Wednesday September 2 - Grundy Lake Provincial Park & Sebastian's Birthday!!

Tuesday September 1 - Mashkinonje Provinical Park

Thus begins our hiking adventures...

Pronounced mas-kin-onj, Mashkinonje is native for muskellenge, one of the largest fish inhabiting the surrounding waters of Lake Nipissing. A relatively *new* park, it is slowly expanding it's visitor potential and apparently has over 35 km of hiking trails throughout its 2000 hectares. We did the Loudon Peatland trail -- a nice easy warm-up for the trails-to-come and were blessed with some amazing views and experiences. Mostly wetlands - again, despite the boggy area, NO mosquitoes - it's greatest feature was the fact that we were the ONLY people there! The trail itself was quite overgrown in places and we're thinking it's one of those Best Kept Secret things...

We were very much enjoying the marshy bits --




For the Fungus Collection...a lonely toadstool amongst the lichen....
Yes..that's poop -- by the size of it we're imagining moose or elk....or maybe just a Really Big Deer...
Orchids....they were swaying in the breeze and my shots were blurry so I had to hold onto it -- haven't got around to editing my hand out yet...:)

One of the best things about the trails in this area is the outcroppings of bedrock - the Canadian Shield -- which made not only for easy footing (although we did experience some steep climbing/clambering on later days) but great spots to sit and drink in the vistas...


Back at the cabin....the sun sets on a beautiful day...B and Auntie B and Savannah were out doing some evening fishing so Sebastian and I went out to get the evening campfire started....

Dusting off my fire-starting skills...seems I've still got it....


Why is it that you can't stop taking photos of a beautiful sunset? Must be the need to capture the sheer gorgeousness of it all....

Monday, August 31...first full day

Aunty B hadn't arrived yet - she had to write an exam on Sunday night (ACK! Thanks to the strike at York U.) - she was due in the evening so we amused ourselves for the day.....

Starting with the inaugural boat ride. After a rather steep learning curve for B on the intricacies of the outboard motor (in his defence, he was given conflicting information from our lovely hosts) we were out for a tour of the river....
Yup -- we had a heap load of fun....learning that loons are much bigger than we thought...
...found lots of little coves and inlets that were to become the future fishing hot-spots.
But mostly we just enjoyed the views and the wind in our hair....


With views like this - how could we not?
In the afternoon we decided to venture out to the nearby French River Provincial Park to do a spot of hiking. After much confusion and wrong directions -Grandma had to practically beat the information out of two nice ladies at a roadside restaurant (the official visitor center was closed and looked like it had been for about fifty years) - we found it. There was one trail that looked short enough to fit our schedule...a trail out to Recollet Falls...a little blip in the smoothness of the river which evidently gave the early Voyageurs a spot of trouble....

But first -- the quite fabulous, if not extremely terrifying -- snowmobile bridge. Grandma took the pics as I was fighting the urge to lie down and sob...it bears a close resemblance to a bridge in a recurring nightmare of mine...I did very well at not transforming into a babbling idiot in front of the children...
Nice view...in retrospect...
The highway across the river...

On to the Falls....a rather boggy trail - we had to do much avoiding of mud and muck and had our first experience with the very shallow root systems of the trees in the area....despite the mud and wetness, there were NO mosquitoes! Which is good, because I am loathe to douse the kids in pesticides and decided to tempt fate and come unprepared...
Lots of photo-ops to add to our Fungus Collection....

Regrettably - I had a camera incident halfway through the hike - lesson learned - don't buy the cheapie batteries...and Grandma had forgotten her camera so there are no pics of the Falls -- it was actually more of a chute (having Niagara as our frame of reference for waterfalls) but very beautiful, nonetheless...

And you can't just pop out to the corner store for batteries around these parts - mostly because there are no corner stores -- so that's the lot for today.

To the Gardens....

Waiting for the bus....

Amazingly, after cancelling once due to the rain, we were finally off for an afternoon at the Royal Botanical Gardens. We'd been gifted with a family pass so are able to go often...for FREE!!
"Family pass" means two adults and any number of children under 18...so Aunty S, Cousin's M and H joined us for the trip....

A hike through the woods...a clamber on the root system....

We spotted a frog on a lily pad....you'll have to squint...it was as far as my zoom would go....
After being chased by geese we returned from the trail and had our picnic in the Hendrie Garden before setting off for a tour of the Earth Art exhibition and a scavenger hunt....
Sebastian tried repeatedly to get the dogs to sit up but......:)
We also got some really cool bug identifier sheets so now we know the names of our local creepie crawlies....