Restoule Park, our mini-adventure continues

Restoule Lake

Our Near North adventure trip continues. Coming into the southern edge of Ontario's North country always feels adventurous to us. Over the years we've roamed around much of it, but never right where we are now. The fall weather throws us back to the days after our girls were old enough to stay home alone, when Cathie and I usually had fall trips as our empty-nest excursions. 

These were usually into the North-Eastern US states, partly because at that time the Ontario parks wound down after Labour Day weekend, when the student help went back to school. Apparently Ontario didn't know about hiring retirees in the fall. Anyway, we often journeyed into the US NE, especially enjoyable in late September and on in to October. Very cool sometimes, but often spectacular fall colours in Vermont, New Hampshire and New York State.

Last night was reminiscent of those trips, bundled up by a fire, sun setting early, just the fine feeling of camping in the fall.

 

Restoule (link here) is a large Provincial Park, about 700 sites. About 2/3 are non-electric sites, so we had a lot of site choice for Monday and Tuesday nights. Apparently it still gets busy here on the weekends. LOTS of vehicles pulling boats for the fall fishing in this area in the many smaller lakes, and waterways leading to Georgian Bay. Restoule Lake is one of those pretty lakes. 

Here are a couple views from our campground:

There is still canoe rental available

You can see the colour change happening in the back hills   

We haven't seen much intense colour yet, but change is coming:

This area has many deciduous trees, so the colours can be brilliant in a good year. Many of the lakes will be set with colourful hills in the background.

Here's some fall colours:

I don't think I'd try eating those red mushrooms!

Another Short camping trip

 

For several days we've been thinking about a local trip of some kind, and had decided to load up the bikes today and head to Rondeau Provincial Park, south of home on the Lake Erie shore. We've been to this park several times, mostly in the spring, and we know it's nice biking and hiking there. 

Rondeau was still pretty busy-looking this week, but sites were available, so we decided today was the day to head out. So, here we are, camped north of home at Six Mile Lake Provincial Park, just off Hwy 400 south of Parry Sound Ontario. 

Yes, flexibility is one of our strengths for successful trips. Some may call it indecision, but we stand by flexibility. :))

Unlike our usual early starts, we got away just after noon today. We had to get the van home from Goderich this morning, decide what to take on a northern trip, and pack. We decided to not take bikes this trip.

Six Mile Lake has lots of sites available, mostly for small rv's and tents. and we found one that suited us:

It's self-serve check-in now. Showers are closed, as in most if not all Ontario Prov parks. Toilets are mostly open though.

We were camped and set up by 5:00 or so, and ready for supper:

 

Sometimes it's hard to get the van level on an uneven site:

Sometimes the bedrock comes in handy though

 

We're not real sure where we're going from here, just northerly. We might get around to Kiosk and Brent Parks, off Hwy 17. The weather threatened and dripped on the way today, but it's pretty nice here. Hope that continues.

 

Another G2G trail ride: Blyth to the Maitland River

It was a beautiful cooler day today, fall is in the air, a good day for another bike ride. We decided to load up the bikes and head to Blyth to pick up another section of the Goderich to Guelph trail (Trail link). Monday's ride was from Goderich eastwards to the Maitland River. Because the old rail bridge over the Maitland there was dismantled and removed, it's about a 10km detour to continue past that section, so we turned around. Today we started at Blyth and rode westwards to the Maitland River, which is almost exactly halfway along the Goderich-to-Blyth trail section.

This section wends its wooded way through farm country. It's almost the same length as Monday's ride (about 26 km return), but strong gusty winds made it a tougher ride today. Our bikes have electric assist but we were still tired by the end of our ride.

When we reached the Maitland River again today we turned around, and rode back to Blyth.

Supports for the old rail bridge

The trail visible on the other side would continue to Goderich

The trail group has a plan to put a new bridge over the river here. Costs estimate: a cool Million $$. It won't likely be happening soon,

It wasn't all smooth sailing...

Nice view from a little bridge

Almost back to Blyth - only 110 km to Guelph!

In the parking lot before we left on today's ride, we met a trail volunteer who told us of a friend of his who lives along the trail closer to Guelph. One day his friend started really early, rode to the and of the trail in Goderich, then back to the other end in Guelph, then home again. The trail is 130 km long, so he rode 260 km that day. Hard to imagine but we believed the story! We sure won't be doing that. 😰

A bonus picture from Bayfield beach yesterday. It was windy then too, but the beach has some sand again:

Today's ride, in red:

Biking on the G2G trail

Monday was a beautiful day, and the morning was a great time for a bike ride. We decided to load up the bikes and try out the Goderich-to-Guelph (G2G) multi-use trail. This is mostly based on an old rail line running from Goderich to Guelph through southern Ontario countryside.

We drove to a parking area at the north end of Goderich and unloaded the bikes. Soon after starting, the trail crosses the Menesentung Bridge, with great views of the Maitland River and the Goderich salt works.

 

Today we rode the first 12.5 km of the well-surfaced trail. Even though the morning was cool, the shade was welcome and the trees gave shelter from the sometimes-brisk northwest winds. Some sections opened up to give views of the countryside.

Soon enough, we came the the end of this first trail section, at the abutments remaining from an old rail bridge that crossed the river. The trail continues on the other side, but it's a 7km detour to cross the river without getting wet. One intrepid cyclist had his mountain bike down at the river, intending to ford it through some shallows, but he was still thinking about it when we headed back the way we came.

On the way back we started to see the main bridge again:

 

A lovely introduction to the G2G trail, we covered 25 km for the round trip, in a leisurely 2.5 hours. 

On Sunday our older daughter and family came for a visit, bringing a yummy carrot cake (made by 2 of our grandsons) for a birthday celebration. When we got home from our ride, our treat was our last pieces of carrot cake from the day before. All in all a fine day.

An approximate map of today's ride, in red:

 

 

A short trip to Algonquin Park

Last Sunday we set out for Huntsville and on to Canisbay campground in Algonquin Park, to camp for a couple of nights with my youngest sister Beth and husband Sandy. We expected to go on from there for a few more days travel, with no particular destination in mind.

It was a real nice morning for a drive, cool but with a hint of humid warmth to come later in the day. Luckily it didn't get hot enough to need the A/C. After a stop in Huntsville to top up the fuel tank we pulled in to Canisbay about 1pm. As usual we didn't make reservations, but were able to get 2 sites, one for each of the 2 nights. 

Most (if not all) Ontario Provincial parks have limited facilities right now. The washrooms have been reopened so flush toilets are available. No showers or laundry though, and showering at your site is not allowed unless you have a grey water tank to contain the runoff.

Before we had left in the morning we noticed our faithful ARB electric cooler chest was showing an erratic temperature. This is the first issue we've had for the fridge in our 6 years of use (we've actually had it for 7 years), it was never turning off. We managed it by putting a thermometer inside the fridge and turning the fridge off when below freezing. It wasn't easy to manage, especially overnight, and we did get some things frozen that shouldn't have been.

Anyway we got set up on our site. After sitting out for a bit we decided to set up our little screen shelter. There were some seriously dark clouds to the south and east of us, with thunder and lightning, and also a few bugs around, and a vicious-looking chipmunk that wanted to sit in our laps. 😀

We put on one side curtain as protection from the breeze and maybe rain. Luckily the storm mostly missed us, as there was some damage from high winds in the more eastern end of the Park.

On Monday we headed for the nearby Algonquin Art Centre. They have a great collection of Algonquin art in the Group of Seven style. Unfortunately it was closed today. It had been open when we drove by on Sunday, so maybe just open on the weekends now. Even though the Park is busier than I've ever seen it, with lots of traffic and full campgrounds. Most campgrounds are showing almost full on into September and October, at least for sites with electrical hookup. Right now the non-hookup sites are also scarce.

So we went on and toured the nearby Visitors Centre. We've been there before but it's always worth a visit. They have some interesting exhibits, as well as views of the surrounding area.

Other than these dioramas and the chipmunks, we saw little wildlife this trip. 

We finished off with a nice campfire at Beth and Sandy's site, and headed out Tuesday morning.

Our vague plans of spending a few more days travelling and camping didn't work out. Hwy 60 coming out of the park towards Huntsville was incredibly busy. Anything that was open for business was crowded with customers, to the point we didn't feel comfortable going in. Even in Canisbay the small beach there was too crowded for our liking. So between the crowding and our fridge problems we decided to just have a nice drive home. Hopefully things will ease off in September, although looking at the Algonquin campsite reservations I'm not sure that will happen.

We decided to head north on Hwy 11 to Burks Falls, then west on Hwy 520 and 124 from there, over to Hwy 400. The Hwy 520 drive was very pleasant, and not crowded like Algonquin was. We almost decided to try for a campground along that way, but were now set on getting home tonight.

The area along 520 has a number of small towns, lakes and campgrounds. In years gone by we had camped in this area at Lake Cecebe, enjoying boating and fishing on that pretty lake. There are some good-looking farms carved out of the woods along this route, with some curious animals:

The little town of McKellar had a lovely town park for a break:

Some loons added a Northern feel.

 

Once we got out to Hwy 400 we were almost in Parry Sound, so stopped in a town park there for lunch. The park is just off Hwy 400, but you really can't see it from the highway:

This wasn't us, but we ate nearby...

Heading down Hwy 400 we decided to see if our friends Mr and Mrs Furry Gnome were home for a visit. They were, so we detoured a bit to Meaford on the way. So nice to see them again!

Fridge Update: I had emailed ARB support to see if they could help with our fridge problem. ARB is an Australian company, we had bought the fridge 7 years ago through a Quebec company, and I didn't have high hopes for a fix.

BUT, we had an email reply within a couple of days, from ARB support in Washington State in the USA. After some back and forth the problem is likely a bad thermistor (thermostat to us laymen), and they are shipping a replacement under warranty. Jacob also sent replacement instructions. Hopefully this will fix the problem, but I'm impressed with ARB service anyway.

The approximate route: