We were headed home but there was still lots to see along the way. After stopping in Brighton one more time we headed North to see the little towns of Warkworth and Cambellford.  I adore the little shops in Warkworth and highly suggest anyone passing by that way to check them out. The first stop was the "Cheeky Bee". 

​It is a rustic ranch style building with Mexican pottery lining the porch. 

And inside is an assortment of some of the most gorgeous gifts you will ever see. Metal works, paintings, cards, jewelry, lights, corn brooms. It's all simply beautiful. 

Another shop you don't want to miss is "Frantic Farms- Clay & Glass & Gallery" 

I love the metal work here and so does my daughter so I bought her another piece to go with her collection. You can often see the artists at work behind the desk while you shop, which is another neat feature.

And the glass work here is just lovely. 

Another shop to check out in Warkworth is the Sprucewood cookie shop. Sprucewood cookies are hand made and come in a a variety of unusual flavours. Penny bought a bag of Pumpkin cookies. 

This place is called the "Yellow Bordello" . We didn't go in, but I liked the name. 

After stopping in Warkworth we went in to the town of Cambellford just a few minutes down the road. This is the town my grandmother lived in before she passed away. It is a picturesque little town with a Timmies and a Canadian Tire and Giant Tiger. But my favourite shops are the Frog's Whiskers (craft store), Kerr's book shop, and naturally,the Chocolate Factory. Inside the chocolate factory are barrels and barrels of all different kinds of chocolate. They are a great price because the are made right there and don't have to be shipped anywhere. We try to stop in here every time we come this way and we stock up on our supply of chocolates.

You can buy chocolate by the bar, by the bag or in gift boxes. 

Our next stop in Cambellford was an emotional one for my brother and I. We almost didn't stop at all. We wanted to see the Little Red School House that my grandmother (farmor) lived in before she passed away. We hadn't seen it since the new owners moved in. So although we wanted to see it; at the same time we were worried that we would be heart broken by any changes that we saw. We pulled up near the mailboxes and made ourselves look like lost tourists as best we could. There was a lady in a blue shirt working in the flower garden at the side of the house. The old dog house was gone but there were two beautiful dogs playing in the yard. Farmor would have been happy about that. She adored dogs. Not much else had changed. The original door was replaced by a new one and the side of the garage was now blue instead of white. My favourite tree had been cut down, but it had been in bad shape and really did need to come down. In it's place they had planted a brand new sapling that in time I am sure will become a beautiful big tree. We only stayed for a very short moment or two. Just long enough to get a glimpse and take a quick picture through the windshield of the car. We didn't want to look like stalkers so we quickly moved on. I left feeling happy that the the people living there now seemed to be happy and taking great care of the place. It was a bitter sweet moment. 

​Soon we were on our way to Petroglyphs Provincial Park. We were all looking forward to seeing the petroglyphs. Carsten had his GPS on to help us find it and we ended up in someones back yard. So if you are going to take a trip out to this park, do not trust your GPS. Use a map and follow the signs. We wondered just how many people ended up in this poor guy's back yard.

Once we righted ourselves and got back on the right road it wasn't long before the park sign came into view.

L We knew we didn't have a whole lot of time to spend here. The gates to come in close at 4:30 and if you aren't out of the park by 5:30 p.m. you could be locked in for the night. It was about 3 pm or so when we got there. 
We drove through the very narrow winding roads through a very pretty forest. It was so peaceful and serene. Finally we came to the parking lot. From there you had to walk up to the Visitor Center. The very first thing you see on the way up to the Visitor Center is the bathrooms.

​ These were in rough condition. But once you got closer it was pretty easy to see why. 

They were having troubles with porcupines eating the bathrooms. Porcupines are known to like to chew the wood on peoples stairs and railings so it was no surprise to us that they would like to chew on bathroom doors as well. Apparently they are attracted to the salt that humans leave behind when they touch things. There were little gates in the doorways of the bathrooms to help to keep the porcupines out. 

​The inside of the bathroom was very basic and old looking. The bathrooms could definitely do with an upgrade.

Even the inside of the bathroom was not off limits to the porcupines and other wildlife. ​The bathrooms though were the only thing that needed sprucing up. Everything else from that point on was stunning and gorgeous and peaceful. 

There were a couple hiking trails available but we didn't think we would have time to walk any of them. Our first destination was to see the actual petroglyphs. 

They had nice benches here and there along the way. 

The walking path up to the Visitor Center was nice and wide. The air was warm and smelled wonderful and there was a sense of calm and peacefulness as you walked. It was a very beautiful place. 

The Visitor Center here is called "The Learning Place". This is where you pay your entrance fee. Inside is a fantastic display of artwork and various items. It is exactly that....a place to learn more about the First Nations culture. 

The shop inside had a beautiful stone fire place. 

There were books and post cards and mugs and all sorts of little things to buy. It was set up very nicely and intermingled with big boulders that were lined against the walls. It made far a unique display. We only had a quick look for the moment and decided to come back to the Learning Place after we saw the petroglyphs. Once again we were worried about how much time we had. 

Just outside the door of The Learning Place is McGinnis Lake. There is no swimming, boating or fishing allowed in this lake because it is protected as a meromictic lake.

There was a little write up about the lake describing how meromictic lakes have 3 layers and the very bottom layer does not have oxygen and does not support life except for cyano bacteria. The lack of oxygen at the bottom of the lack means that things that settle on the bottom do not decay. As a result, the sediments on the bottom of this lake represent a perfect record of the last 10,000 years that scientists can study. Any swimming, boating or fishing could stir up the layers of waters and mix the layers together which would ruin that perfectly preserved record. 

The next stop was the long awaited petroglyphs. There is no photography or video allowed of the petroglyphs because this is a sacred site of the First Nations. However, they did have some postcards with a couple of pictures available at the Learning Place. 

The petroglyphs were an amazing site. They had erected a specially designed, large, glass building over the site many years ago because they had found that the weather was eroding the petroglyphs away and that they were in danger of disappearing all together. Before the building was erected, the First Nations people for hundreds of years would cover over the petroglyphs with mosswhen they were done their ceremonies. The damp from the moss had already warn much of the oldest petroglyphs away or to the point where they were hardly visible anymore.  Inside there is a concrete wall keeping people form going in and touching the stones. The only people who are ever allowed on the stones are the First Nations people who come about once or twice a year to perform traditional ceremonies. The land actually belongs to them and they are gracious enough to let people come to look at the petroglyphs.

One of the park rangers was there on site and he was a wealth of knowledge. While you are looking at the petroglyphs you don't have too many questions that come to mind. But when the ranger gets to talking about how they were found, how the building was made, what some of the symbols mean, etc. you realize just how many questions he has answered that you wouldn't think to ask.  We learned that to First Nations, women are held in high regard for bringing life into the world. A common custom among First Nations is that women in their menses cycle do not enter sacred sites like this one. First Nations believe that the female body undergoes a natural purification at this time, whereas males have to attend other ceremonials such as the sweat lodge in order to attain similar purification. We also learned it is customary to leave an offering of loose tobacco.Tobacco is a sacred plant, given to First Nations by the Creator, and widely used in prayer to the Creator, the ancestors, the earth and the universe.This offering is best left at the periphery of the site. Sure enough, there was a mortar and pestle with tobacco laying on one of the edges of the site.

One of the interesting things about the petroglyphs is that depending on what time of day it is, or even what season it is, certain petroglyphs can be seen better depending on how the light falls on them. 

We were surprised by how much time we actually spent inside the petroglyph building. But we still wanted to take more time in The Learning Place. So we headed back. Along the way we saw another garter snake in the leaves. This was the second snake we saw in one day. 

Inside the Learning Place were plenty of quotes and sayings that would look great as posters. 

There were also some traditional artwork to see as well. 

Much of the artwork had some educational information written on it and were done on glass which were lit up from behind.  

My other favourite piece was one that symbolized to me this whole trip that we were on, which to me was partly in remembrance of my grandmother.  The piece was of a First Nations person dressed in red and dancing in the sunset.  The words say:

                             "What we are told as children is that people,
                                    when they walk on the land, 
                                         leave their breath wherever they go. 
                                    So whenever we walk,
                                           that particular spot on the Earth 
                                                   never forgets us.
                                    When we go back to these places we know
                                              that the people who lived there
                                                  are in some way still there, 
                                            and that we can partake
                                                of their breath and 
                                                       of their spirit. "

By the time we got out of the Learning Center we had only about 15 minutes left before the park closed. We hadn't even touched the hiking trails yet. I really wanted to take a quick peek at the trails so we decided that we would walk 5 minutes down the trail and then 5 minutes back and that would leave 5 minutes to get to the car and leave. So we started on our 5 minute journey down the Nanabush Trail. 

As we strolled along a dragonfly decided to land on Penny's shoulder. 

It was a beautiful sunny day and the trails were a beautiful walk. 

Even the rocky areas were smooth and easy to travel. 

Some of the paths were lined with a pretty decoration of little green plants. The brochure says to watch out for poison ivy, but we didn't see any. 

Soon it was time to turn around. I would have liked to have gone further but our time was up. 

On the way back to the car, by the bathrooms there was this stone structure. Not sure what it was for. Looks like it may have been a old water tap at one time, perhaps. 

There were also some interesting rock formations where water had carved  out some interesting shapes over the years. 

On the drive out we saw a couple of wild turkeys in the bush and we stopped for a second or two to watch them. ​ I would like to come back one day and if I do I will not under estimate the amount of time I can easily spend here. Instead of just an hour or so, I could easily spend 4 - 5 hours here or more depending on which trails I might like to hike. 
It had been a great day but now it was time to go home.

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. 

Presqu'ile Park is a campground that holds a lot of memories for me. Every summer throughout my childhood and teen years I would come here with my Farmor (Danish for grandmother) and my siblings and sometimes my parents to spend a day of swimming and eating ice cream.  This was the first trip back to this park since my Farmor passed away a few years ago. I had been thinking of camping here for over a year and I had been counting down the days for months before finally arriving here. 

My brother, Carsten, and his girlfriend, Penny, arrived ahead of me to set up the tents because I had to work that day and since it was about a 5 hour drive, I knew that I wouldn't  arrive until after dark.

When I got there Carsten and Penny told me about a raccoon that had visited them and had come right into the dining tent and was sitting right beside Carsten before it realized that he had been spotted and took off again.  I never once saw the raccoons that came to visit but I knew they were there. I was awakened in the middle of the night by raccoons trying to get into my tent. They were actually trying to open my tent door. I don't think they knew I was inside until I turned on my flashlight and started yelling at them to go away. they soon got the hint and went off to explore somewhere else and I went back to sleep. The next morning there were little raccoon footprints allover my tent door. 

 

The water front near our campsite was not the swimming beach. This was just a place with picnic tables where you could sit and relax and look out over the water.

One of the first things you notice when you reach the edge of the water is miles of what seems to be a boring grey rocky shoreline.  To the untrained eye it would not hold much interest. But to me, it is this particular reason why I come year after year. 

You see, these grey rocks are riddled with all kinds of fossils. There is a wonderous history here of  sea creatures that  used to reside under the waters millions of years ago. 

The fossils that are most plentiful are the ones that have bunches of small crustacean type creatures all bunched up together in one rock. Mostly they look like a bunch of small circles all grouped together. 

But there are also some that stand out more and look more defined, like bones or shells. 

Often times you can come across some very weathered and smooth snail shell fossils. They aren't as plentiful but they aren't too difficult to find. 

Every once in awhile, if you are really lucky, you will come across a really rare, well defined fossil like the one below.  You aren't supposed to take these fossils home, but I am sure that many people do. If you don't have any luck spotting good fossils, there is a visitor center in the park with a display of many really nice fossils that were found on the beach. 

Fossils and rocks are not the only things that are plentiful here. Living in amongst the stones are a whole lot of spiders. They tend to make a run for it though when you start moving the stones so they aren't really bothersome. 

It's not just fossils I come to search for though. There are plenty of pretty coloured stones as well and I can spend hours sifting through them all. There is something zen about sorting through a bunch of pretty rocks and I liken it to sifting through a box of buttons. Anyone who likes to sort through buttons knows exactly what I mean.

​This is also probably the largest collection of skipping stones you will ever find too. The water has worn all the stones smooth and most are fairly flat. So if the water is calm you can try your hand at skipping the stones across the surface of the water. Most of the time the water isn't calm though.  Part of the tranquility of this place is that you can listen to the waves roll up against the shore, carrying rocks up with it and then dragging more rocks back again as the water recedes. It is a different sound than just plain water crashing against the shore because the moving rocks clunking together creates a different sound. 

I tend to spend more time looking down than I do looking up when I am walking this shoreline. I am in my own little world and time and troubles just drift away. 

Eventually I figure I had better start heading back to see if Carsten and Penny are awake yet.  Once I finally start looking up instead of down there are a whole lot more things to see. I managed to snap a picture of a White Throated Sparrow in a tree. There are plenty of these little birds around but they don't sit still for very long. 

In September there is not always a whole lot of flowers around but the purple asters were everywhere here. 

And so were the Orange Jewel Weed.

The bees were just loving the flowers that were still blooming at this time of year. 

As I was walking along I found a web with a really huge female Orb Weaver spider. She was so big that you could easily see the hairs on her legs. 

The morning was beautiful. The sun was sparkling on the wet dew filled grass like a field of diamonds. The weather was warm and the leaves were just starting to turn colours.

My walk back took me past the ampitheatre where I saw something I had never seen in a provincial park before. It was a sign saying "Church In The Heart Of The Park 10 a.m. Sundays from Canada Day weekend to Labour Day weekend".  What a great place for a church service!  Too bad I wasn't able to attend one since not only was it after Labour Day, but we wouldn't be there on Sunday anyways.  Further up the road was a sign that just said Thank You. It didn't say what it was thanking me for, just "Thank You".  No...Thank YOU Presqu'ile Park! I had been here less than 12 hours and already I was just loving it here. 

 Our site was number 206 and it was in a good spot. It was near the comfort station as well as walking distance to the waterfront. There was plenty of shade so you didn't wake up in the sauna type heat of the morning that you get in some campsites. The campsite itself was large enough to hold both tents, the dining tent and both cars.  Just up the road there was a site that was reserved specifically for the Park Host Program (#212). I had never heard of a Park Host Program until now. Apparently you can sign up to become a host or a mentor for an inexperienced family or group of campers to help them learn how to camp and learn about the park. If you become one of these hosts then site #212 is reserved for you. Number 212 is an OK site but number 210 which is right beside it is a much nicer site. 

When I reached our campsite  Carsten and Penny were awake and eating breakfast. We sat around for a bit and got to planning our day. We had already made plans months ago to make sure that we went to see the light house and to hit as many of the walking trails as we felt up to while we were there. Plus we wanted to go into the near by towns to do shopping and sight seeing. 

We decided that since the weather was so nice and we didn't know for sure how it would be the next day, that we would go to the Light House first, the Marsh Board Walk Trail second and then to Owen's Point trail after that. Our day was looking pretty full already. 

The Light House is at the other end of the park and you have to drive to it. The one thing I noticed is that all the roads are paved and are in top condition. There is not a single pot hole anywhere. As far back as I can remember the roads here have always been in good condition. They look brand new. As a matter of fact almost everything in the park was exceptionally clean and in good repair. The drive took us beside the day use  picnic area where even there they had a screened in picnic shelter and the grass was tidy and mowed. There was not a spec of litter anywhere. 

Finally we made it to the Light House. Penny was excited because she had never seen a real life light house before.  You can't go inside this one but you can walk around the outside and read the signs that talk about the ships that had sank in the area. 

You can also walk around the outside of the old Light House Keepers house and read about it's history on the posted signs. 

There is one spot where you can just sit on a bench and enjoy the view or look through the binoculars to see what is out in the distance on the water. 

This Spotted Tussock Moth Caterpillar was getting ready for winter over by the light house. 

Since the peak of camping season is over in September, a lot of the visitor centers in the provincial parks are closed. This park is no exception, so we were disappointed to find that the visitor center at the light house was closed for the season. Having been inside on previous visits I know that there are displays on fossils, ships, birds and all kinds of interesting things. 

After awhile we decided to head off to the first of our hiking trail destinations of  the day, the Marsh Boardwalk. This was the trail that I was looking forward to hiking. I love walking marsh trails with board walks on them. There seems to be a higher chance of seeing wildlife on these types of hiking trails....and we weren't disappointed. 

The very first thing you see as you begin the trail is a look out made of composite boards. There is wheelchair access at the bottom and stairs to a higher view from the top.  Presqu'ile is Canada's largest fresh water tombolo (former island....in this case two former islands) and possibly the largest in the world. 

We spent quite a bit of time in this spot before we even really began the hike. We had binoculars and we scanned the landscape looking for signs of birds and animals. The view reminded me of pictures of an African plains or something. 

These red band-winged meadowhawk dragonflies were flying and landing everywhere. There were so many of them. 

In some places the marsh grasses were so tall that you couldn't see over them or through them. It was interesting to see a wide variety of different kinds of grasses too, including two different types of cat tails. 

We were beginning to wonder if there were even any fish in the marsh at all but then we finally saw this little sunfish swimming around. 

Although we could heard so many birds everywhere we had a really difficult time spotting most of them. Our first real sighting of any sort of birds was when we came to an area of open water and saw a group of mallard ducks. 

Once we saw the ducks we started seeing more and more birds. We were even graced with a visit from a blue heron. 

Some birds would not sit still long enough to have their pictures taken. I managed to get a not so clear shot of a chickadee. But I never did get one of the blue jays that we kept seeing. 

About half way through the trail we came to another look out that had an over hanging tree that would have been perfect for a tree house. 

And in that tree sat this brown thrasher bird that sang a pretty song as it watched us. 

Just as you are nearing the end of the trail you go from the grassy marsh into a cedar and cottonwood forest. In the forest you will see these odd shaped trees called "The Horse Trees" . These strange growth patterns are a result of something damaging the trees well over a hundred years ago and the trees have managed to grow around it and then back up towards the sky. Many people come here now to sit in the saddle shapes of these trees. 

That concluded our hike on the Marsh Boardwalk Trail. But the day was still young so we hopped in the car and headed over to our next stop....the Owen Point Trail. 

Now after walking the Marsh Boardwalk Trail the Owen Point Trail paled in comparison. At first I was thinking that it was actually pretty boring and hardly scenic at all. It started off pretty much like an every day walk through some trees. 

Slowly the trees and bushes started to get thicker but that just made it worse because there was nothing much to see and now you couldn't even see through the bushes to look at the water even. Luckily we had picked up a brochure at the trail head that showed numbered points or "look outs" that had corresponding facts or blurbs written about each spot. So we headed towards the first "look out".

The first 3 or 4 look outs were the same thing. The trail led to a roped off area over looking the sandy shore line of the lake. Except for a few sea gulls here and there , it wasn't much to see really. We had better views of the lake back at the campsite. I was beginning to get even more disappointed with this trail. 

Finally the trail started getting at least a little more interesting. The vegetation around us started resembling corn stalks and we started to feel like we were in a corn maze. 

At one point the corn maze closed in around us so much that we actually had to duck down to go through the path to the look out. We pushed the plants aside and we felt like we were in the movies in the jungles of North Korea or something. Soon we were laughing as we pushed our way through. 

Even the flowers had grown to eye level. 

It was flowers like these though that attracted the Monarch butterflies. We had seen signs at the trail head saying that Monarchs can gather in large numbers in late August and September as they migrate south towards Mexico for the winter.  We didn't see "great numbers" of them but we did see quite a few. The wind kept most of them from landing and staying in one spot for too long so taking a picture was difficult to do.  It wasn't long before you could hear us shouting out to one another "Oh, there's one!" and "Oh no.... he flew away". "There's another one!"  And so the butterfly chase was on. 

Finally we cane to an area where close to the Point the wind wasn't so strong and it was a bit sheltered by some of the plants. And there they were, a couple of Monarchs resting on the flowers that they like just waiting for us to take a picture of them. 

It's not just the yellow flowers that attract the Monarchs to the area. The Milkweed plants are also a part of the attraction. 

Finally we came tot he point. Up until September 10th this part of the trail is closed to the public while hundreds of shore birds are nesting. There are two other islands, Gull Island and High Bluff Island that are also closed to the public during nesting season. No one is allowed within 200 meters of the shore of those islands up until September 10th.  But now the point is void of nesting birds and all you can see are shells and bones and rocks. 

Now when I say that all you can see are shells, I mean that there are so many that the ground looks like white beach sand.  There actually is no beach sand in this picture. It is purely shells and rocks and algae. That is a whole lot of shells!  You can feel them all crunching beneath your feet as you walk along the water's edge.  

At one point there were 4 beaches at Presqu'ile Park. But now they are down to 3 beaches. That is because they have stopped raking and maintaining the one that is closest to Owen Point and they are letting it naturalize. This is in order to create more habitat for the birds and wildlife here. The result of this has been an increase in algae growth along this part of the Point. This algae is very important for sustaining a food source for the shore birds. It is murky and doesn't smell the best so you don't want to go swimming at this part of the park. But that's OK because it's safer for the birds when there is minimal interference from humans anyways. Besides, there are 3 other very large, very sandy, very clean beaches to choose from. 

As we headed back we came across a part of the trail that were covered with pretty Fringed Gentian flowers. According to the information we read about on our hike on the Marsh Boardwalk Trail, these flowers are actually pretty rare. I found it kind of odd that we didn't see a single one  on the Marsh Trail but here on Owen Point trail they were lining both sides of a long section of the trail. 

At the very end of Owen Point trail is the Park Store. This place brought back a lot of memories. As kids we would take time out from swimming to walk up to this store to get ice cream and to buy a small toy like a    yo-yo or some other small trinket. Unfortunately at this time of year it was also closed. Maybe next time we will have to come back earlier in the season. 

It was getting close to supper time and we had walked way more than we were used to today and we were tired. So it was time to head back to the campsite and get ready for supper. 

We had planned to cook hot dogs over the fire and bake potatoes. The problem was, since the park store was closed there was no place to buy firewood. Plus we had forgot the hot dogs and there wasn't enough tinfoil for the baked potatoes. We had planned to go into the town of Brighton earlier in the day but by now we were just too tired to go anywhere.  Instead we opted to eat egg salad sandwiches for supper (I had boiled some eggs before coming to camp) and we would make the trip into Brighton the next day and have our campfire the following night. 

Before it got too dark we headed down to the waterfront one last time for the day. We watched the pinkish skyline turn to grey and the moon coming up over the water. A single sailboat floated along peacefully far out from shore. 

The rest of the evening was spent playing board games into the wee hours of the morning.  We had gone to bed thinking that we hadn't seen hide nor hair of the raccoons that night and figured that we actually wouldn't be getting a visit from them. But alas, that was not the case.

About an hour or two after we had gone to bed and fell a sleep we hear a loud and terrible crash coming from the dining tent. The raccoons were back and they were rifling through all the boxes in the dining tent including the cook stove and the containers with pots and pans and cutlery. We just about jumped out of our skin but quickly realized what was going on. I could hear Carsten and Penny shouting at the coons and chasing them away. All of our food was in the cars and there was nothing to be had so they didn't stick around and probably went to hunt for frogs or something instead. Once again I only heard them but did not see them. It wasn't long before I was back to sleep. 

​It had been a beautiful day , a beautiful evening, and the night of sleep was beautiful too.