New Camping Season is here!

It's almost camping time!!   I can't wait to get away this summer.  I won't be camping at provincial parks as much this year, but i'll be visiting them for day trips and such!

Speaking of day trips, went to bronte creek for the afternoon on sunday!   The triliium trail was absolutely beautiful!   There were hundreds of trilliums blooming!  Mostly the white ones, but a couple pink and we spotted  red ones!   Also interestingly some that had green stripes, and some were entirely green!  

There were also some trout lilies, which are those cute little yellow flowers that look like they are turned inside out.   We saw Yellow and white ones.  I hadn't seen white before! 

Also in the mix was jack-in-the-pulpits,  buttercups and  wild strawberries!

If your thinking about heading out to check out the spring wild flowers now is the time to do it!   Trilliums are in full bloom and will be dying off soon!

Bronte Creek is quite a strange park as far as provincial parks are concerned,  firstly, the day use area, and camping area are separated by the creek, which is in a huge gorge.   There is NO road between them in the park,  you need to jump on the qew to get from one side to the other!

The other strange and interesting thing is that there is a farm in the park!  with cows, pigs and peacocks!   I think there is also a petting zoo somewhere in the park to, but we didn't get to that. 

On a semi-related note,  i was looking for somewhere to visit for the afternoon and came across Trillium Woods Provincial park, a lovely sounding non-operating park located somewhere near woodstock.   It's got a trail and that is all! The interesting thing is that it is NOT where it is if you put "trillium woods provincial park, ontario " into google maps, or where the little bubble points to on the ontario parks map!!  It's about 20 minutes from there!  
It's  here

just so you know! 

Lake St Peter Provincial Park

Overall Park Rating: 8/10
Nature Aspects Rating: 7/10
Recreational Camping Rating: 8/10










This park has everything Algonquin has except the over camped feel!  It's one of my favourite parks.  The first time I camped there i was a little kid, i think 10 or so.  My family was tent camping and we had one of the sites right on the water.   (which is a good portion of the sites).   We forgot one of the tents so me and my sister rigged up a tarp and slept on picnic tables, it was quite the adventure.    I've been back twice since and it lived up to my childhood memories wonderfully!









This park has a lot of very nice, sites, in general they are quite private and large!   the trail (which is across the road from the park)  features some nice scenery, with trees and rocks and cliffs and the remnats of an old hunt cabin.  It's all very picturesque and beautiful.



There is a park store, boat rentals, and crazy squirels that take all the needles off pine trees and nearly fall out of the trees!


when we were there last year the wood was dry to, which seems to be a bonus instead of a regularity these days.

That's about all i've got to say.  it's a wonderful park and if your looking for the "algonquin" experiene but don't like camping in parks that have no grass, or anything between the sites, this park is what you need!

Six Mile Lake Provincial Park May 24 weekend

Overall Park Rating:  5/10
Nature Aspect Rating: 5/10
Recreation Factoring Rating: 8/10

Well we went to this park with really low expectations, it's right off the highway and didn't really seem impressive by the descriptions and such.    We were pleasantly surprised by the quality of the park!    there is significant highway noise and boat noise from the jetskis on the lake, but the park itself is quite lovely!

It's got a park store, which is a bonus, and a well staffed gate house.  there are boat rentals as well.   there are some really crappy sites along the main road,  almost as bad as the ones in McRae!!  but there is also a lot of nice sites mixed in all the areas.   some of the lake side ones looked quite spectacular, if that's your thing.

The trail is quite lovely,  takes you along a few ponds, the lake, some nice rocks and such,  and some lovely trees.  All in all quite nice!   It was quite buggy though.  but that's to be expected!




One thing that was unfortunate was that the security staff was missing in action by about 2am.  our neighbours set off fireworks in there firepit at around 3am.  on the plus side, the security did eject them from the park in the morning, i guess there were a FEW reports of fireworks ;).   there was also a lot of excesive noise all night, but it' was a long weekend, so it's hardly not-expected.

the park fire wood was good quality!  it was dry,  paint free, bug free and  lovely.

so all and all, it was a good experience! we'd go back!