Markham/Minden/Huntsville/Bracebridge

Cheltenham Badlands

The exposed bedrock at the Cheltenham Badlands is Queenston Shale; this iron-rich shale was deposited over 445 million years ago. The formation is mostly red in colour due to iron oxide deposits with some faint green streaks due to ground water percolation changing the red iron oxide into green iron oxide. The Badlands site was closed to visitors for several years due to the excessive number of visitors who were walking on the formations causing damage that accelerated the erosion.

 Scarborough Bluffs

The Bluffs stretch for about 15 km along and rise 90 metres above the Lake Ontario shore. The Scarborough Bluffs are a geological feature resulting from the accumulation of sedimentary deposits over 12,000 years ago. They were formed by the natural processes of wind and water erosion from Lake Ontario.

 New Homes 

We saw these homes being built in a new expensive suburb. The homes have a concrete base and a wooden structure. It looks like the wood is a good quality chipboard, it is then wrapped in plastic before the outer layer of stone and brick goes on. All the homes have a basement.

Ice Racing

This is the same as the speedway only on ice and the drivers drive a lot slower. Most of them were doing 30ks per hour or less. Not much skill is used just the accelerator and the brake – no handbrakes, or they use the snow banks to stop.

Frozen Trees and Rocks

These trees have what looks like a water tube around them that has frozen. They look amazing in the morning when the sun catches the ice. The rocks have also frozen water running down them.

 

Towns
 Australia??????

Driving
Newton was game enough to drive on the snow covered roads. We try to avoid the highways on our weekends away so have to drive where the GPS takes us.

Huntsville
This was our overnight stay, the roads and footpaths were iced so was really slippery. We walked up to the lookout, made our own snowman, watched the snow plow and enjoyed the scenery of vehicles covered in snow.

 Screaming Heads
The Screaming Heads is the project of Peter Camani, an art teacher. Mr Camani has spent approximately twenty five years working on this project. His property is quite vast, 84 sculptures scattered along 310 acres. Scattered throughout his property you will find assorted screaming heads, each one standing twenty feet tall. For a sum of $10,000 you may have your cremated remains molded into a 20 tonne screaming head of your own. There is also the Midlothian Castle. The castle, a former derelict farmhouse but is now Mr Camani’s home, is guarded by a fire-breathing dragon which sits on the chimney and emits smoke whenever the fireplace is used. We will revisit the Screaming Heads in the summer so that we are able to walk through them all.

Bracebridge

This town was built around the waterfalls in the Muskoka River which is in the centre of town. The black bear stands on the edge of the river and is the only bear we have seen so far.

Northern Cardinal

This gorgeous red bird is a regular visitor to the neighbours garden.