One month till our 2016 Camping Season Starts - The Countdown is ON!

The camping countdown for 2016 is one - a month to go till our first camping weekend! Woo Hoo!

We put the slide out on the trailer last week and I had hoped to start putting things back out in it - till it snowed this week. Guess I will wait till it warms up a bit to get back out in there and Pete can un-winterize the plumbing.

We are excited to have booked a few "new to us provincial parks" this summer and are still figuring out where to go for a weeks stay right after Labour Day.  Of course the fishing has to play in with our stay - so while I research a good campground, Pete researches the lakes surrounding the park. He is in a 9 month long kayak fishing tournament this year called "Kayak Wars" so I think most of our upcoming camping trips will leave me widowed for a lot of the days!! At least I will have my kayak to explore the water, Wilson to take on some walks around, and of course the hammock, a good book on my e-reader and a summer beverage to enjoy!!

So the Summer 2016 trips that are booked so far - some far shorter in duration than we would like but even 2 nights there are far superior than none are:

Presquile Provincial Park
Silent Lake Provincial Park
Murphys Point Provincial Park
Sharbot Lake Provincial Park
Charlston Lake Provincial Park
Rideau River Provincial Park
Parks of the St Lawrence - Woodlands Campground
http://www.stlawrenceparks.com/reservations/
Restoule Provincial Park
Emily Provincial Park
Spring Rock Campground (Lower Buckhorn Lake)
 http://springrock.ca/

We are also "camping" in Windsor while Pete is fishing in a 2 day kayak fishing tournament, and we want to stay a couple nights around St Jacobs on the way there, and want to try a park near Windsor for a couple nights on the way home - perhaps Port Burwell Provincial Park - we need to sit down and figure that out...and our September week, and a few fall weekends as well, once we can book the fall Provincial Parks.

Cheers to having  a hot, sunny spring/summer/fall of camping for 2016!!

A Chilly Damp Week at Balsam Lake Provincial Park August 2015

The sun was out in Picton as we headed into the Kawarthas mid Monday morning to Balsam Lake Provincial Park.

We had visited this park a few years ago, and were looking forward to spending the week with our nieces.

Balsam Lake Provincial Park is a rather large park (506 sites) accommodating all trailer/tent sizes as well as having a cottage rental.  We were lucky and managed to reserve a waterfront site - only 8 of them there...and we couldn't wait to get there!!!   https://reservations.ontarioparks.com/BalsamLake?Map
We were pleasantly surprised to see the site was much bigger than the photos on the Ontario Parks website and quickly got set up.  We had site 513 and were the last in the row on the water. Between the plentiful trees was a trail, which after walking for about 13 min lead you to the great beach. Fun having the path right beside us!
The few sites that are waterfront all seem to have stairs down to the water, in some way. Some had pallets at the rocky shore in order to get into the water or to help secure a canoe or kayak which was super handy!


View of the water and top of staircase

 The stairs down to the water and Pete's kayak on the make shift landing on the rocks

View of the site from the water /staircase - there was two driveways into this site

The girls chilling while it was drizzling

The rocks at the shore at the campsite

 We sadly had mostly wet, damp,chilly weather but managed to have two nights of campfires and a beach day on the Thursday. Always seems to be the best weather on the day you leave - Friday was the best weather!!!

The beach is groomed and clean and a decent size. Kayaks, canoes and paddle boards and paddle boards were available for rent. We rented a SUP for 2 hrs for $15.

The washrooms/showers were always clean and usually not much of a line up, if any for the showers, and we saw park staff cleaning them daily. There was a store, just across the road from site 500, off park property, called The Park Store (there was a pathway to the store by that site) and it was a great store, having everything from gas, milk, sausages, camping supplies, candy, newspaper and clothes.   The Park also had a store selling Park merchandise and also they have bike rentals there which I believe they said were new this year.

Great park to go too - lots of sites for all camping needs - the ones along the water of course are the best, but not for large sized RVs. Lots of level large sites, and great sites when travelling with friends for ease of sites side by side.