Day Trip 2021: Mono Cliffs Provincial Park - Hockley - Beeton

Having visited Goodwood, Ontario to see three major exterior locations for the comedy Schitt’s Creek, our “fandom tour” would not be complete without seeking out the site used to represent the Rosebud Motel, which was located near Mono, Ontario.  Pairing this with a hike through Mono Cliffs Provincial Park with a stop on the way home at the Hockley General Store in Hockley Valley, we had the makings of another fun, single-day road trip.  As always happens on our driving adventures, we usually stumble upon unexpected stops along the way.  On this trip, we spotted a cool antique shop in the middle of nowhere while driving along Mono Centre Road/Dufferin County Road 8, and stopped in the small community of Beeton, Ontario to get a closer look at the interesting architecture found there.

The Rosebud Motel that Johnny, Moira, David and Alexis Rose reluctantly moved into, in the fictitious town of Schitt’s Creek, is actually the Hockley Motel found on Hockley Road just east of Mono, Ontario.  After the end of the series in 2020, the sign from the show is gone and the motel is actually up for sale.  A long metal chain blocks the entrance to the driveway to prevent cars from approaching, and a “Beware of Dog” sign attempts to keep foot traffic away.  It will be interesting to see what happens to this motel and whether whoever buys it will try to cash in on its former claim to fame.

Mono Cliffs Provincial Park spans 1810 acres and is located just north of the township of Mono.  It is part of both the Bruce Trail and the Niagara Escarpment.  There are multiple loop trails to choose from, giving you varied terrain including cliff faces, interesting rock formations, vast expanses of forests, and several lakes and ponds.  You can buy a half day or full day pass to visit the park, although it was unclear if anyone is actually checking during the pandemic.  We bought a full-day pass and arrived early, hoping to spend a good part of the day here.  Unfortunately it started to rain just before noon, so we cut out some of the loops that we were hoping to explore and will need to come back another day.  We ended up traversing sections of the Carriage Trail, Spillway Trail, Cliff-Top Side Trail and Walter Tolver Trail.  On our next visit, we would like to check out McCarston’s Lake Trail, the Lookout Trail and the South Outlier Trail.

We probably missed the height of the fall colours by a week or so, since many of the leaves had already fallen, creating an orange and gold blanket under the trees.  The views were quite varied but all beautiful as we hiked from trail to trail.  We love how peaceful and serene it is to visit conservation areas mid-week when we are often the only people on the trails, especially when we get an early start.  Walking on the Carriage and Spillway Trails, we passed by several bodies of water as well different types of trees and a variety of foliage.

As we were nearing the viewing platform at the top of the Cliff-Top Side Trail, we were on the lookout for a set of stairs which, based on our research, would lead down to an area often referred to as “Jacob’s Ladder”.  After descending the steep metal stairs, you come to a cavernous pathway cut through a canyon with looming 30m high cliffs on both sides.  The  jaunt along a wooden boardwalk was short, but the experience was eerie and magical.

Some of the rock formations were covered with moss and others have cedar trees growing out of the stone surfaces. Many of the small, gnarly cedars growing out of the cracks and crevices of the rocks are hundreds of years old, with the oldest one being over 1500 years old.  In some cases you can see the sprawling roots growing on top of the rocks.  Occasionally the rock formations come together in such a way that a “window” is formed exposing the woodlands that lie in the distance.

Ascending back up the stairs and continuing on the Clifftop Side Trail, we soon arrived at the Viewing Platform which gave us a great view of the forest below.  Again, it was too bad that we missed the peak of the fall colours, and that the lack of sunshine meant the remaining the hues appeared a bit dull.  But the mere expanse of all the trees and the pretty pond below was still breath-taking and we could imagine how stunning the sight would be on a bright day at the height of the autumn leaves season.

As the clouds continued to darken and we experienced an intermittent drizzle of rain, we headed back towards our car, but decided to descend another set of steep stairs in order to walk a portion of Walter Tovell Trail before calling it quits.  This led us through a beautiful forest of tall, thin, tightly planted birch and fern(?) trees.  Walking along the base of the park allowed us to look back up on the eponymous “Mono Cliffs”.  We could see white rock faces streaked by a scaly covering of yellow lichen.  When we reached a clearing, we looked up in the sky and saw a flock of four to six hawks swooping around.  We reached the parking lot just after noon, and just as it started to rain much harder.  While the lot was relatively empty with only a couple of cars when we arrived in the morning, it was now packed.  I felt sorry for the people unloading their bicycles who had bought the half day pass for the second part of the day, and now it was raining.  I guess the hard-core mountain bikers won’t care.

Upon leaving Mono Cliffs Provincial Park, we headed south along the relatively isolated Mono Centre Road towards Hockley.  Suddenly out of the blue, I spotted a sign advertising antiques, lemonade, pumpkin muffins and short bread. Built on the property of a rural home, Antiques and Other Stuff is a cute little antique shop that features a floor-to-ceiling stained glass window and a wrought-iron spiral staircase. Speaking to the owner, we found out that she and her husband purchased the window from a Catholic Church in Brooklyn and it was so large that they needed to build a new structure to house it!  The shop is full of knickknacks and antiques for sale, and the grounds have cute garden signs and sculptures which are also for sale.  In addition to picking up a couple of muffins and cookies, we bought a pretty faux-vintage mismatched blue tea cup and saucer to add to our collection at home.  It was cash only and we only had limited cash with us, or I would have taken a closer look at the garden sculptures.

Continuing along the roads to Hockley, we drove some scenic and quite exhilarating stretches of steep and windy roads that felt like a twisty roller coaster.  At one point we passed by the entrance to the Hockley Valley Glen Cross Side Trail, which has another 4km of hiking trails through the woods and is part of the Bruce Trail.  We made note of this as somewhere we could explore in the future.

Reaching our destination of the Hockley General Store, we were hoping to have some lunch before heading home.  Serving the Hockley Valley Area, this is an all-encompassing store offering fresh, local and organic produce and other groceries, packaged goods, LCBO & Beer outlet, coffee shop, bakery, frozen prepared meals, as well as a food counter where you could order breakfast or lunch meals.  The General Store has a rustic feel, guarded in front by the “Hockley Horse”, the store mascot which is painted with scenes of equestrians on one side and the Canadian Flag on the other.  Scattered around the storefront are pumpkins and some squashes of such weird shapes that they looked like works of art.

Inside, we admired the surprisingly good selection of alcohol as well as what would be considered “fine foods” with brands that you would find in higher-end grocery stores.  For lunch, I ordered a roast beef panini with caramelized onions, swiss cheese and house-made horseradish mayo, while Rich got the Hockley Hero sandwich—a grilled baguette with ham, turkey, Italian sausage, cheddar, swiss cheese and house-made mustard.  We shared a butter tart and a  Bull's Head ginger beer, a brand that we were not familiar with but was quite good.

Across from Hockley General Store is a pretty house with a large wrap-around front porch and elements of the Carpenter Gothic style, with the small steeped pitched portion of the roof embellished with a decorative trim and a window underneath.  There is a historic plaque in front that indicates this building used to be the old Post Office from 1863-1918 and describes the contributions of Thomas Hockley, who the area was named for.  The house next door has a quirky sculpture of cowboy riding a horse rodeo-style.

On the way home from Hockley Valley, we drove through the town of Beeton, Ontario. We were impressed with the cool architecture that we saw there, so we decided to stop and look around.  We learned that the town was renamed from Clarksville to Beeton, in honour of David Allanson Jones, a renowned local apiarist who raised bees, ran the company Jones Perfection Bee Hive, was editor for the Canadian edition of “The Bee Journal” and was postmaster for the town.  The tomb for D.A.Jones was the largest in St. Andrews Presbyterian Cemetery, whose land he donated.  The local public library is also named the D.A.Jones Branch.  The historic building currently housing the IDA Pharmacy and Bee Town Medical Centre dates back to 1894 and was once a printing press.

We liked the unique circular shape of the St. Andrews Presbyterian Church, which is directly across the street from the cemetery, also on land donated by D.A. Jones.  Built in 1890 on a foundation of stones, the church has 40-foot ceilings, a sloping floor and was originally heated with a wood stove in the basement where services were held in the winter so that the congregation could keep warm.  At 148 Main Street West, just a couple of buildings west of St. Andrews Church, there seems to be yet another church, but on closer look, it became apparent that this gorgeous church-like building with large stained glass windows and a tower,  is actually a private home with a pool in the backyard. I could not find reference to whether this ever used to be a church, but it certainly looks like one. There  were many other beautiful homes on Main Street and I would love to return some day to take a closer look at them.

Quaint shops and eateries can be found further east on the historic Main Street.  There is the Lickity Split ice cream parlour with 24 flavours of soft ice cream (unfortunately closed for the season), and couple of “punny” establishments including the massage therapy centre called "Nice to be Kneaded”, and the “Bee Sew Busy” gift and crafts shop.  In another bee reference, the local antique shop is called “The Village Bee”.  Across the road can be found the Muddy Water Hotel Restaurant and Bar, serving beer and chicken wings, burgers and other fare, with live music acts or a DJ playing music, a dance floor, big screen TV, pool tables and two patios.  Despite the name, there is no indication of this being a hotel.  But the building dates back to circa 1885 and there is a sign advertising “Miss Edgar’s Muddy Water Hotel and Home for Wayward Girls”.   I’m not sure what this refers to as the only mention of this that I could find on the internet was a country song by Harlan Wells called “Miss Edgar’s Muddy Water Tavern” which includes "wayward girls" in its lyrics.  It is not clear whether this building inspired the song or the song inspired the sign on the building?

Scarborough Bluffs: 2021

 After living in Toronto for most of our lives, it took a pandemic and not being able to travel abroad to spur my husband Rich and I into visiting the beautiful Scarborough Bluffs, Bluffer’s Park and Marina.  Prior to this and for no particular reason, the furthest east we had been  along the Toronto waterfront was to the R.C. Harris Filtration Plant.  After walking ad infinitum around a 6-7km radius around our home at the beginning of the pandemic, we finally started to explore further afield.  Within a span of seven months in 2021, we ended up making 3 excursions east of the filtration plant, each time getting closer and closer to Scarborough Bluffs.  In a weird way, we were taking mini “vacations” within our own city.

For our first trip in April, we decided to park just east of the Toronto Hunt Club, a private golf course that monopolizes part of the shoreline of Lake Ontario so that the only way to get further east would be to walk on Kingston Road.  Instead we started on Crescentwood Road at the base of Warden Avenue and tried to stay as close to the water as possible.

Our initial glimpse of the water was at Crescentwood Park, although it was quite foggy in the morning.  By the time we passed again on our way back to the car, we had a clear view of Lake Ontario.  Continuing on, we weaved through quiet residential streets where houses sat on big lots that had eclectic and sometimes whimsical garden sculptures on them.  Passing through Harrison Properties, a 2.9 hectare, forested park overlooking Lake Ontario, we reached Rosetta McClain Gardens.

Rosetta McClain Gardens was named after Rosetta West who originally lived on the property with her husband Robert McClain.  In 1959, nineteen years after Rosetta’s death,  Robert donated the land to the city in order to create a large floral park in her honour.  Situated on top of, and currently considered part of the Scarborough Bluffs, the park consists of walking trails through multiple landscaped gardens including rose gardens (befitting of a patron named Rosetta), and a rock fountain surrounded by a pergola.  Given that it was April on our first visit, very few flowers were in bloom yet, but we saw the rose bushes and could image the potential for later in the season.  Due to the lack of flowers, in my mind, I kept hearing the 1967 tune sang by Lynn Anderson with the lyrics “I beg your pardon, I never promised you a rose garden”.  We did see a few daffodils and a small tree blooming with white flowers that Google Lens Search tells me are star magnolias, native to Japan.

Just east of the gardens, we arrived at Scarborough Heights Park where there is a free parking lot which we made note of for our next visit, an off-leash dog park and a large community garden on the west side of the park.  Next to the garden, off Fishleigh Drive, we found the steep path leading down to the Waterfront walking trails that would take us along the shoreline by the lake at the base of the park.

The trail was a mixture of loose gravel and small stones with large slabs of stone creating man-made “piers” that allowed you to walk out on top of Lake Ontario.  From there we could barely glimpse the Bluffs in the distance.  At this point we were not sure how far this trail would go and we had already walked over 4km to get here.  Needing to retrace the same distance as well as climb the steep hill that we initially came down, we decided that we would call it a day and get closer to the Bluffs on our next visit.  Back at the top of Scarborough Heights Park, we did venture near the southern edge to peek back down at the shoreline and the lake.  But the sign with the big red letters indicating “Danger Steep Slope” and the image of the figure rolling down the cliffs, (as well as common sense and Rich's unnecessary warning) prevented me from getting too close!

We returned to the Scarborough Bluffs area in mid May with a group of friends, but this time we parked our car at the Scarborough Heights Park so that we could explore the rest of the Waterfront trail.  Descending the steep hill once again and walking past the portions of the trail that we saw last time, we came across a long stretch of large slabs of flat rock, forming both a break-wall and a pathway that led us right to the base of the Bluffs.  Looking up at the majestic cliffs that formed an almost vertical drop, we could truly appreciate the danger signs located at the top of the park, and wondered why people would regularly attempt to climb down these slopes, getting stuck and requiring rescue from the fire department.

We walked along the stone break-wall and continued on the Waterfront trail as far as we could, until there was no way to safely continue.  We could see that the Bluffs went on further and at the other end, way off in the distance, there was a beach.  This would be as far east as we would get on this visit but there was obviously more to see!  Returning on the path, we continued a bit further west of our steep entry point.  After trudging through a bit of brush and climbing over a few boulders, we came across another rocky beach where some of the larger boulders were covered with graffiti.  

After the walk along the Scarborough Heights Park trails, we returned to Rosetta McClain Gardens for another look.  It was still too early in the season for roses but tulips were in full bloom.  There were pink, fuchsia and yellow “Double” tulips, which have more petals than the regular cup-shaped ones.  Off in a corner, there was also a bed of daffodils that were a pretty mixture of yellow and white. We spotted many interesting shrubs and trees including one with curved trunks that formed a perfect seating area, and the Weeping Cherry tree, a combination of two of my favourite trees—the Weeping Willow and the Cherry Blossom.

We came across the brick walls and a metal gate that are the remnants of the old McClain homestead.  There is a map of the Rosetta McClain Gardens that show many more paths that we have not yet explored.  We still need to come back here in late June/early July so that we can actually see roses.

Rich and I returned a third time to the Scarborough Bluffs area on a sunny, unusually warm day in mid October.  This time we started at Bluffers Park, even further east than the previous two trips.  To our dismay, when we headed for the Bluffers Park Lookout Point where there is also a heritage plaque, we found that a major portion of the park (the South Headland) was closed for construction in order to firm up “shoreline erosion and sediment control structures”.  Luckily, there were still many other beautiful sections of the park that we could access, but it seems like we will need to return for yet another visit once all the construction is done.  The Toronto Conservation Authority website indicates that the fences may come down by end of June 2022.  This would align with when we want to re-visit Rosetta McClain gardens and hopefully finally see the roses in full bloom.

We headed first toward the small, unnamed western beach just north of the lookout point.  To get there, we walked through some bushland, crossed a bridge and passed a marshy area covered with lily pads, spotting the peaks of the bluffs in the distance.  At one point we saw a sign warning “DO NOT CLIMB THE CLIFFS” and once again, I thought “No kidding!”. Finally reaching the beach, we were right at the base of the cliffs.  As this was a Wednesday morning, there was no one else in sight as we had the whole beach to ourselves.  

Next we headed to the Bluffers Park Marina where there are several yacht clubs as well as a private tight-knit community of 24 house boats lining the pier off of Bluffers Park Road.  Many of the house boats have 3 storeys with both upper and lower outdoor decks facing the water.  We checked out a few that were on the market and they were nicely furnished year-round homes with modern kitchens and bathrooms, 1-2 bedrooms, selling for between $420,000-$840,000.  This might be an interesting alternative to the Muskoka cottage, if you don’t mind that your home bobs up and down.

Continuing on, we finally reached the Bluffers Park Beach.  This one is a much larger beach than the first one we saw earlier in the day, as the sands stretched as far as the eye can see.  From this beach, we caught more views of the Scarborough Bluff cliffs, but with different trees that showed some signs of their autumn leaves changing colours.  It was too cold for swimming at this point, but apparently in the summer, you would find many people in the water.  We only saw a few people strolling along the sandy shore, and a man sitting on a lawn chair at the edge 

of the water, staring out at the Lake while his female companion lay on the sand soaking up some rays.  It made for a very serene scene.

Although we were quite tired at this point, we decided to explore the last long stretch of land that extended out from the west end of Bluffer’s Park Beach.  From there, we spotted boats docked at the Cathedral Park Yacht Club, could barely see the top of house boats way off in the distance, and enjoyed nice scenic views of the shoreline.  By the time we walked back to the car, we had covered over 8km and earned the pumpkin-flavoured ice cream that we stopped at Ed’s Real Scoop for before heading home.

After 3 consecutive trips to the Scarborough Bluffs area between the spring to fall of 2021, we are now close to saying that we have thoroughly explored this area.  The Bluffs have been truly a magnificent sight that we have admired from all angles and vantage points. It’s too bad that it has taken us so long to appreciate the beauty found in our own “backyard”.