Laurel Creek Conservation Area St Jacobs ON

Up at the crack of dawn …  NOT !   We slept in till around 9:30 am.  Had our Cinnamon Buns that we bought yesterday at the St Jacobs Farmers Market.   Yummmmy.



After eating that, we decided we better get out and do some walking.  There were a couple more Geocaches in the area that we could go and see if we could find.  The first one was in the Dignity Memorial Grove.  It is a peaceful place with a winding little path among the trees.

 

Oh here is the Geocache, hanging from a tree branch.



Now can you see it better ?



I reach in to remove it from the hanging basket it is in.  Then examine the treasures held within and sign the log book. 

 

We finished our walk around the Memorial Grove.



And then struck off in pursuit of another Geocache that was located within the park boundaries.  This one was along a pathway through the forest.  It was really buggy in amongst the trees, I pulled up my hood in an attempt to keep the bugs away.

 

It has to be around here somewhere, keep looking.



And I found it.  Quickly sign the book and lets get out of here and away from the bugs.

  

Back at the Motorhome we have a light lunch and then we head out on a bit of a tour of the area.
There is an old covered bridge not too far from here that we want to check out.  It is Sunday today, so we saw lots of Mennonites out in their horse and buggies and dressed in their Sunday best, heading to or from church.

 

We found the old wooden bridge.  Formally it is called The West Montrose Covered Bridge, but unofficially it is known as The Kissing Bridge.



This is the only remaining covered bridge in Ontario.  You can read all about it in the photo below.



It is actually a very good day to be here because the Mennonites on their horses and buggies are using the bridge to get to their social events after church.



Real horse meets Iron Horse.



The old bridge was sagging a bit in the middle so Karen was kind enough to hold it up so that the bridge could carry the weight of the horses and buggies crossing over it.

 

This couple had pulled their kayak ashore just under the bridge and were enjoying a picnic lunch.



The next stop on our tour today is the Village of St Jacobs.



Our first stop is Hamel Brooms.  This is a Mennonite shop that makes hand made corn brooms.  We bought one so that we can sweep our outdoor mats.



Then we browsed our way through Christmas in St Jacobs.


We could not walk past The Ice Cream Salon.

 

While we were enjoying our ice cream treat, I fired up the Geocaching app and discovered that there was a Geocache nearby.  So we headed off to find it.  It is somewhere hidden at the Ice Cream Caboose.



Trying to be stealthy and not attract any attention, I zero in on the cache location.

  

To celebrate the success of finding this cache we had to have a strawberry ice cream sundae, with fresh St Jacobs strawberries.



We walked the main street of St Jacobs to burn off all those extra calories we just gained.

 

There are several murals throughout the village.

 

We enjoyed our afternoon wandering around the village, but it was time to head back to our motorhome.  I decided to try out our new broom.

 

I fired up the Weber Q and we had hamburgers for dinner.  After dinner I lit a fire and we had roasted marshmallows for dessert.

  

It was a very nice day, we walked about 8 KM today, burned off a lot of calories, only to put them all back on with 2 ice cream treats today.  Such is life.

To see all of our photos from today, you can click on this link to our FLICKR site.

Laurel Creek Conservation Area St Jacobs

We are awake and out the door early this morning. 

We want to get to the St Jacobs Farmers Market nice and early to avoid the worst of the crowds.

St Jacobs Market is only about a 10 minute drive from our base camp here at Laurel Creek Conservation Area.  After we got the car parked, we stopped to visit the animals at the market.

 

Posed at the entrance for a photo op.

 

And then into the madness that is the St Jacobs Market.  Although at this hour the crowds have not arrived yet, but they are on their way.  In another hour or so, this place will be packed.

 

Lots of items for sale outdoors and indoors.

 

We wandered around for an hour or so checking prices and then we came back to make our purchases.  We bought bed sheets for the house and the motorhome.  We bought delicious sweets like butter tarts and sticky buns.  We bought fruits and vegetables.

 

We put all of our purchases in the trunk of the car and then we bought tickets for the St Jacobs Horse Drawn Wagon Tours.

 

The tour today will take us to see a working Mennonite farm.  Along the way we passed by these horses out in the field.

 

We are on our way to visit the Mathew Martin Farm.  A very large producer of maple syrup in this area.

 

We got to learn how maple syrup is collected.  The old fashioned way was with taps and buckets, but the modern way now is with plastic hoses running from tree to tree and a pump located back at the sugar shack to suck all of the sap into the boiling room.

 

At the end of our tour, I bought some maple syrup, this will taste so good on my breakfast pancakes.



We got back to our motorhome just after noon hour and had a nice lunch.  Then we went for a walk around the campground.  There was a dragon boat team practicing out on the lake.

 

We walked around by the dam and got some pictures of the water flowing over the edge.

 

There is a nice little beach.

 

We decided to try our hand at Geocaching.  I have a Geocaching app on my iPhone so we went off in search of the first cache.  Geocaching is like a treasure hunt.  You follow the clues and the gps coordinates till you find the cache. 

This cache is hidden in this old rotted tree stump.

 

When you find the cache you can open it up, sign the log book and then you can take a little trinket, but only if you put in a trinket.  We didn’t have anything with us to trade, so we just signed the book and then re-hid the box for the next geocacher to find.  

This is a fun way to get out and explore parts of the campground that you would never explore otherwise.  The fun is in the chase and tracking down the hidden box full of goodies.  We will try to find some more caches after dinner.



Back at our campsite, there is a squirrel sitting at our picnic table.

 

I cooked us up some burgers on our Weber Q BBQ and then after dinner we went for another walk and searched for another geocache.

 

We found it after following the clues and narrowing down the search area with the gps.  This one is hidden in a tangle of tree branches.

  

Karen wanted to try to find one on her own, so off we went in search of the next geocache.

 


We had fun finding these hidden caches and tomorrow we will go off in search of some more. 

To learn more about geocaching, go to the official geocaching website.  You can learn more and download the app onto your smart phone.  Then you too can get out and find your first cache.  

We probably walked a total of 8-10 KM today thanks to the St Jacob’s Market and our geocaching hikes.

Back at the motorhome we had an evening fire and roasted marshmallows.

 

To see all of our photos from today you can find them on our FLICKR site.