Sunday, March 22, 2020

Fall Camping at Restoule Provincial Park October 2019

We finished our work weekend up, finishing packing  and hitched up the trailer - with Fenwick excited for the road trip, we headed on the long trek to Restoule Provincial Park.

We drove for just over three hours and pulled into Casino Rama to park for the night in order to break up the drive.  Casino Rama is a great spot to spend the night with a large area for RV's.  There was just over a dozen trailers/motorhomes there on the night of Sept 29th - some even unhitched with BBQ's and generators running.  We visited the casino for a bit and then got some sleep.   We woke early, grabbed a coffee from the Tim Hortons inside the casino and headed north on hwy 11.

The fall leaves were almost at the their peak colour so the drive was so enjoyable, even though the skies were grey.  There was some construction to deal with along the way but we weren't held up too long.

For some reason our GPS took us on a horrible "trail" drive for about 30km of the drive off of hwy 11.  I almost didn't think we were going to make it to park and I was never so glad to see pavement vs a dirt road.  We arrived at Restoule Provincial Park just before lunch time and got filled up with water and made our way to our site.  We lucked out on a fabulous site - # 428 in the Kettle Point Campground.  A wonderful little piece of waterfront oasis on Restoule Lake!

https://www.ontarioparks.com/pdf/maps/restoule/restoule_campground_map.pdf https://www.ontarioparks.com/pdf/maps/restoule/restoule_campground_map.pdf

This was our 4th camping trip here - this time with the mission of Peter landing a monster musky out of his kayak so he was eager to hit he water, so once we had the basics set up, he hit the water while Fenwick and I got everything organized for our week's stay.

Arriving on a Monday made for a lot of open campsites around us, although the ones along the water's end were all booked up for the most part. We fully expected it to fill up come Friday for the weekend.  This is one of the parks that has seasonal campsites at it and a few folks I chatted to on our walks had to have their trailers out by the end of this weekend.

With Pete out on the water trying to land that 50 inch musky, we didn't do a lot of hiking.  Being at the park before, I had done some of the bigger trails but Fenwick and I did a few short ones to enjoy the fall foilage.

 https://www.ontarioparks.com/pdf/maps/restoule/restoule_hike_bike.pdf
https://www.ontarioparks.com/pdf/maps/restoule/restoule_hike_bike.pdf

We had some rain off and on while here and some cold chilly weather but we were taking it all in stride and dressing warmly and layering up when going outdoors (and we were thankful for a trailer with a great furnace in it !)

Keep in mind when traveling to Restoule Provincial Park that this park is not in town, it is a fair hike to a grocery store, pharmacy, LCBO etc.. That being said there is a general store called Gerry's General Store that you will pass on your way into the park.  Should you need some hotdog buns or gas or some beer this is your closest spot (not the cheapest but your closest).

This park is in our top 5 to visit - we have been 4 times and will continue to visit over the upcoming years - summer time is fabulous and fall is spectacular with all the fall leaves in prime colours greeting you on your way.....it is well maintained, Park staff are friendly and helpful and sites are as listed on the Ontario Parks website.  We look forward to hopefully visiting in fall of 2020 for another great camping adventure.

The boat launch area in our campground section - about a 1 min walk from  our site





      At our campsite - a short walk(about 5 seconds) down a little path from where our trailer was at the top of the site.


                                                                  Relaxing

                                                          sunset at our site - a great site we had!









Last Trip of 2019 - Parks of the St Lawrence - Upper Canada Bird Sanctuary

We were up early and hit the road for our last camping trip of 2019.  We headed east down the 401 to Ingleside to the Parks of the St Lawrence Upper Canada Bird Sanctuary Campground.

This was the last weekend the park was open but it filled up fast come Friday night.  Our mission for this last camping weekend was some epic bass fishing for Pete and I was pumped to head to the Pumpkin Inferno at  Upper Canada Village.

The weather was certainly fall like.  For a couple days prior to arriving it had rained - massive puddles greeted us a we turned into the campground - fortunately our site was dry.  We were fortunate in having one of the few sites there with full hook ups.

We headed out Friday night for the late entrance for Pumpkin Inferno - so worth going too...you must pre buy your tickets and be prepared for crowds, but the later entrance in is the better time to go ..less people than the early one.  So incredible to see so many pumpkins in different designs.

The night was chilly (a toque and mitten one) so we decided to forgo a fire and watch a movie with the furnace on!

Am came early and Pete had a friend come and join him for a early am fish on the St Lawrence while Fenwick and I waited till the sun warmed things up and went on a 5km hike through the park.

The Parks of the St Lawrence don't offer as private of sites as some of the Ontario Parks but have some different features and things to do.

Fishing wasn't successful and the guys were of the water early afternoon so we  toured around town and then came back to enjoy the last camping meal of 2019 and a campfire where we were starting to plan our 2020 camping adventures!

https://www.stlawrenceparks.com/camping/campgrounds/upper-canada-migratory-bird-sanctuary-campground/

We were on site 16 an it did have a view of the water, but was not waterfront.

https://parks.on.ca/default/assets/File/UCMBS2019.pdf



 https://www.uppercanadavillage.com/events/pumpkinferno/https://www.uppercanadavillage.com/events/pumpkinferno/