Vaughan to Bayfield and Goderich: Lake Huron's heritage coast by chauffeured car

The Huron coast, north of Grand Bend

Bayfield is the village on Lake Huron's bluff at the mouth of the Bayfield River that Ontario's heritage lists as its best-preserved nineteenth-century main street: a tree-lined Main Street of white-clapboard and brick shops, galleries, inns and the Little Inn's dining room, the marina in the river's mouth below, and a beach at the foot of the bluff facing the lake's sunset. Goderich, twenty minutes north, is the county town laid out in 1827 around an octagonal Courthouse Square — the "prettiest town in Canada" of the tourist boards' quotation — with a harbour, a salt mine under the lake that is the largest in the world, three beaches joined by a boardwalk and the Menesetung railway bridge across the Maitland River. For Vaughan the two are the lake weekend that Stratford's theatre couples discovered on the drive west and now book for its own sake.

Bayfield's Main Street and the inns

Bayfield's Main Street is a walk of four blocks under the maples: the galleries and the shops in the old houses, the bakery, the Village Bookshop, the Little Inn of Bayfield — an 1832 coaching inn with one of the county's dining rooms — and the Albion and the Red Pump among the other inns and restaurants, with Clan Gregor Square's park at the top of the street and the Pioneer Park lookout over the lake at the end of it. A couple from Kleinburg in a Premium Sedan is dropped at the inn's door on Friday afternoon and walks everything until Sunday; the village's site has the inns and the summer's calendar.

The beach, the marina and the river

Bayfield's main beach at the foot of the bluff is a wide sand beach with the lake's warm shallows, the lifeguards in summer, and the sunset from the bluff's top at Pioneer Park; the marina in the river's mouth is the town's boats and the harbour restaurants; the Bayfield River's mouth is the paddle. A family from Maple in a Luxury SUV does the beach with the drop at the bottom of the bluff's road — the parking above is the reason — the Main Street's ice cream, and the drive up to Goderich for the afternoon.

Goderich's square, harbour and mine

Goderich's Courthouse Square is the eight-sided ring of commercial buildings around the county courthouse's park, with the streets radiating from it to the lake, the harbour and the river; the Huron County Museum and the Huron Historic Gaol — the 1841 octagonal jail, open as a museum — are the town's two hours for a family; the harbour has the three beaches, the boardwalk, the lighthouse on the bluff and the grain elevators; and the Sifto salt mine under the lake, the world's largest, is seen from the harbour's edge though not visited. The Menesetung Bridge across the Maitland is the walk with the river below and the lake beyond; the Goderich Celtic Roots Festival in August fills the square with music.

The sunset

Both towns face west across Lake Huron and both have a bluff to watch from: Bayfield's Pioneer Park and Goderich's Harbour Park and Rotary Cove, where the sun goes into the lake at nine in July with the town on the grass. A chauffeured couple's Saturday ends there and walks back to the inn; a family's day is timed for it and the drive home is in the dark with the children asleep.

The route

The 407 west to the 401, the 401 west to Kitchener's Highway 8 exit, Highway 8 west through Stratford, Mitchell, Seaforth and Clinton to Goderich, and Highway 21 south to Bayfield — or Highway 8 to Clinton and Highway 4 and 21 to Bayfield directly; just under three hours from Woodbridge with the 407, three and a quarter from Thornhill. The routing estimate's three hours twenty is the no-toll version, and the last hour is Huron County's two-lane farm roads, straight and empty. Stratford is the stop on the way — a Festival matinee on the Saturday of a lake weekend is the pairing this site sells.

The weekend, in shape

Friday: the sedan at 2 p.m., the 401 and Highway 8, Stratford for an early dinner at 5:15, Bayfield's inn by 6:45, the bluff's sunset. Saturday: Main Street's morning, the beach at noon, Goderich's square, museum and harbour in the afternoon, the Celtic festival if it is August, dinner at the Little Inn, the sunset. Sunday: a late breakfast, the marina, checkout, and Highway 8 home with a Stratford matinee or a St. Jacobs lunch; Kleinburg by six. A return pair or two days of daily hire, one number in the booking engine before Friday; the travel desk holds the inn, which in July and August is booked in spring.

Which vehicle

A Premium Sedan for a couple; an SUV for a family with boosters at $25 each; an Executive Sprinter for two couples doing Stratford and the lake in one weekend, or for a Bayfield wedding's guests — the village's inns and the lake's bluff are a wedding place, and the wedding page covers the bridal party.

What the chauffeur replaces

Six hours of highway in a weekend; the beach's bluff-top parking; the drive between the two towns; and, for the couple, the Little Inn's wine. For a couple the return pair is the price of a weekend that begins at the inn's door, and the site says so; for two couples in a Sprinter it undercuts two cars, and for a family's day it is a comfort purchase.

Seasons

July and August for the beach and the sunset crowd; June and September for the inns' shoulder rates and the same lake; August for the Celtic Roots Festival; October for the county's colour and the lake's storms watched from the bluff; December for Bayfield's Christmas in the village, when the Main Street's lights and the inns' dinners make a winter weekend. The beach closes with the season; the towns do not.

Pairing it

Bayfield pairs with Stratford for the theatre-and-lake weekend, with Grand Bend down the coast for a beach day, and with Sauble Beach up the coast for a Huron shore drive that this site books as a three-night daily hire.

A family day, in order

A family of five from Maple in a Luxury SUV on a July Saturday: pickup at 7:45 with boosters and the beach kit; the 407 and 401 to Kitchener, Highway 8 west with a Stratford stop at 9:30 for the river's swans and a bakery; Clinton and Highway 4 and 21 to Bayfield by 11:15; the drop at the bottom of the bluff's road with the chairs and the cooler carried to the sand; the beach and the warm shallows until two; Main Street's ice cream and the galleries' windows until three; Highway 21 north to Goderich by 3:30 for the Courthouse Square's walk, the Historic Gaol's hour and the harbour's boardwalk; dinner on the square at six; the sunset from Harbour Park at nine; the SUV at 9:20 and home by half past midnight with three children asleep by Stratford. Sixteen hours of hourly hire, one number in the booking engine, and a day that a family in its own car would have cut at Goderich.

The Huron Historic Gaol and the museum

Goderich's octagonal jail of 1841 — the Huron Historic Gaol on Victoria Street, with its cells, its governor's house and its yard where the county hanged the last of its condemned in 1869 — is the town's hour for children over eight and the reason a family's Goderich afternoon has a building in it; the Huron County Museum on North Street beside it has the county's steam locomotive in its front hall and the agricultural halls behind. Both are five minutes from the square; the chauffeur drops at each door.

The Menesetung and the Maitland

The Menesetung Bridge is the old CPR railway bridge across the Maitland River's mouth north of the harbour, now a walking bridge with the river's estuary below and the lake beyond, and the Maitland Trail runs from it up the river's valley for the fit; the harbour's boardwalk connects the three beaches — Main, St. Christopher's and Rotary Cove — under the bluff with the lighthouse at the top of the harbour hill. A chauffeured family walks the boardwalk from the harbour's drop to the bridge and is collected at the bridge's lot.

Bayfield's calendar

Bayfield's summer runs from the Victoria Day weekend's opening of the Main Street's patios to the Labour Day weekend's Bayfield Fall Fair; the village's Pioneer Park hosts the summer's concerts and the Bayfield Farmers' Market is Friday afternoons in Clan Gregor Square; the Bayfield Marina's Sailing Regatta is August; and Christmas in Bayfield in early December is the village's lit main street, the inns' dinners and the carriage rides — the winter weekend a Vaughan couple books in a sedan. The village's site has the dates.

Pickup notes

The 407 and 401 from every Vaughan community to Kitchener, then Highway 8; a Woodbridge or Kleinburg pickup joins the 407 at Weston Road, a Thornhill one at Bathurst. Give us the inn or the day, the Stratford performance if any, the seats and the beach kit, and whether Goderich's museums are wanted; the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

What the weekend costs, in shape

A couple driving to Bayfield for a weekend pays fuel, the 407 if taken, and the inn's forecourt parking — none of it much — and the chauffeured return pair is a comfort purchase that the site prices plainly: the price of the Little Inn's wine and the county road home driven by someone else. For two couples in a Sprinter doing Stratford's matinee and the lake it undercuts two cars and two theatre lots; for a family's sixteen-hour day it is the difference between the Goderich sunset and a drive home at five.

Kincardine and the coast north

Beyond Goderich, Highway 21 runs up the Huron shore to Kincardine — the town with the Scottish pipe band that parades on Saturday nights in summer and the phantom piper who plays at the lighthouse at sunset — and on to Southampton and Sauble; a three-night Huron coast daily hire that this site books once or twice a summer does Bayfield, Goderich, Kincardine and Sauble with a night in each, and the Sauble post covers the north end.

Booking it

Book a return pair or daily hire from your Vaughan address to the inn, or an hourly day for the beach and the square; tell us the inn, the Stratford performance if any, the seats and the beach kit, and the chauffeur confirms the plan the evening before.

Book the Huron coast weekend