The sheer joy of a holiday where there is very little to do…

I am sitting in one of my favourite spots in the world, in the lap of luxury, without a care in the world, everything I could possibly want at my fingertips and best of all, I’ve not showered for a week.  Don’t get me wrong - at home I love a shower.  A daily cleanse followed by some body moisturiser is a key, and much loved part of my day.  But here, I’ve got something even better than a shower or a bath.  I’ve got a whole lake.

I’m in Canada, north of Toronto, on one of the Great Lakes.  The greatest of of them all in my opinion - although since this is the only one I’ve been to, my opinion might not be worth that much. But trust me, I doubt there is a more beautiful lake.  Georgian Bay, is part of Lake Huron, a little bulbous addendum on a map, something that could well be dismissed as insignificant, but in real life is one of the world’s most staggeringly beautiful places.  Volcanic rocky islands litter this maze-like coastline like pieces of lego cast carelessly across a tired mother’s carpet.  32,000 of them to be exact although even the Canadians cannot be more exact about their number.  In this vast archipelago, there are simply too many islands to count.

It’s hard to convey the size of this great inland sea.  Georgian Bay itself is about the size of Wales, a vast tract of pristine fresh water that just goes on and on and on.  And this is what makes it so luxurious.  There’s virtually no-one here.  We’re staying with Jake, one of Ben’s oldest and closest friends and his dog, Brutus.  A Brit by birth, Jake spent his childhood living in Toronto.  Every summer they’d rent a cottage on this lake.  Halcyon summers were spent building rafts, swimming, catching fish and making friends on the dock.  The days were long and warm and the storms when they came were monumentally exciting.

Jake and his brother Eddy bought the island a few years back.  A rocky outcrop of smooth volcanic perfection, Porcupine Island is peppered with white pine trees that miraculously wend their roots into the bare rock, and, clinging on to life, seem to flourish.  These trees are not the symmetrical pines of cultivated perfection, but rather sinewy and straggly, their lichen endowed trunks and branches bent away from the sometimes brutal prevailing wind.  Their beauty lies in their imperfection, each one with a unique personality, a weather-battered resilience that only the most interesting things possess.  They are truly magnificent.

It is these trees that give the island its name; their straggly spikiness giving the appearance of the spikes you’d see on a porcupine.  At least Jake thinks that’s its name.  No-one really knows.  And it’s a more romantic than it’s actual address.  Island 5856 Georgian Bay.

To the casual observer, Georgian Bay might look uninhabited, but look carefully and you’ll see a smattering of wooden cottages, honed from the pine that bedecks these islands, hidden in the trees.  It’s considered terribly bad form to build something ostentatious and showy. There is a sense that if you want to be a part of this paradise that you let the real star of the show, nature, take centre stage.  So as a result, the cottages are small and simple, the boats are slow and quiet and the preferred way of getting around is silently, in a canoe.

The island has one main cabin consisting of a large room with a kitchen and living area, a big squashy sofa in front of a wood burning stove for the cooler days.  There’s a large covered veranda with old copper mosquito netting preventing the scourge of mosquitoes impacting sundowners.  We sit here most evenings watching the sunset through the trees, the summer sun glinting on the dappled water of the bay.  I wonder why not more of us build houses in the trees.  Their mottled trunks and whispering branches provide the perfect frame to an extraordinary view.

We sleep in a little cabin just above the dock.  I wake up to the clunk of waves on the dock, to the noise of birds chatting in the trees and sometimes to the sound the rain battering the roof.  Mostly, when we’ve been here, the weather’s been good.  Long sunny days with a refreshing breeze on one side of the island.  I step out of bed, groggy with sleep and before anything else, dive into the cool fresh depths of the lake.  There is no better way to wake up, nothing better to miraculously shed that grog of sleep from your eyes and body, to make you feel spectacularly alive, happy, calm and present.  There are so few people around, that while the rest of the island snoozes, I don’t even need to worry about swimmers.  A blissful early morning swim unencumbered by bikini.

Holidays are best when there is no plan.  And, I’ve found out, no dishwasher.  Life is simple up here on the lake.  Meals are a team effort with all of us in the wooden kitchen chopping and mixing, chatting and playing music.  We turn what often is a chore, into fun - a time to chat and laugh.  You have to be creative and organised with food up here.  The nearest supermarket involves a 20 minute boat trip, a ride that can be smooth and fast or choppy and very wet in the little tin boat.  Sometimes it’s not possible at all, even in the summer.  Then it’s a 40 minute drive.  But we eat like kings - lake smoked trout, Arctic char roasted on a pine board left over from building the cabin, on the barbecue, salads and risottos, sweet, crunchy Canadian corn on the cob (a world away from anything I’ve ever tasted in the UK), and the softest white peaches.  With no dishwasher, the clear up is another team effort and because there is no other option, there’s no fuss from the children.  They happily and chattily set about drying cutlery and mugs and placing them carefully back into the drawers and nooks in which they live, with the pride of someone who is truly invested in their surroundings.

Some days we’ll go for a boat ride, to a rocky island you can see at a distance from our island.  Those that know, find a secret natural harbour where your boat will be safe while you explore the island.  The water here, out in this freshwater ocean is colder but the clearest I’ve ever seen.  We swim around the island, occasionally hopping out to warm ourselves like heat seeking lizards on the sun warmed rocks.  We spot frogs and interestingly coloured lichen, extraordinary rock formations, fish skeletons discarded by sated seagulls and all sorts of birds and occasionally a water snake, snoozing, like us, in the fierce Canadian sun.  Our sandwiches, wrapped tightly in wax paper (no cling film here) taste like the food of the Gods as we warm up in the lea of the island, out of the wind, after our swimming safari.

Some days we’ll take the canoe out, a beautiful wooden Canadian Canoe with wicker seats that pockmark your bottom.  Silently we explore the shallow islands and inlets of the bay, following our noses as we paddle up creeks and mooch through the shallows.  Here we spot turtles, more snakes, ospreys nesting high above us.  If it gets too hot, we’ll find a suitable rock on which to leave the canoe and leap into the cool lake.

Every evening, before the sun goes down, we swim around the island, all of us, chatting, thinking, hypothesising about what this landscape looked like a thousand years ago.  It takes about half an hour - on days where the wind is up, it can take significantly longer as the wind whips up waves that splash your face and force you back.  But you also always return to the dock happy you’ve done it, ready for a cool glass of wine.  But before you indulge, it’s time to wash.  There is a shower on the island, but an incredibly underused one.  For there is biodegradable soap and shampoo on the dock.  It’s the best hair wash I’ll ever have.  Lathering shampoo into my hair and then diving back in the lake to wash it out, wriggling my head as I coarse through the water, ensuring all the soap is gone while looking at green beams of sunlight piercing through the lake’s surface and the shadows of pond weed waving at me in the watery sunlight, is just about as good as it gets.  Forget fancy hairdressing treatments, head massages or even warm water.  This is luxury on another level.

Our week out here is truly restorative.  The lack of obligations, or appointments or invitations to dinner - things that are no doubt spoiling but also restrictive, means that we exist in a slowed down version of time.  None of us wear watches.  We eat when we’re hungry, we go to bed when we’re tired, we get up when that tiredness has abated.  I wear no shoes, makeup and very few clothes.  We read books but the ever changing scenery means that I’ll often pause, while-away time just looking at the horizon, or a fleck in the distance, wondering if it’s an otter.  My breathing slows, my sleep improves, my shoeless feet become hardy and happy, it’s like I’ve reset.