Another Beautiful Day in Presqu'ile

Despite the noisy crashing sounds of the raccoons the night before, I still had a fantastic sleep and woke up happy and refreshed. 

​Once again I left Carsten and Penny sleeping for awhile and headed down by myself to the water front. I found a picnic table by the water's edge and just sat and enjoyed the tranquility of the water. Oh, and searched through nature's "button box" of stones too of course. 

It's amazing the different things that you can find amongst the rocks. 

I even decided to flip over some of the stones in the water to see what I could see there. To my surprise, under the first stone that I flipped scurried in all directions was hundreds of tiny baby cray fish. They were so small that they looked like tiny little sea monkeys or something. 

Some of them got stuck on the rock when I lifted it up. So I had to put the rock down so they could swim back in the water before they died. I lifted another rock a little further down the beach and there was a whole bunch more under that rock too. 

​​They didn't even have their hard shells or their pincer claws yet. They seemed to be doing fairly well at hiding from the birds and fish under these rocks. I am sure that they weren't expecting me to be picking up their home on them. 

These little guys were at about the Mysis stage of their development. 

After about a half hour I started to head back to the campsite to see if Carsten and Penny were awake yet. The trees along the road were beautiful in the morning sun. The whole park was quiet and peaceful. 

You could hear many different birds, including a woodpecker knocking in a nearby tree. 

I stopped and listened and then moved in for a closer look. 

It was  Downy Woodpecker finding his breakfast. I thought that breakfast was a great idea so I continued heading back to the site. 

When I got back Carsten and Penny were up and making breakfast. They asked if I had heard the crashing noises that the raccoons made during the night. "Who hadn't?" I wondered.  Then they showed me the little paw prints that the rascals had left behind on the cook stove. I am beginning to visualize these coons as something from a TV show where they can talk and sleep in tents and cook themselves supper over a stove (I call dibbs on the TV rights to that show!) 

While we were sitting around Penny came across a fuzzy white and black caterpillar. We had actually seen a few of these around. I warned her and Carsten not to touch it with their bare hands. These are Hickory Tussock caterpillars and can cause skin irritations if touched. They are considered venomous but are not deadly. The Hickory Tussock caterpillar can leave behind venom that can cause a rash similar to that caused by nettles or poison ivy. Symptoms can range from slight reddening of the skin to a burning sensation with swelling and pain. Some people may experience an allergic reaction which could include nausea. You have to beware the cocoons as well, because the caterpillar hairs are used in the shell to discourage predators. The Hickory Tussock caterpillar is most common from July to September. 

Our plan for the day was to hike Jobe's Woods Trail and then do our own thing for awhile and later in the afternoon take a quick trip into Brighton to get the supplies we were missing. 

​Shortly after breakfast we hopped in the car and headed over to Jobe's Woods Trail.

This is a beautiful trail to walk. It isn't very long and the trees make a nice shaded canopy. 

The birds were plentiful but wouldn't sit still for pictures. We kept seeing a couple of blue jays and hearing some wood peckers. I thought with all the dead fall and old tree stumps around that we would see more of the wood peckers but I guess they were being shy that day. 

I think in the spring this would be a great trail to walk. There are boardwalks all through this trail that are intended to keep you above the wet ground in the spring time. At this time of year though the ground water is pretty much dried up. So the frogs and things that enjoy the wetness of spring were no where to be found. 

There were still some interesting fungi that liked the damp ground though. 

The boardwalk led past some interesting looking trees. 

And sometimes the boardwalk itself was interesting to look at as it zig zagged through the trees. 

Found some holes in the middle of the path. 

Figured the holes probably belonged to a few of these guys. There were chipmunks and squirrels everywhere. They were chasing each other and chirping and telling each other off as loud as can be. 

Near the end of the trail there was an old pine tree that had what looked like some old vines that had once grown through it.  It looks like neither the tree nor the vine was living anymore. 

On the other side of the road, away from the hustle and bustle of the chipmunks, a little red squirrel was hanging out and minding his own business. 

Jobe's Woods trail is a fairly short and easy walk so it didn't take us long to complete it. It was probably a good thing after all the walking we had done the previous day. 

We hopped in the car again and headed back to the campsite. At the entrance of where the camp sites are situated we noticed a large structure that looked like a bunch of bulletin boards. We stopped to check it out and found it to be a huge Bird Sightings Record station.  There are charts listing all the birds that are usually found in the park (plus places to add those you have seen that are not on the list). The charts are enclosed behind some plexi-glass and there are erasable grease pencils available so that you can check mark off which birds you have seen that day. That way all the campers are helping to collect information on the birds that the park staff can use to monitor the bird activities (migration patterns, increase or decline in numbers, etc).  

We added our check marks of what birds we had seen to the board and then continued on our way back to the camp site. 

By the time we got back to the campsite  the day was starting to get quite a bit warmer. Carsten and Penny decided to head on over to the beach for a couple hours. 

There are actually 3 beaches at Presqu'ile (there used to be 4) and they are very popular in the summer time. Some people, like my family, come to Presqu'ile specifically to use the beach for Day Use only. 

The beaches are big and sandy and quite nice but the layout is a tiny bit strange. From the parking lot you first head to the change rooms. The change rooms are in a nice big stone building. 

As you leave the change rooms you walk down a beach sand covered path. With so much beach sand you figure that the beach is not too far off. 

But then all of a sudden you are passing through a long expanse of grassy area that is starting to resemble the Savanahs or something. You've already been walking for a bit and you are starting to wonder "What the heck? Where is this beach?" 

Then you see the shrubs getting shorter and finally there is an opening at the end of the path. Way off in the distance you can see the water. 

Finally you emerge from the vegetation and out into a very large, very long, very sandy, very well kept beach.  It took a bit of a walk to get here but it was worth it. Then you wonder.... why in the world did they build the change rooms so far back? .....who knows. 

During the peak time in the summer these beaches are pretty crowded and it is populated with beach goers on towels, in the water and playing int he sand as far as the eye can see. But in September the beach is a people -less  bare expanse. 

The major population in September seems to be the flocks of Canada Geese and the sea gulls.

The water is almost always never completely calm...which is part of the fun. As kids we would wait for the waves (or white caps as we would call them) and try to find the biggest ones we could. Then we would run into them head on and try to fight our way to the other side of them. The waves would usually win and knock us off our feet and push us back in the opposite direction. We would just get up again and look for the next one. 

The other thing about this beach is the water is fairly shallow for quite a ways out. As soon as you think you are just getting to a spot deep enough to swim, you would find yourself up on a sand bar in knee deep water again. There are a whole lot of sand bars out there. By the time you get into deep enough water for real swimming, everyone looks like little ants out along the shore line because they are so far away. So the beach is great for little kids because "the deep end" is way out in the distance. 

While Carsten and Penny were swimming, I decided to read my book. Since I had to charge my camera I opted to read on a bench outside the comfort station so that I could plug the camera into the outlet just outside the door and be able to keep an eye on it while I relaxed. 

The comfort station here is a pretty nice one. The most notable thing about it is that there are lights all along the pathways leading up to it so that at night you can see where you are going. The lights inside the building are on a motion sensor so that when you open the door they turn on and the rest of the time the electricity isn't being wasted. The only problem with that is on the men's side, my brother tells me that, if you stand still too long the lights will go out on you. We didn't seem to have that problem on the women's side. 

When it was getting close to supper time, Carsten and Penny came back.  We still didn't have any firewood and we needed to get tinfoil and hot dogs.  So we took a little trip into the near by town of Brighton.  When I say "near by" I mean that it's pretty much on the door step of the park. 

We found a little shop called the "One Stop" that sold wood and tinfoil. But we had to go a little further to the Sobeys to get the hot dogs.  

Brighton is a cute little town and has some quaint shops and architecture. Just outside the Sobeys is a nifty little archway. 

The park int he center of town has a gazebo and the landscaping is beautiful. 

If you go to Brighton be sure to check out the clothing store called the Dragonfly.  Also, be sure to check out Mrs. B's candy store. It is filled with all different kinds of hand made chocolates and other treats. 

The Sobeys not only had the hot dogs that we wanted but they also had a box of one of my favourite childhood cereals....Boo Berry!  

The evening was filled with roasting marshmallows and hot dogs and playing more board games. We didn't stay up too late though because we knew we were leaving the next day. We planned to check out some more little shops in a couple towns and we also wanted to stop by Petroglyph Provincial Park. Plus we would be headed home after all that so there was a lot of driving ahead of us. 

The next morning we made one last trip to the water front before packing up to leave. Even on the last day Presqu'ile still had a surprise in store for us. As I was packing up my tent, out from under it slithered and small little garter snake!  I wonder how long he had been under there. 

We had a really nice time at Presqu'ile and I can't wait to come back again sometime.  I am going to miss the peacefulness and tranquility of this place.