Holiday to Canada in Aug 2024: Day 4 – Wellington to Brockville

By Nige on September 3, 2024 at 1:55 pm
Type: Post
Story: Holiday to Canada in Aug 2024 Category: Travel
Tags: Brockville | Canada | Hertz | Holidays | Wellington

I woke at around 3am; Vick managed to sleep through to 4:30am. It was really cold in the room when we woke up.

We had left the patio door ajar so we could hear the wonderful sound of the water lapping on the shoreline of Lake Ontario.

You can see small waves on the Great Lakes, primarily as a result of wind blowing across them. Scientists have concluded that the moon doesn’t cause tides on the Great Lakes, in the same way as the moon has a gravitational impact on the oceans.

The hotel planned to serve coffee at 7am and croissants at 7:30am, so we decided to drive out to Tim Horton’s, just down the road which opened at 5:30am.

Unfortunately, their espresso machine was on the blink, so we had to deal with horrible filtered coffee. Not a great start to the day.

In a funny way, it felt like a depressing start to the day, compared with our normal Starbucks-starts to other days.

Interestingly, I later found out that there was a Starbucks only 16km away. If I had realised, I would have suggested it was worth the drive!

We did catch the stunning effects of the sunrise on Lake Ontario as we walked back to the car.

The hotel provided filter coffee downstairs from 7am, although it was already out at 6:15am, when we got back from Tim Horton’s. The croissants appeared not long after 7:30am and they were very nice.

Breakfast started at 8am, and we were first in. Vick ordered the gluten-free eggs benedict, and I had the classic Drake Devonshire, which was the equivalent of a full English.

Both were very tasty and prepared us well for the 100-mile drive to Brockville.

We hit the road around 9 am, and our first target (as normal) was a Starbucks. This one was located in Gananoque, quickly followed by a charge up, a mile down the road.

It was a little overcast at the start of the day, but that made travelling less of a chore. We enjoyed our Starbucks whilst we charged up to 100%.

The final leg of the drive only took just over 30 mins, and we parked up at 48 King St West at the Rob Thompson Hotel.

Good to see the hotel offered free parking!

There was no front desk, just an email containing a set of codes that allowed us into the hotel and into our suite.

We had arrived at around midday, so it was too early to get access to our suite, so it was time to check out the sights in and around Brockville.

The key tourist attraction in Brockville was the Brock Trail, which was a paved trail that stretched throughout the city.

Beginning at Centeen Park, The Brock Trail ran along the waterfront, through Blockhouse Island, Hardy Park, past the Rotary Park, and then up through the green space surrounding downtown’s residential areas.

As we walked along the trail, we found numerous examples of oversized chairs, which naturally attract tourists to take photos and post them online. Vick couldn’t resist.

According to Wikipedia, in Canada Adirondack chairs are referred to as Muskoka chairs.

Interestingly, Wikipedia refers to there being at least one oversized chair being built as a tourist attraction. Only one?

There was a lot of cover on the trail, so when the sun broke through the clouds, there was plenty of protection from the sun’s rays.

After completing the first section of the trail, we checked out the Brockville Railway Tunnel (see next post) and then we took an early break and rest for an ice cream near the harbour.

We had an interesting chat with the counter staff, who made some recommendations for restaurants in the area.

Having taken on board the eating out recommendations, we enjoyed our ice cream and then got back on the trail.

There were some interesting sights on the trail, including a Canadian Airforce aircraft on display.

That aircraft was part of a display team, similar to the Red Arrows

We didn’t walk that far to be honest, before we decided we should head back towards the hotel to see whether we could get in.

We were both thinking about a snooze before doing anything else in Brockville!

Holiday to Canada in Aug 2024