The Haliburton Highlands is unique not only in Ontario but in Canada. It is blessed with natural beauty, rolling hillsides, craggy rock faces and hundreds of freshwater lakes and rivers. In fact, the county has more than 600 lakes inside its borders!

Only 2.5 hours north of Toronto, the Highlands is home to a variety of unique attractions and natural wonders. From the world-renowned Haliburton Forest and Wild Life Reserve to the world-class White Water Preserve there exists a still-wild facet of this piece of Ontario that is unlike any other.

Haliburton Highlands Trails and Tours Network (www.trailsandtours.com) provides information about the hundreds of kilometres of year round trails for walking, hiking, cycling, mountain biking, horse back riding, ATVing, x-country skiing and snowmobiling. There's even dogsledding and luging for thrill seekers and minerals tourism for rock hounds!

The trails provide a variety of experiences from a quiet amble through a leafy lane to performance-oriented rallies on narrow, twisting 'vegetable tunnels'. The unique geology of the area provides an array of geographic features and scenic vistas along the way.

For the canoe and kayak enthusiasts the Haliburton Highlands is an ever-changing pleasure: alone and peaceful with the calling loon, or paddling down tree-canopied rivers where the Great Blue Heron holds court. There are lots of places to put in, for a day or a weekend, and maps and books can guide your way.

The Highlands is home to 7 golf courses, all nestled in some of Ontario's most beautiful landscape. Each is uniquely rewarding for a golfers of all skill levels. Full-stocked pro shops, rentals and lessons are available, as well as Golf Packages and some terrific 19th Hole choices.

Sticking with the outdoors, the Highlands boasts a wide variety of fish species: Lake, Brook, Brown and Rainbow Trout, Smallmouth and Largemouth Bass, Walleye, Muskellunge and an assortment of pan fish that will fulfill any anglers wish list.

The Haliburton Lake Trout Project and its hatchery monitors and maintains fish stocks, and recently discovered a unique sub-species of Lake Trout appropriately named "the Haliburton Gold". This glacial relic, more than 10,000 years old, can only be found in the Haliburton Highlands.

If tackling nature one-on-one isn't your thing, don't fret: the Haliburton Highlands is home to one of Canada's largest artistic and cultural communities, offering attractions like the annual Haliburton School of the Arts, the Haliburton Sculpture Forest, the new RD Lawrence Place (opened Spring 2008) and the annual Studio Tour, which celebrates its 21st year this fall.

These attractions, alongside live theatre performances like the Highlands Opera Studioand the Highlands Summer Festival, live outdoor theatre, Dusk Dances, as well as five museums, an assortment of galleries and a brand new Heritage Tour, make perfectly clear the county's slogan "A Natural Work of Art".

And for those looking for a purely relaxing getaway, those 600 lakes mean one thing: beaches and sunsets! There are 35 lakeside housekeeping cottage resorts in the Highlands, dozens of private cottage rentals and motels, and a 20-member B&B group whose accommodation is as diverse as you can possibly imagine.

No, they didn't forget the kids in the Highlands: mini-golf, bowling, movies, day camps, carnivals, festivals, museum programming and go-karts will keep any kid amused… if you can get them off the beach, of course.

And speaking of festivals, there's no shortage of events in the region: traditional country fairs and carnivals, arts and heritages festivals, Ontario Whitewater competitions,trails races, live music performances, an International Film Festival, and the Forest Festival in conjunction with Canadian composer R. Murray Schafer. You can do a whole lot in the Highlands.

If you haven't visited the Haliburton Highlands, you should. It really does have something for everyone.

You can find out more at www.haliburtonholidays.com
or call 1-800-461-7677.