferry ride across the harbour, smashing and crunching its way through the ice is worth the price of admission in itself. Teena and I had a ball being outside as the ferry jostled its way through the ice packs.

The island is quite interesting in the winter. Most everything is closed, of course, but the island takes on a whole different perspective than what we remembered from the summer. As Wards Island has residents living year round, there is also a restaurant called The Rectory which is opened year round. It is called the Rectory as the building used to be the home of the priest for the island church, The Church of St. Andrew-by-the-Lake.

The islands are quite large and after walking out of the Wards Island neighborhood, we strapped on the shoes and hiked over to the pier which is about half way around the island. The weather was great and it was a fun time.

We ended our trek back at the Rectory where we split a fabulous Chicken Club sandwich with greens and each had a welcome glass of Riesling.

The road through the island is clear and there are many good places to walk. Even though it is winter, I would definitely recommend a winter trip over to the Toronto Islands.

Teena's blog of our day is here.

Here come the ferry, busting its way through the ice. It was a fun trip over and back.

Someone having fun sailing the ice

Arriving at Wards Island

Teena on the frozen boardwalk

Toronto, looking across the frozen harbour from Wards Island

The beach is not so inviting this time of year.

We enjoyed The Rectory and will go back.

Teena enjoying her wine at The Rectory afterward.

I enjoyed my wine too.

The trip back was colder and bumpier as we had more ice to bust through. Fun trip! It was hard to believe the ferry had just broke through this path minutes before.

No comments: