Adventures in Collingwood!

On Tuesday, we arrived in Collingwood. We were pleasantly surprised to find ourselves staying in a beautiful ski resort—complete with comfortable beds—after spending a few days camping in tents. We spent the afternoon settling in and trying out the hot tub. I (KC) had some homework to do for an online course. In a team effort, my fellow Americans helped me finish a quiz. We all slept well.

On Wednesday morning, we ate delicious pancakes and bacon, courtesy of our organizer extraordinaire, Jacquie. While I finished my essay, Nicole, Jenn, and Ema went to explore the town. Ema hiked up the ski mountain and took photos while Nicole and Jenn discovered a fudge shop. At midday, all the teams reconvened to ride the bus to our eco-adventure tour at Scenic Caves.

This three-hour tour consisted of treetop walking through maple and hemlock and zip-lining down through the forest. We also learned about the history of the property and details about the mountainous ecosystem. The view of the lucid Georgian Bay from the top of the zip-line left us all in awe. Ema attached a GoPro camera to her shirt and proceeded to flip upside down while going down the zip-line, which produced some epic video!

A still from the video!

Treetop walking.

 After a lovely roast chicken at Jacquie’s chateau, all the teams spent some time chatting about Pony Club. It was interesting to hear the differences between the systems of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and the U.S. One issue that we all discussed was how to incentivize upper level (especially B and A) ratings. Nicole talked about USPC’s Visiting Instructor program, in which she has participated nine times. You can read about it here.

On Thursday we awoke and consumed some wonderfully aromatic peameal bacon and eggs. We then spent a few more hours in town enjoying the view from the gondola that we rode up the mountain. In the afternoon, we packed up and travelled to the “beach” on the Georgian Bay. We enjoyed a game of volleyball, some rather dysfunctional paddle-boarding (especially on Ema and Nicole’s part), and tanning (or sun-burning, depending on how you look at it) under the Canadian sun. We are currently on our way back to Toronto in a yellow school bus.