The morning of our second day in the Georgian Bay Area saw us at Honey Harbour to catch the DayTripper boat out to Beausoleil Island, a National Park with lovely walking trails. The island has only three small boats a day making the crossing so the place is largely tranquil. We were lucky to get across as we only booked on the day.

As yesterday the day was gloriously sunny and bakingly hot and we were glad to choose some of the deserted trails through the woodland. We enjoyed the Dossyonshing Trail through mossy woodland where we saw giant (well giant to our UK eyes, about 4in long) millipedes, spruce grouse, woodpeckers and turkey vultures soaring overhead. Dossyonshing is an Anishinaabe word meaning Diaper Point, we're lead to believe due to Sphagnum moss being used as an absorbent nappy liner by these First Nation people.

The gently rounded islands in Georgian Bay are all that is left of Pre-Cambrian granite mountains that were once higher than Everest: hard to imagine where all that mass of rock has gone. Here on the edge of Lake Huron we were reminded of the enormity of the rock formation that is the Canadian Shield, a largely flat and impenetrable plain that has resulted in the huge water catchments that are the Great Lakes.

We had a lovely day strolling the trails, avoiding the bays where floating gin-palaces were moored with noisy occupants disturbing the National Park peace and quiet. All too soon our allotted time on this beautiful island was up and DayTripper at the jetty ready to take us back to the mainland and our journey home to Toronto.

Dave as usual being the star driver as Jill has declined the dual challenge of driving an automatic car on the wrong side of the road. However, Jill continually rises to the challenge of navigating from the wrong side of the road plotting a way around the city traffic jams back to our condo. This had been a wonderful peaceful and relaxing interlude in our city week: so good that we trusted Pat's ideas!