3 - Killarney Provincial Park

Entry 3 – Sunday 13^th to Thursday 17^th August 2017

For us this entry shows the enjoyment provided by the Canadian country side.

It seemed most of the publicity/tourism information available promoted the populated / commercialised areas near the eastern coastal regions of Canada. This was similar to the Australian mind set involving tourism, unfortunately Canada seemed to be lagging behind with the recognition for the economic benefits to be gained from the expanding numbers of the grey nomad community reaching out to explore the country side away from the commercialised regions.

Whilst scanning all the displayed promotional pamphlets in the various tourist information centres a small booklet caught our attention showing the locations of provincial parks in Ontario, our preferred viewing locations provided by the natural beauty of the environmental landscape.

We decided to take a punt and head west from North Bay away from the promoted eastern locations. Looking at the map we headed for Killarney Provincial Park a bit out of the way, where we would need to back track some distance before continuing with our exploration of the country side. We had an inbuilt gps in our hire vehicle and another one provided by our son Tim. We utilised both gps’s when travelling and they were constantly bickering over what route to take. For us family comes first and Tim’s gps was given priority for our route to Killarney Provincial Park. We ended up travelling along some quiet country side roads where we got to view some different farming practices from our Australian country, enjoying a relaxing drive with minimal traffic about.

We arrived at our destination, George Lake Campground in Killarney Provincial Park and had the choice of 3 camp sites, set camp and made our way to the beach where we had a nice dip in the not too cold waters of Lake George.

The scenery was stunning and the camp ground magnificent. Our initial thoughts showed the amenities were not as good as our Algonquin Prov. Park experience but the scenery was more spectacular providing a happy atmosphere within the park. We walked some of the trails, spent a day canoeing around some of the different bays and found people to be quite friendly. The one question everyone asked us; “how did you find out about Killarney Provincial Park?” Many of these people lived closer to the publicised Algonquin Park but chose to spend their time at Killarney Park and we understood why. We loved it. It almost seemed like the “locals,” viewed this as their own bit of private oasis.

Even with Mary’s broken wrist still causing her grief, (swollen hand,) where she was finding it to be more comfortable held in a sling, she was all go for spending time in a canoe. At one stage Steve, had gotten out of the canoe and suddenly it over turned with Mary still in it. She disappeared under the water surface, popped up spluttering, then started laughing. Killarney Provincial Park oozed with goodness providing a boost to the well-being for all who visit and if we had been on our Aussie travels would have easily been a stopover for a month or more.

We packed up the tent and went for one last 2-hour walk, a guided walk with commentary provided by one of the park rangers, returning to the car and it just started to rain. It rained non-stop for nearly 10 hours. We were glad to be staying in private accommodation for the night not being stuck in a small tent or needing to venture out around muddy wet tracks to facilities.

July and August is Canada’s big school holiday break period and yes it was crowded with kids at the campgrounds. Many people had been informing us the campgrounds quieten down after the first weekend in September, (long weekend) which had been our strategy for our time to explore the Canadian Rocky Mountains. We were hoping and looking forward to quieter times once the peak period dropped off.

As we had good internet access at our accommodation we decided to post some happy photo shots.