Nate Meyer's Weblog

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.

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!

Park Entry

The park is located north of Turkey Point about 3-4 minutes. After turning off Turkey Point road, you go down a longish drive-way (1/4 mile) and get to a toll booth. Directly after the toll booth is the main office, which is where you register for all of the campsites. There aren’t alot of parking spaces, so people do have to get creative if it’s busy. The front off has 2 windows to register people, and like all other provincial parks, the time it takes to register is AWFUL. I waited 20-30 minutes in line, with only 4-5 other people ahead of me. After registering, you are free to drive where ever you want in the park, there are no more booths to check your registration.

Park Layout

After the front office, the park is divided into 3 campgrounds. Whipoorwill Campground, Walkingstick Woods, Fin & Feather Campground. Whipoorwill, and Walkingstick each have their own bathroom / showers, and Fin & Feather only has a outhouse type bathroom. The front office has firewood for sale, and a small store to buy snacks and small toys.

Overall Park Quality / Privacy

The front drive seemed nice, with cut grass, as did the front office. They did some landscaping to make it look nice. The drive-ways are all paved up until you get into the individual campgrounds. There are a lot of nice big trees that do provide privacy in some areas. Fin & Feather campground is the smallest section, which only has 22 sites in it. The sites are a lot more private, and since it’s the radio free zone, everything is a lot more quiet. Around the campgrounds is a lot of big tree’s, that make the campground as a whole a lot more private. As for individual site privacy, there are a view sites that are decent, and I’ll mention those below. As an overall, I would give privacy a 7/10. Fin & Feather’s bathroom is a outhouse style bathroom, but it’s made of concrete, and is quite nice. However, it does stink.

As for the other 2 campgrounds, I didn’t see a single private site. It’s almost like everyone is camping in a grass field, close together, sharing sites. Except take out the grass, and substitute forest floor. The other 2 campgrounds were also very noisy, with radios playing, and lots of people laughing / talking. The campsites are all kept up nicely, and trimmed of grass and shrubs inside the site.

The one problem with Turkey Point, is there is poison ivy EVERYWHERE. Our site (#214) had poison ivy completely surrounding the site, and even some plants in the center of the site. Ridiculous.

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

This is the picture of our site. # 214. Would not recommend it, as it’s on the main road, and is really visible from the road

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

This is the end of the main road, and the entrance to Fin & Feather campground. See how they kept a lot of shrub, and big trees.

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

One of the sites in Fin & Feather. It has a lot of road front.

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

The driveway through Fin & Feather

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

Outhouse

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

One of the more private sites.

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

This is the main bathroom / shower center at Walkingstick woods campgrounds.

From 30 – Turkey Point Provincial Park

This is the road through Walkingstick Woods. See how open it is, and how there is not much privacy between sites

Park Attractions / Activities

I don’t think there’s much going on at this park. There are 3 trails at the park. One trail is 2km long, and goes to a lookout point, the other is 4 km’s and goes to a fish conservation area, and not sure about the other one. I wouldn’t say this is the place to go to hike, as they are a little boring, but there are trails to get some exercise anyway.

There is obvisouly not beach AT the campground, you have to drive into Turkey Point for that. You use your park registration for free parking at the beach. The beach is really nice! Nice soft sand, and you can walk out in the water a fair ways before it gets deep.

Pro’s

- Quality of bathrooms and showers are nice.
- Fin & Feather is small, and quiet
- Road quality is good
- Fin & Feather seems to be deep in a forest. It’s nice to have some trees around you when camping

Con’s

- Poison ivy everywhere
- The 2 other campgrounds are large, open, and LOUD
- Seems like cars SPEED everywhere. I’ve seem some doing 40 km/h through the grounds
- Did I mention Poison ivy everywhere?
- I wish more sites were private
- You have to drive to the beach

Best Sites

The best sites in Fin & Feather are 235, 225, 226, 227. None of the sites are 100% private, but they are good for the most part.

Conclusion

I don’t think I’ll return. Too much poison ivy, I don’t like driving to the beach, and the sites aren’t private enough. I think it’s a good park, but there are better parks around.

The first thing I want to say about Longpoint Provincial Park….. is SAND, SAND, SAND. The park is pretty much built ontop of a beach, and all sites are in the sand. If you have a trailer, make sure your truck is 4×4, or backing it into a campsite might be an issue. The other thing is, the beaches there are FANTASTIC!

Any site is within walkable distance to the beach, but I would suggest only booking inside of Turtle Dunes Campgrounds, as the other ones are just OPEN sites on the grass. For the most part, the sites on the inner ring of Turtle Dunes are fairly open, but the sites on the NORTH part, and outside ring of Turtle Dunes are pretty private. The best site in the park is site # 434, as it sites pretty much on the beach. There is a SLIGHT bluff to walk over, but you can see the beach, and even set a tent up on the beach. Pictures below are of site # 434.

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

So, after driving through the town of Longpoint, the Park is at the very end of the drive. It’s as far as you can drive out on the Longpoint Jet of land. After the front office, it’s a fair drive past the old park, and to Turtle Dune Campground. There is one main washroom, with showers at the center of the Turtle campground. Again, the sites here are mostly sand, and 50% open, 50% private. There’s lots of room on the beach to spreadout, and you can walk-out in the water a ways before it gets deep.

One thing to be careful of is TICKS!. The campsite area seems fine, but if you go for a walk in the trails at the north end of the park, through the tall grass, you’ll get LOTS of ticks. My little dog had 25-30 ticks on him. On the note of trails, the park doesn’t really have any hiking trails that I saw, or biking trails. It’s also hard to bike around here, cause the roads have some sand on them, and your tires dig in.

I didn’t go around and see what good sites there are at this campground, but my GF noticed one other site that was good. Site # 311, inside Turtle Dunes Campground. It’s not on the beach, but the beach is right over a small sand bluff. The site is fairly private as well.

I think that’s about it.. any questions can be emailed to email [at] natemeyer.ca

More pictures can be found here

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

From LongPoint Provincial Park

Let me first say the best thing about Pointfarms… Goderich! It’s a beautiful town! Make sure you stop and check-out the town on your way through. There is a really nice bakery on one of the streets off the circle.

Pointfarms Provincial Park starts off with a long paved road, off highway 21, then you get to the front gates. Make sure you get out and take a picture of the Pointfarms sign right at highway 21.

From Point Farms Provincial Park

There’s lots of parking at the front gates, so you can go in and register your site. One thing I’ve always notice, is that if you don’t get there early on a Friday afternoon, there might be a long lineup to register. After registering, the road splits into two. Huron Campground, and Colborne Campground.

Huron Campground

The campsites all seem to have alot of “roadfront” (similar to waterfront). They all seem to be wide, and open to the road. Some of the campsites on the INNER parts of Huron have no backs to them, and are just open to the campsite behind you. When booking, make sure the description says private = good, and you should be fine. The campsites on the OUTTER part of huron are all good, although again with alot of roadfront.

The bathrooms are centrally located, and are usually pretty clean. There are no family showers on the huron side, only individual showers for woman and men. Colborne has the family showers, and I usually just drive over there to use them. There is a nice playground right beside the bathroom, where all the kids usually meet up and play.

The views of Lake Huron are AMAZING! They have 2 spots where you are sitting right on-top of the cliff, and can view the whole lake. Each lookout spot has a path that goes down to the rocky beach. Sunsets views are amazing!

Some decent sites from my memory: Site # 55 – is VERY open. But, it’s right on the bluff, with an open view of the sunset. Site # 95 is VERY private. All the sites around the outside of the park are fairly private as well.

The beach is below the Colborne side of the park. So if your at Huron, you need to drive over, and down the hill to the beach. Colborne residents can ither walk down, or drive down as well. The beach is nice and sandy, and no rocks.

I can’t comment on the sites at Colborne side, as I’ve never camped there. However, while driving through, it does look fairly private, and if the private description is GOOD, then you should be set.

One other comment. The park seems to be really family oriented. There are ALOT of families here, and thus makes the park a little louder. If your a young couple, without kids, be ready to get woken up at 7am with kids running around. This is also NOT a party campsite. Although, I didn’t really see many rangers driving around, I’m sure they wouldn’t tolerate late night noise.

Here are a couple pictures of the park

From Point Farms Provincial Park

From Point Farms Provincial Park

From Point Farms Provincial Park

From Point Farms Provincial Park

From Point Farms Provincial Park

From Point Farms Provincial Park

From Point Farms Provincial Park

Any other questions? Email me at email -at- natemeyer.ca

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