I’m very tardy in getting this blog posted due to a variety of reasons, but better late than never. In September we took a trip around Ontario to visit some new Provincial Parks (for us), visit some friends, and to attend the Ontario Sunrisers fall rally. The timing was optimal for the fall colours. We had a quick stop at Furnace Falls to stretch our legs before carrying on to Silent Lake PP which is SW of Bancroft. We had never been to this park before and would definitely return to explore more of the trails. In the morning, we did an 8 km MTB ride from the campground around the Yellow Loop trail. These trails are also used in the winter for snowshoeing or cross-country skiing, and they had a brand-new cabin setup at a trail junction with a fireplace and a firewood shelter. We didn’t have time for the longer MTB ride which was a 17 km trail that was supposedly more technical, maybe next time. As we left the park we stopped at the day use area where there was a pretty lake and a small sandy beach.

On Friday afternoon we continued the trip with our destination being Linda and Phil’s place in Ottawa. On Saturday afternoon Phil and I went to the Kanata Craft Beer festival, and our top 2 beers were the 4 Degrees Maple Bourbon Stout and the Cold Bear Brewing 7 Bourbon Barrel Imperial Stout. Since I needed a bucket hat for the Ontario Sunrisers Fall Rally, I was able to get a free one from Bond Brewing company.

On Sunday the 4 of us went for a walk along the Ottawa River Pathway, starting at the Blair Road Boat Launch parking lot and went to the National Capital Commission River House (total 8.6 kms). In all our visits to Ottawa we had never done this Ottawa River trail before. Along this walk we saw the boats in the Rockcliffe Yacht Club and then explored the River House. The River House was built in 1923 and has a floating platform forming a pool so you can swim in the Ottawa River, it has rental canoes, kayaks, and sail boats, as well as a café and an event rental area. Very cool to see this historic recreational location.

We left Ottawa on rainy Monday and had stops at Drummond’s Gas for RV Propane fill, at Mexicali Rosa’s for lunch (we used to go to the downtown location 45 years ago), and then at Bushtukah in Stittsville for some bike parts and Sharon bought some pants. This was the night before our rally, so we stayed at a Harvest Host location called Gulley Farms just outside Renfrew. There was a gorgeous view of the farm and the valley below from the parking area in a field. We were able to buy some home-made frozen meals, cheese, and some beef products from their Angus beef farm.

On the Tuesday we were heading to the Ontario Sunrisers Fall rally (everyone with the same brand of RV that we have) at Golden Lake Park Campground.  Enroute we stopped in Eganville to see McRae Park, setup in 2016. The park is along the Bonnechere River (downstream are the Bonnechere caves) and you can see the remains of the McRae Gristmill that was along the river. In the early 1800’s the farmers would need to canoe 150 miles down the Bonnechere to the Ottawa river to take their wheat to a gristmill in Packenham. Around 1900 John McRae built a powerhouse and the gristmill so the farmers could have their wheat processed into flour locally. This helped Eganville prosper until 1911 when there was a major fire in the town. John McRae immediately started to rebuild everything right after that fire. The gristmill was important to produce flour, as bread was a staple in the diet. Did you know that 1 acre of wheat can produce 75 loaves of bread😉 The park was quite pretty with the fall colours, so we had our lunch there.

We checked in at Golden Lake Park and registered for the Ontario Sunrisers rally. There were 39 RV’s in attendance. We had a potluck appetizer meal the first night with an amazing selection of food. The location was gorgeous, especially at this time of year with no bugs around. We enjoyed a couple of days of seminars, campfires, entertainment, and camaraderie with like minded RV travel people and finished off with a catered dinner evening on Thursday night.

On Friday we said our goodbyes and drove into Algonquin Park where we stopped at the visitor centre to see the view, then we went to Pog Lake Campground.  This was the first time we had camped at this particular campground in Algonquin park. We had tried all the other campgrounds in Algonquin on other trips. Pog Lake is a very large campground, but the sites seemed reasonably separated. The advantage of this campground is that you were at the midpoint of the Old Rail Bike Trail, so on the first afternoon we did an MTB ride from Pog Lake to Mew Lake Campground return (16 kms), unfortunately cloudy so the fall colours weren’t as vibrant. Then the next morning before leaving (we could only book 1 night in the park since it was a weekend) it was sunny and we did from Pog Lake to Rock Lake return (17 kms). We will likely book Pog Lake campground again in the future due to the mid point advantage.

As it turned out that Saturday was an absolutely gorgeous time to drive through the rest of Algonquin park as the colours along Highway 60 were spectacular and the sun was out with blue sky. It was clear that a huge number of other visitors also thought so, as every single parking lot along the highway was over full and they even had rangers stationed to stop cars from entering the lots. We simply enjoyed the slow drive through the rest of the park, as we hope you do seeing the photos.

Our destination for Saturday night was Six Mile Lake PP and again this was a first time visit for us to this park. We’re glad we came one time but likely wouldn’t return to this park as the sites are very crowded together. There were a lot of families camping here for the weekend as the beach and activities were great for kids. On Sunday we did enjoy a 6 km walk on the David Milne, Marsh, and Living Edge trails as they looped into each other but that was the extent of the trail system, thus why we would prefer other parks.

On Sunday morning Sharon found a nearby site we hadn’t seen before which was Big Chute, so we decided to check it out. This location has a marine railway that is unique in North America where it has a specially designed carriage that lifts (or lowers) boats a height of 17.7 m. They have the old marine railway and wooden carriage which acts as a backup if they need to service the new one. We got there just in time to watch them attempting to load a sailboat with a keel into the railway and take it down the railway. They had a lot of trouble getting the boat to stay balanced on the cradle straps, so it took quite awhile. However, once it was loaded, we were surprised how quickly the carriage moved across the road and down to the lower area. At the bottom they unloaded, and a couple of power boats entered so they could rise up to the top. It was incredibly cool to watch this whole process transpire. There was also a hydro electric generating station at the site, but we didn’t have time to tour it. If you’re ever in this area (east of Honey Harbour) Big Chute is definitely worth the stop.

For our final night of this trip, we were staying at Pete & Pat’s place in Meaford and going out for Sunday night dinner at the Dam Pub. The speciality on Sunday night is Prime Rib with Yorkshire pudding and Sharon asked for a second Yorkshire instead of potatoes😉 I had the Lamb Shank and for dessert we had the Peanut Butter Pie and the Chocolate Pate, everything was amazing. The main reason I love going to the Dam Pub is for the whisky collection. They have over 1,000 different whiskies (it takes a long time to go through the whisky menu) from around the world! I tried 3 different drams from Islay in Scotland, and they were all excellent. After dinner we walked around the park with the scarecrow display that Meaford puts on each fall. This year’s theme seemed to be weddings.

The next day we returned home but we stopped in Owen Sound for a visit to the displays along the harbour. We read about the dry docks used to build 100 wooden steamships from 1875 through 1905. We also read about the tug Ancaster that was built in 1951, and it was depicted on the last Canadian paper dollar bill. The tug was returned to Owen Sound in 1991 to become a historic display along the harbour. It’s always fun learning some history about your local area. The last photo shows our RV a couple of weeks later at Sauble Falls PP where we went to empty our RV tanks before putting Plankton away for the winter.

This will conclude our Ontario mini-RV adventure. If you would like to see the map of the full journey here is the link (RV Trip 14 Full Map). We covered a total of 1,260 kms on RV Trip 14.