Visiting Five Parks in Twenty-One Days

Five Parks

Logistics: Travel around Ontario

Vehicle: 1994 F350 RC LB SRW 4x4 7.3l diesel with 1988 Maple Leaf Camper

Days: 21

Dates: September

Activities: Overlanding, canoeing, hiking, photography

Distance: 4500 kms (est.)

Photography: Old, poor quality, scanned images ... sorry!
Canadian Provincial Parks: Killarney, Sleeping Giant, Algonquin, Lake Superior
Canadian National Park: Bruce Peninsula

Post Description: Read the photo captions, the story is in the photography and it's 'mostly chronological'.

We travelled around the province and camped, biked, hiked and paddled. We have pictures taken at Killarney Provincial Park along the Bruce Trial in the Bruce Peninsula NP and Sleeping Giant Provincial Park. Mom and Dad O'Kane were staying at the Blue Spruce in Dwight and we stopped in and visited with them for a night on our way home.

We did a nice single day flat-water loop at Killarney - about 25 km if I remember correctly. At one portage along this route we saw an older lady (maybe early 60s) paddling and portaging a solo river kayak. We also hiked a couple of the day trails in Killarney - all nice. This is a beautiful park. In some ways the scenery is more beautiful than Algonquin - lots of gray granite and white quartzite rock mixed with hardwood and softwood forest - the lakes are beautiful. I can see why the 'Group of Seven' spent so much time here.

The local fox population in Killarney Park is quite tame. Helen had one wait for her at the toilet and then follow her back to the camp-site. We had one visit us one evening that was so tame it spent the better park of an hour sitting beside our camp-fire. At one point it even put its' head down and napped for a short while.

We encountered a major hailstorm at Bruce Peninsula National Park. One side of the camper sustained fairly severe hail dimples in the aluminium siding. Helen got caught in it! She was on her way to get water when the storm hit - she arrived back at the camp-site with the water pail over her head not beside her and full of water like it should have been! I of course was safe inside the camper with a glass of wine in my hand. Unfortunately, I had to send her back out for water once the storm passed. We hiked part of the Bruce Trail the following day and the accumulation of hailstones was still about 6 inches deep in in places in the bush.

On our return trip we did some hiking and walked into the Ragged Falls site with dad one day.

Photography