Fall Camping

Good Morning!!  It's been a while since I last made an appearance, but it was partly due to technical difficulties (locked out of my blog), and partly due to just enjoying a blogging break.  As I mentioned in my last post, we were planning a trip into Algonquin Park for our annual fall camping. We did get our last camping trip in for this year, and the weather couldn't have been better, or the colours more beautiful.  How nice is this for the roadway into our campsite?

We only stay for two nights, but one full day.  Our full day is our hiking day, and we decided to tackle Centennial Ridges, a rough, difficult trail of 10 km, but one with the best views in Algonquin Park.  It was so warm, we wore shorts and t-shirts.  I think it was up to about 30'C on the trail because when we finished the trail in the late afternoon it was still 27'C.  You have to be sure to start the trail in plenty of time to finish before it gets dark.  The sun is starting to set around 5:30 now, so you can't leave it too late.  It took us 5 hours to complete the trail at a comfortable pace and stopping for lunch and to admire the stunning views from the ridges all along the trail.

There was an otter or something swimming and playing the small pond below, but he was just a bit too far away to get into the photo.  We did enjoy watching him swimming up and down his pretty little pond.  In the heat of the day, we were quite jealous of him!

We all heard it before we saw it, but as we stood along the ridge with lots of other hikers, we could see the fast approaching military plane roaring towards us.  It came flying straight towards the cliff before banking sharply beside us.

My son thought it was extremely cool.

This trail has never-ending spectacular views, first along one ridge, and then hiking up a little higher, we saw even more incredible views.  

Below is the view from the second ridge.

And Whitefish Lake ...

As we travelled in between the ridges, there were lots of little ponds and creeks to enjoy as well.  These little hide-away spots were as amazing to gaze upon as the extensive views.

Don't you think so?  Below was the little spot where we happily ate our lunch.  We had the colours close beside us and a grand view ahead of us.  Sitting on this rock was better than any restaurant I've been to :)

There wasn't too much breeze the day we hiked, so the water was clear as glass.

Perfect.

If it wasn't getting so late in the day, I could have lingered alongside these waterways for a lot longer.

So much beauty all along the trail ... 

Unfortunately, we ran out of water before the end of the trail.  We stopped below about three-quarters of the way around and shared our last dribbles out of our water bottles.  My son suggested "from now on, anything over 5 km, take two water bottles each".  He wasn't too happy for the rest of the trail :( Lesson learned.

Cody enjoyed the hike immensely, but he's getting older now and he was pretty much flaked out by the time we reached the truck to take us back to our campsite.

We were so exhausted at the end of our hike, and were happy to get back to the trailer where we fixed up a delicious dinner ... complete with a birthday cake and presents!!

The pooped pampered pooch

I have some more photos to share of an early morning drive we took along the highway before the roads were packed with throngs of people.  But I'll leave that for another day so as not to test your patience with photo overload ;)  But here's a little sample for you ...

Thanks for stopping by!

Wendy