Heading North Toward the Bay

As we turn around and head downstream to the north, we find the valley curving to the east a bit and widening to a broad rolling landscape as you head toward Georgian Bay.  There are numerous viewpoints along the rural concession roads in the middle of the valley, though many are just tantalizing glimpses.  Here are some of the best I've found.

We're on the Epping Sideroad here, looking east across the lower valley where it's several miles wide.  You can pick out the flat swamp in the valley bottom where the silver maples are already turning slightly red, and beyond it the open fields of farmland.

I just couldn't resist including this picture.  I love the way the light is striking those hay bales. This view looks south again toward the upper valley.

And a closer view shows the higher rocky headlands of the Niagara Escarpment cliffs where they stand out from the valley edge.  The one farthest to the right is Old Baldy, the cliffs we visited yesterday.

Turn the corner and up the hill and suddenly you get a view northeast and Blue Mountain is revealed in front of you in the distance.  Blue Mountain is the highest elevation of the Niagara Escarpment in Ontario, and lined with several ski clubs on the north and east facing side (away from us).  You can see the blue haze from which it gets its name, also the name of one of the ski clubs, widely known as 'Blue' if you're a skier.

Driving straight east across the valley to the lower west facing slopes of the photo above gives us this view, and from here Georgian Bay is shining bright blue in the distance.  We're looking northwest from Grey Road 2, across the town of Thornbury.  Below us on the slope, though you can't see it, is one of the two wineries in this region, though I'm amazed at the vineyards surviving at all this far north.

There's just something about that blue water.  Notice the sailboat like a tiny white beacon.  Tomorrow we'll visit the shore of Georgian Bay itself.