Bruce Peninsula

From the Niagara Falls, we drove over to the Bruce Peninsula where we wanted to go for a hike in the local National Park. At the tourist information centre they told us that if we wanted to do the hike, we should wait until the evening, because during the day the parking lot would fill up completely and we would probably not be allowed to enter. We went to the centre of town, 5 minutes on foot and we were out of it, to book a glass bottom boat tour for the next day and to book our ferry crossing to Manitoulin Island.

That evening we went to the National Park and found out that there wasn’t a guard left at the entrance, so we drove on towards the parking lot. The hike took us past some very nice but crowded beaches, a grotto and to top it all off, a spectacular overhanging rock. When I was standing on the edge of the rock, looking down to the water and rocks below, I hoped that mother nature would not let us down at that time.

When we got back to the van it was already getting really late, so we decided to stay at the parking lot for the night. We always make sure that there are no signs saying : ‘no overnight parking’ because we do not want to risk getting a fine. As soon as the night fell, we could see millions of stars lining the sky, so Seb decided to try and make a time-lapse with his camera. Seb was just lying in bed for one hour when we heard a loud bang on the van and when Seb got out, he was greeted by two park rangers. They were telling Seb that we couldn’t stay at the parking lot and that we had to go to the office in the morning to pay for a camping permit for that night and that it would come down to 25 CAD. That morning, we were still a bit pissed off because first of all, we would not pay 25 CAD just to stay in the parking lot and second of all they ruined Seb’s time lapse by shining with their flashlights into the camera. When we got to the office Seb used his charm to get out from under the fine and we got off with a warning instead.

We took the glass bottom boat to see an island they call Flower Pot Island where they have a lot of rock formations in the shape of flower pots. We also saw a sunken boat on the way over that was just lying underneath the water surface.

In the evening when we were waiting in line to get on the ferry, we met a couple that had also sold their house and who were also travelling around for a while. They had a very large extendable camper behind their truck and it made Peanut feel very small for the next few minutes…