Sauble Beach and Southampton

Drizzly and showers off and on all day caused us to delay hiking and instead take a bit of a roadtrip, exploring the area to the south west of Wiarton. We drove first to Sauble Beach. Disappointing. There was a beach, enough to actually drive on to, and a short strip of surf shops and arcades, all closed of course now. It all looked a bit tacky and rundown. It reminded me of Turkey Point , 30 years ago. Back from the beach there wasn't even a downtown. We stopped for a coffee and the waitress told us that the large campgrounds around drove the summer economy but only about 1000 people made up the year round population. (Wikipedia lists the population as 2,000)

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Next stop was Southampton

Quite a while ago the OHCG Annual was in Southampton and we walked around the town and found this art gallery. It has expanded since then, now taking up 2 floors, but still has wonderful art work in a variety of mediums. Back then we all bought glass earrings. I have lost one of mine but bought another set today. The young lady on the cash told me that the glass artist has just rejoined after quite a long absence. Fate.

We walked the main street popping into art galleries and clothing shops and then ate at the Walker House. Crab cakes and a greek salad. It was full and noisy and doesn't even indicate, outside, that it is a restaurant.

High water levels had not left much beach

I was happy to find

two lighthouses

to photograph.

Sauble had small, elderly cottages for the most part and looked quite derelict with many businesses shuttered or for sale. Southampton on the other hand had some lovely, affluent looking old and new homes. The main street was hopping and there were few empty businesses. It's permanent population is listed as just under 4,000.

Returning "home" the weekend RVs were dwarfing my little trailer.

As it had stopped raining we decided to have a fire. Nicola was quite proud of her lighting abilities.

Unfortunately no marshmallows.