Sandbanks Trip

I had a few days of chauffeurs duty last week, driving my mother down to the Sandbanks area (near Belleville) where one of her friends had rented a cottage. Here's a shot of the view from the dock, you can see a line of sand dunes with trees in the distance.

[Duck Dock]

Besides getting some SF reading done, we wandered around the small town of Wellington and went to the main attraction of the area - the Sandbanks Provincial Park. Here's what the small beach looks like, notice the sand dunes which are several tree heights tall:

[Sand Dunes Beach]

We spent most of the time at the longer beach. It has nice friendly paths up the sand dunes that reveal a surprising view of the lake from the top:

[Sand Hill Path]

That little white dot on the long beach is my mom:

[Long Sand Beach]

The one strange thing is the presence of lots of small clam shells on the beach. They don't cause problems when walking on the satiney smooth sand until you hit a drift where they have piled up, then it sounds like this. The drifts show up where two wave fronts collide:

[Shell Drift]

Anyone got an idea of what kind of shells these are? Maybe Zebra musseles?

[Shell Closeup]

Front Stairs Repainting

I finally got into gear and repainted the front steps, which had been showing signs of wear over the last two or three years. This time it went very quickly, washing them off on Saturday then painting them all today. Not having to sand them sure makes it easier and months faster!

[Painted Stairs]

- Alex

Copyright © 2004 by Alexander G. M. Smith.