Stoney Lake

We set off early in the fresh Canadian morning from our apartment in the country’s largest city, to taxi, train and drive our way north to the contrasting wilderness. The train rumbles along the still edge of the Great Lake Ontario and America, and New York state, passes us, barely visible over the vast mass of water. Eventually we arrive to collect our transport, an oversized Chevrolet greets us and we tentatively negotiate the vast North American junctions in our super-sized Mondeo equivalent.

As we ebb ever further away from the city I consult the map to be greeted with the familiar – Cambridge, London, Peterbrough and Brighton, a throwback to the founders. Switching to 4×4 we leave the grid of roads and tumble through the forest nervously. Eventually a clearing comes and with it our accommodation for the week, and in fact, the best accommodation I have ever stayed in – a wooden clad cottage jutting out into the lake, complete with integrated boathouse, lakeside hot tub, hummingbird-viewing breakfast room, outdoor forest shower and all surrounded by nothing but wildlife, maples and clear water. Still, the nights offer an eery experience reminiscent of those isolated cottages featured in such horror films as Funny Games, and with all the nighttime noises to boot.

The lake itself offers calm boat rides, warm swims, sea planes, film sets and lightning storms. The surroundings – endless flora and fauna doused in dappled sunlight.

Dragged away from the serenity we adventure to national parks filled with innumerable rows of trees and hiding wildlife, bar the overwhelming swarms of mosquitoes. Too we visit first century stone carvings – a huge intricate stone drawing-board floor, only recently rediscovered but already encased in a giant glass house for protection.

On our way back to the city we drive straight for hours at a time, watching the sun move through the sky in front of us. These roads have no mountains to negotiate around, they simply run across the country in great lines drawn from A to B. After motoring on we pass a road side pillar box for a nearby house, it reads number 43856, I realise we will be on this road for a while and take a nap.