Nate Meyer's Weblog

First, you can see my full review of the park here.

This was a last minute booking. There wasn’t a spot free at any provincial park for like a month previous to this weekend. I decided that I wanted one, bad, so I used a refresher extension for Google Chrome, and kept refreshing the OntarioParks webpage until one came available. I then immediately booked it. Site 306 at Rondeau park was the one site available.

We decided to go here for a couple reasons. First was because it was near a beach, and felt we needed some beach time. Second, we havn’t been here before, and we want to try to get to every provincial park in the area.

We left London at 5pm Friday, and after some brief stops, we arrived at the park. We new the site wasn’t going to be amazing, but in this circumstance, we couldn’t be choosey. We got a site close to the beach, but it had a paved road directly behind it, and a pedestrian beach trail directly beside us. But we decided to ignore that, and enjoy our weekend.

From 29 – Rondeau Park

The weather was awesome! Every day was 30 degrees, so we spent 3 full days on the beach. It was great to sit, read a magazine, and venture into the water ever 10 minutes. Afterwards, we would come back to the site, and relax some more, then cook supper, and prepare our campfire.

Great weekend! (however, won’t return to Rondeau)

From 29 – Rondeau Park

From 29 – Rondeau Park

From 29 – Rondeau Park

From 29 – Rondeau Park

From 29 – Rondeau Park

From 29 – Rondeau Park

Park Entry

This provincial park Is kinda an odd one. The park shares it’s land with the local cottages, or the other way around, I don’t know. The entrance is pretty typical, with the main office directing you to the sub check-In offices for each campground. I will say that checkin only took about 2 minutes which is amazing. Usually it takes 5 minutes. After the checkin, the campsites immediately start, and your at your campsite within minutes

Park Layout

Unlike other parks, this park doesn’t have campground names. It’s basically one big park, divided by a paved road, with small gravel roads looping around. There seem to be enough bathrooms to go around, and seems to be accessible to every site. There is a paved cottage road between the campsite, and the beach, with access trails going to the beach. Basically, the park is surrounded by paved cottage roads.

They have 2 other beaches that are far larger then the standard beach (access 1-9). They are a 5-10 minute drive down the park road. Beach 11 is the dog beach, which is huge, but alot of gravel the first 4-5 feet into the water. The sand is also filled with small pebbles.

Overall Park Quality / Privacy

Well, this park is one of Canada’s oldest parks, so you’d think quality of things are poor. Which they are. They have a mix of vault toilets (mostly by the beach), and full flush toilet / shower buildings. I think there are 3 flush toilet buildings in the park, and a few vault toilets near the beaches. All the campsites are grass, which is kinda nice. Things don’t get so dirty (socks, bare feet, tent). Basically, the campgrounds is one large grass field, with the occasional tree the provide shade, not privacy. I’m sitting here typing this review, and can see all 5 of my neighbors. So the quality of sites are kinda nice because of the grass, and they are fairly large, but they offer zero privacy. Make sure you read the description of each sit before booking, because alot of them have steep slopes, which make it difficult to place a tent on.

From 29 – Rondeau Park

From 29 – Rondeau Park

It also seems like there alot of new campers here. Inexperienced campers. Newbies. I don’t now why, maybe all the experienced campers know not to come here. It seems like people come here for the beach, but to be honest, it’s one of the worst beaches i’ve seen on Lake Erie. It consists of ALOT of grass, and 5-6 feet of sand before the water.

The beach is not even a good beach. There is barely any sand, and lots of dune grass. And the sand isn’t even clean, there’s peddles, sticks and other stuff in the sand to make it not comfortable to walk on Once into the water, it’s nice because its fairly shallow for a good distance before getting deeper.

From 29 – Rondeau Park

From 29 – Rondeau Park

From 29 – Rondeau Park

Here is the dog beach.

From 29 – Rondeau Park

From 29 – Rondeau Park

From 29 – Rondeau Park

If your a roller-bladder, bring them. The roads that go to the end of the “peninsula” are paved, and would be a great roll!

Park Attractions / Activities

They have a visitor center 5 minute from the campsites, but I didn’t go in there so no idea what goes on. While I was there, there was a “Prey Bird” demonstration, and some other cool kids “seminars” which teach them about fossils and other beach creatures. I did see alot of younger families here with children, so it seems they cater to families

Also, the camp store is great. Has alot of stuff, including a full lunch and breakfast menu. Also has ice cream, and other camping things.

There are alot of hiking trails here. I didn’t go on any of them, but if you look at the activity booklet, looks like there’s 5-6 hiking trails. Again, the main roads are paved, so going on a nice bike ride to the end of the peninsula would be a great ride!

Pro’s

- Close to the beach (however beach isn’t that good)
- Hiking trails, paved roller-blading paths
- Good camp store
- Grass sites

Con’s

- Beach isn’t very good.
- TICKS (however, our dogs only got 2 ticks, but we didn’t go hiking
- There is no privacy on 99% of the sites
- Sites are very close together, with only small row of grass between
- You share the land with cottagers, who probably hate us campers coming and driving on the roads
- People seem to be very grumpy here. We had 3 people complain about our dogs walking “toward” the beach, and weren’t even going to the beach.
- Dog beach has flies that bite your ankles
- Lots of traffic if on the outskirts of the grounds

Best Sites

- I would NOT book sites 1-169, 291, 300-306. (However, sites 306 is the closest to the beach, but is very close to your neighbours, has alot of vehicle traffic, and pedestrian traffic by a trail RIGHT beside you
- I would NOT book sites 170 – 201
- I didn’t go look at sites 202 – 258, but there seems to be more tree’s in this area, and maybe some privacy?

Conclusion

I will not return. I came here for the beach, and the beach wasn’t great. I also came here because I wanted to try each park once. So now I tried it. I liked the grass base on most sites, but I enjoy privacy more. And this didn’t offer any privacy, and the sites are so open, and close together. I also didn’t like the people in general here, they seemed overly grumpy. The park store was great.

We we survived the first camping trip of 2011! A couple weeks ago, I pulled the camping trailer out of the corner of my yard, and popped it up to make sure everything was dry inside, and there was no animals living in the trailer. To my surprise, since we had SO much snow, the trailer was completely dry inside, and everything seemed to be in working order. Tessa and I popped up the roof, and folded out the beds, and made sure it was stocked of all our camping necessities, and of course it was. The only problem we had was with the propane fridge. I think the burner tube was a little dirty, as the flame was backfiring through the breather tube. But after a nice clean-up, it was good to go! That was about all the maintenance we did on the trailer before taking it out.

From Drop Box

We left Friday right after work, and had a beautiful drive up to The Pinery. The weather the first day was great, with about 5 minutes of light rain. We got everything setup in record time, then enjoyed our night. We had a couple nice bike rides, and a great campfire, then off to bed.

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

The next day, and the following, were absolutely beautiful! 15 degrees, and not a cloud in the sky. After a huge breakfast, we went to Grand Bend, and took a walk on the beach. After that, JP left to go home, and Tessa had the campsite to ourselves. We went for a nice walk, then started the campfire, and supper, and relaxed the night away.

It was a great trip, and went off without a hitch!

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

From 06 – Pinery Campgrounds

Park Entry

The park entrance is a few km’s west of highway 21. It’s kinda neat because the main entrance isn’t anywhere near a major highway. There is a long winding road, which eventually leads to the main camp office, just like every other provincial park. The office if large, and seems to register people fairly fast. There isn’t a large parking lot before it, so if there’s alot of people registering, parking might be a problem. As you drive in, the forest seems nice and thick, which is great for camping in.

From 20 – Macgregor Point Provincial Park

The front entrance

From 20 – Macgregor Point Provincial Park

This is the main office

Park Layout

After the main gates, the park is split up into 3 sections. Huron Campground, Nipissing Campground and Algonquin Campground. Each section is also split into 3 areas. Each area, within the sections have a ring road, with looping roads around which hold the campsites. Inside that ring road is the main bathrooms for each sub area. Each area within the sections has a bathroom, and some even have vault toilets throughout the sites. The beach is closest to the Nipissing Campground, and another more water access close to Algonquin, and Huron. The park store is not within walking distance to any of the campgrounds, bike fairly close via bike. The park store also rents bikes.

Overall Park Quality / Privacy

First off.., the privacy at the Algonquin campground is really good! There are some nice sites there, and I’ll list them below. Algonquin is in a THICK bush, with LARGE trees. Nipissing campground is similar, and I didn’t even go in Huron. The grounds seem to be kept up nice, and the sites are all fairly level, and clean. The main bathrooms are great! Lots of family showers, and bathrooms are fairly clean. The whole area is one big bush, so the majority of the sites are fairly private.

From 20 – Macgregor Point Provincial Park

One of the roadways inside Algonquin.

From 20 – Macgregor Point Provincial Park

Another roadway. You can see how thick the bush is.

From 20 – Macgregor Point Provincial Park

A shot of one of the bathrooms

From 20 – Macgregor Point Provincial Park

One of the campsites. This one isn’t that private. A random site.

Park Attractions / Activities

There are alot of bike trails and walking trails here. We split them up into 2-3 days and did them all. Take a look at the park flyer, to see the quality of the trails, and locations of them, etc, etc.

From 20 – Macgregor Point Provincial Park

One of the trails.

From 20 – Macgregor Point Provincial Park

A Lookout area on the trail

From 20 – Macgregor Point Provincial Park

Beginning to the Deer Run Bike Trail.

The beach here is awful. The beach section is surrounded by long grass, almost swamp like. But there is tons of water access. Alot of the trails will come out to water, where there are picnic tables, etc. Most of the access has rock bottom, but the main beach is sand.

From 20 – Macgregor Point Provincial Park

One of the ‘dog’ beaches / run areas.

Pro’s

One thing that comes to mind is the campgrounds has lots of water access. Most of the sites are fairly private, and the grounds are built in fairly thick bush. Good quality sites, nice and large, and grounds are clean.

Con’s

The beach sucks. So don’t come here for good beaches. It’s a large park, so I wonder how registration would be on a busy weekend.

Best Sites

Birch Campsite / Algonquin -

- Site 44 is right beside the host, not good!
- Site 51, 52 are close to the road – not good
- Some of the pull through sites are OK, althought they are fairly open to the road (71,73)
- Site beside # 80 is OK
- Site # 82, is fairly private
- Site 84, 85 are shared sites
- Yurst on the inside of the loops, with cover over bbq and picnic table

Cedar Lane / Algonquin

- Site 102 – Very Private, best site
- Site 113 – OK
- Site 118 – nice site, private, close to beach area
- Site 125 – nice site, decent privacy
- Site 131 – Pull through, large site, private

Ash Woods / Algonquin

- Site 2, 3 – not bad, fairly big
- Site 9 – open to the road, but big and deep in bush
- Site 13,14 – Shared, not good
- Site 20 – not very private, but HUGE
- Site 21 – small path down to the water
- Site 22 – private, HUGE, goes way back into bush, near a path
- Site 25 – Good site, it’s deep and large
- Site 31 – no neighbours, big, private
- Site 39 – really sucks

Nipissing

Site – 225, 226 – Private, but small
Site 231 – really nice, nice and big, nice and private, nice driveway, sand,
Site 233 – same as 231
Site 236 – very private
Site 141 – fairly decent, private
Site 148 – really nice, long driveway, lots of privacy
Sites 167, 168, 169, 170 – Worsts sites in park

Conclusion

I like this park. Lots of privacy here, and good hiking. It sucks that it doesn’t have a decent beach. I will go here again for sure!

Another camping trip!

We decided on Turkey Point because all the other parks were filled, and there was 1 spot left at TPPP. I think the reason why it was left was because the description says “Poison Ivey around site”, and they weren’t kidding! There was poison ivy everywhere!

It was a good overall weekend! Weather was decent. A few friends came up for a night and we sat around the fire and chilled. The weather was good enough for the beach the second day as well. Everything went off without a hitch! Here are some pics

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

Just got back from Long Point Provincial Park! Again.. the weather was BEAUTIFUL! There wasn’t a cloud in the sky, ither of the days we were there. We got there Friday afternoon, and stayed till Monday. The spot we chose was the closest spot to the beach. There wasn’t alot of privacy, as there was a bathroom across the road, and a playground, but the tent trailer covered most of that view. The beach was about 20 feet away from our campsite, and we had our own path, and our own spot to sit on the beach. I will do a full review of Long Point, with more pictures and stuff later on.

Most of the days consisted of sitting on the beach, or lounging in the boats, or chatting in the shade up at the campsite (as it was HOT!). We played some bocce ball, some badminton, and even volley ball. The beach goes on for MILES! We went for some nice long walks, and even bike rides. We had sand EVERYWHERE afterwards, but completely worth it. I also really enjoyed setting up the chairs on the edge of our campsite, facing the beach, and reading! Awesome!

Tessa and I went out for a bike ride, and brought Percy. We didn’t even think of the ticks for some reason. We went into a long grass trail, and I looked down and noticed my legs had about 3-4 ticks on them. I immediately left, and inspected Percy. He had close to 25 ticks on his body, and took us 2 hours to pull out. I hope we got them all!

We also had the blow-up boats with us, and really enjoyed lounging on them on the lake. I could sit out there for hours! Here are some pics

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

The rest of the pics are HERE

Here is my little review of Six Mile Lake.  

This is the entrance to Six Mile Lake.  It’s on a dead end road, right off highway 400, north of Barrie ~30 minutes.  (No.., you can’t hear the highway from the campsites).  You enter the grounds, head past the main office, then the park store, then the main washrooms, then into the forest!

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

After the main bath rooms, you drive down a paved road, right by the water. There are some nice private, walk-down sites that are RIGHT at the water. The other trailer sites are pretty open, and probably noisy (traffic) as the sites are RIGHT by the road. Then you start getting into the more private sites, and the main road ends at the beginning of the maple loop. I’ll get into the best sites at the end of the review Lets talk beaches! There are 3 beaches at the campground. The day use beach, beach 1, beach 2. However, I wouldn’t really call them beaches. All they did was take 30-40 dumpload trucks of sand, and made their own beach on the lake. However, if your looking for a spot to sit in the sand, it works! The fenced off water portions are pretty small, and shallow. I guess it’s only really good to dip yourself in, to cool off. They do rent canoes, and paddle boats, which is a great feature! Here are some beach pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

I would say the majority of the campsites are fairly private. If the ontario parks website says they are private, you can be assured they are private. There also seems to be alot of WIDE, and open to the road campsites, and I would avoid those (the ontario parks website will classify those as poor i think). There is 1-2 main trails to take, which I would suggest taking, as it brings you to a nice lake, and a view ponds to view, etc, etc. Other then the 1 main trail, this isn’t a spot to do ALOT of hiking, as there just isn’t many trails. The bathrooms throughout the site are all outhouse style bathrooms. The main bathroom, with running water for showers, and flush toilets, is at the entrance of the park. Don’t book a site near a bathroom, as they stink! The campsite also has docks, that you can fish off of, or rent a space for your boat.

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

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From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

As far as campsites go, again, when the website says they are private, they are private! Here’s an example of what MOST campsites look like.

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

Here’s an example of a not so private site. The grounds have many of these as well.

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

And an example of a fairly private site.

From Six Mile Lake Review Pictures

I biked throughout the whole park, and noted a few key sites that you should book if your going to the park: 

• Site 165: Really private walk-in side.  You have to hike up a small hill, and when your at the top, you have 100% privacy.
• Site 171: Really nice site, long drive-way, lots of space.  Also lots of spots in the forest, 10-15 feet behind the site to put your tent.  Lots of privacy
• Site 182: Nice driveway, lots of privacy
• Site 184:  Not a bad site, not amazing
• Site 106: Lots of privacy, big site, lots of shade, and your kinda baracaded between large rocks which block neighbors view
• Site 88: Lots of sun, and lots of shade.  Fairly private.  Kind of uneven of a site.  You can see the beaver house from it, and beavers swimming by the water
• Site 80: Very private.  Very good view.  Your up on a cliff so you see the swamp from above.  Also multiple levels.  You can walk down, closer to the water where the picnic table is
• Site 79:  Decent site.  Kinda uneven.  Behind the site, after walking over rocks, is a pond
• Site 50:  Really nice site, good privacy.  Right on the lake.  Problem is lots of traffic from main camp road
• Site 8:  Electronic site.  100% privacy.  Long driveway
• Site 30, 31:  Walk-down site.  Camping right on the water.  Not 100% sure of the privacy BETWEEN the 2 sites
• Site 140:  Average site, decent privacy, lots of shade.  Good thing about this site, is that you are RIGHT beside the pond, and RIGHT beside a beaver house.  You can hear the beavers slapping their tale, and sometimes swimming around.  There’s an island you can walk-out on

Conclusion:

Very nice, private campground.  I don’t like the outhouse style toilets, but you can go to the main toilets if you want.  Alot of the sites are completely surrounded by forest, and ponds, which is a plus! 

Any questions AT ALL just email me at:  email@natemeyer.ca

This is the second time we’ve used the trailer. We decided to head to my uncles cottage, and spend the long weekend there.

We left London around 2:45pm, and got to the cottage around 7. We setup the trailer on the top of the hill, before going down to the cottage parking lot. The bugs weren’t bad, and the screen room kept them out pretty good. The weather for this weekend was awesome! We didn’t get any rain, and it was sunny every day!

The first day, we hung out at the cottage dock, and went into Severn Falls for some penny candy, and a walk on the docks. Sunday, we headed to the big chute, and walked on the rocks there, and even found another cool spot to hike, which lead to a nice lake. And for Monday, we packed up around 3pm, and headed back to the cool lake and spent the afternoon there. We left around 5pm, and headed home.

The weekend was awesome! The trailer worked great! We are headed back up to that area in a couple weeks!

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

From May 24 @ Cottage

Click here for ALL the pictures]]
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Since buying the tent trailer in November of last year, I’ve been ITCHING to use it.  The weather was looking up this past weekend, so on a whim, we booked a site at the Riverside campground at the Pinery.  We really lucked out with this site, it was RIGHT by the river, and very large and private!  The weather for Friday was awesome!  So good that we felt the need for a swim in the river behind the campsite.  Saturday morning was a little rainy, but by the afternoon, it was warm and sunny again.

Overall, the weekend was awesome!  Can’t wait to go again!

Being the first Saturday of December, I thought it was time to pickup my Christmas tree, and go on a nature hike to boot! HAHA, and I just realized our Christmas tree is so ugly. Oh well.