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Tobermory, ON 18.6 mi (29.9 km) |
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Happy trails, everyone!
After a sumptuous pancake breakfast at Craigie’s Harbourside, we enlisted the help of Kelly the Innkeeper to launch us on our adventure to our second amazing national park in Ontario: Bruce Peninsula National Park!
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This coastal park runs along Georgian Bay, part of Lake Huron, and showcases some of the finest features of the Niagara Escarpment, a UNESCO Biosphere Reserve! If I were to describe what an escarpment looks like, it’s pretty much a sudden drop-off from highland to lowland, formed by uneven erosion over eons! This drop-off will appear as spectacular cliffs overlooking the Bay!
This park contains a portion of the Bruce Trail, an 890-kilometer hiking trail that runs along the Escarpment from Niagara Falls to Tobermory! For perspective, that’s 110 kilometers longer than the Camino Frances! Like the Camino, the path is marked by blazes on trees and rocks, white for the main trail and blue for the side trails. We connected to it after a short jaunt on the Georgian Bay Trail and spotted our first blazes at Indian Head Cove!
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We really lucked out today! Indian Head Cove is the most popular spot in the entire park and gets packed with cars and people during the tourist season. What a difference a week can make! The whole day, we saw less than twenty hikers!
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This spot really deserves its popularity, though. The water is crystal blue, and the beaches are pearly white! I wouldn’t recommend that human folks go swimming here just yet, because it was pretty darn chilly taking a dip in there, even for me! But, this is a popular summer swimming destination anyway, especially at the Grotto, a spectacular sea cave that reflects dazzling colors!
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We spent a good hour just enjoying this beach before we realized we still had over 18 kilometers to walk today! So we bid Indian Head Cove and the Grotto adieu, but we still had many more amazing things to see up ahead!
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Kelly the Innkeeper had forewarned us that this would be a strenuous hike, but we had our doubts since there were no mountains. What we learned along the way is that, even without mountains, it takes a lot of energy to keep a pace while navigating the boulders and ankle-twisting, popcorn-textured rocks along the coast!
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Luckily for our feet, the trail took a few breaks from the craggy coast and turned inland onto a soft, mossy path through the forest. We had some trouble keeping an eye on the trail the whole time, but the blazes sure did help!
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We got a little lost and wandered in circles for a few minutes, which gave me time to find the perfect fairy log! The fairies weren’t home today, but it’s nice to see their architecture here.
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Shortly after getting lost, we burst into the open again, onto one of the most beautiful beaches I’ve ever seen! It was the perfect spot to frolic, and since there was a teeny tiny patch of snow in the shade, I decided to introduce Scooter and Danielle to Señor Castorieti!
As he came back to life, Señor Castorieti took one look around at the snowless beach and laughed. He wagged his fingerless mitts at me and said I was playing a prank on him. I told him “Sorry” like a good Canadian, but he told me to call him back another time when there was more snow and melted right away. Scooter and Danielle looked pretty perplexed!
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The next beach over, we met a tall, silent fellow made of stone, called an Inuksuk! Inuksuks are part way marker, part symbol! They’re used by lots of Arctic tribes to mark ways home, important fishing spots, memorial sites, and much more! They can’t easily be made by a single person, so they’ve also come to symbolize community and cooperation! This one looked like it was taking a tropical vacation from the frozen north, so we followed its northward-pointing arm and left it to relax!
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By now, we’d done plenty of doddling and still had about ten kilometers to go! The trail turned away from the shore and went up, up, up, into the winter-sleepy highlands where no birds sang or squirrels scampered. There were no views for a long time, but we could hear the horn of the M.S. Chi-Cheemaun in Tobermory, five or a hundred kilometers away! It was a terrible mind game until we climbed down a rope to our last beach, Little Cove, where we debated calling Kelly the Innkeeper to pick us up early!
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Nope! We were determined to finish the course on foot! Even though the rest of the trail was closed, we slogged our way back to Tobermory along the road, spotting another beaver making the crossing! She disappeared into the bushes before I could say “Hello!” though.
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At last, we stumbled into town, tired and ravenous for some necessary fatty, fried goodness at the Crowsnest Pub and Restaurant! What a spectacular day in a spectacular place! We timed this trip perfectly and got a really great overview of this park’s many wonders! I’m sad that we’re leaving this quiet little town tomorrow, but I feel in my beaver bones that some Firstbud frolic awaits us tomorrow!
Off to put my feet up!
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Total Ground Covered: 301.6 mi (485.3 km) |
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