Backpacking Killarney - Day 6

When I woke up Heather and my mom were already up. Heather's chipmunk friend had gotten less shy and would now climb up your leg and eat out of your hand. It would also sniff around your plate of food while you were eating, but it would not take food from your plate. It was a polite little chipmunk. 

Today was the first day where every single step did not ache. Heather's blisters were still healing and so was my finger. Considering that we were not so achey we decided that today would be a good day to ....you guessed it....go on a hike! We made plans to do the Granite Ridge Trail a little later on in the day. To top it all off, we had seen a posting on the event board that there was going to be a Guided walk called "Learning About Night Time Creatures"at the Nature Center tonight and I planned to do that walk too. 

After breakfast Heather headed down to the showers and my mom and I could see a couple small holes in the screen tent so we were patching them. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something black and the size of a large dog coming towards us. It was a bear!

It was only just a very young bear so I made sure to scan the area to see if momma bear was behind it. There was no momma bear in sight. The bear was just passing through our site and was headed to the road. I grabbed my camera and started following it at a fair distance behind. 

It was headed up the hill to the next campsite over. I watched as it started poking through their fire pit and
around the picnic table.  (Note: My camera has a decent zoom on it so I am not nearly as close to the bear as these pictures may make it appear. I was sure to keep a good distance away). 

As I was watching the bear I saw, from my left side, the couple that were camping on this site. They had taken a stroll up one of the trails and were just returning at that moment. I called to them in a low, quiet voice "there's a bear in your campsite". They were completely surprised by this and later thanked me because they said that if I hadn't said anything then they would not have seen it until they were way too close. They did not even realize it was there at first. We stood quietly for a few brief moments just watching the bear.

​ It didn't find anything it was interested in and it was aware that we were watching him so he did not stay long at all. Soon he sauntered off into the bush heading away from all the other campsites and away from people. 

I had the opportuntiy to talk to our neighbours for a bit. They were from down south around the Turkey Point area. He worked for a program called "Nature's Calling" which is an environmental education group. They work with the provincial parks down south doing events and activities with kids because the parks down south do not have guided tours and other events like the ones provided here at Killarney. He was considering going on the "Learning About Night Time Creatures" walk tonight just to get some new ideas for his programs. We talked for awhile and shared some pictures until finally it was time I headed back. 

Granite Ridge trail head is located directly across the road from the park's gate house,We drove up to the parking area at the gate and parked car. The park offers free to use hiking kits that you can sign out at the gate. The kit comes with a little pack sack, a pair of binoculars, a first aid kit, compass and a couple other things. It also includes a trail guide book. In the back of the book is a checklist of all the different birds you may come across. 

​We walked across the road to the trail head only to find that there is a parking lot there for hikers. Oh well, it was not like we had walked far to get here. We started the trail at about 1:50 pm.

There is also a place where you can park your bike if you have one. The trail begins through a thicket of what looks to be dead pine trees. You can tell that they were hand planted because they were all in neat little rows. A few hundred meters in there is a sign saying that they are clearing some of these trees in order to let the new trees and plants grow back in naturally. 

This trail was pretty interesting if you had the trail guide book with you, The trail winds through an area that used to once be the farm of one of the first families in the area; the Tyson family. They managed to clear 6 acres of land by hand and plant crops and even had some cows and live stock. You would never know it to look at the forest that stand there now. But there are still some tell tale signs of what once was if you looked hard enough. 

One of the signs we saw was the remains of two rusting old cars. Apparently these were the first cars ever to drive in Killlarney and were owned by the Tyson's sons. 

After you get past the old Tyson farm the path turns into a loop. Since we had the guide book we followed the numbers and took the right fork. But you could just as easily take the left. 

We got to the point at about 3:10 pm. At the furthest part of the loop you are rewarded with a beautiful view of Georgian Bay from the top of an open spot on the rocks. From up here we could see birds flying above the trees and the cool wind was nice after a hot hike. We sat here for about half an hour and took a nice long break. 

Behind us you couldn't see Georgian Bay, but it was still a pretty view too. 

By this point the blisters on Heather's heels were bothering her again. We took a look at the map and it was difficult to tell if it was faster to go back the way we came or to go forward. Heather decided to go back the way we came and my mom and I decided to continue on to finish the loop. 

Along the way we saw an unusual coloured grasshopper. It was pale, pale green with large black spots and the back legs were red. It was not one of your everyday, run of the mill, looking grasshoppers. I believe it was a "Northern Marbled Grasshopper".

We also saw a cute little red squirrel on the way back. Almost didn't get a picture because a couple of noisy young people cane barreling up behind us and scared it away. 

Once we got back to where the loop had begun we wondered if Heather was ahead of us or behind us. We felt like the way back was much quicker going for us than the way there and we suspected that she was still behind us. Mom decided to wait here awhile just in case and I went up on ahead. 

It was a very quiet walk back to the parking lot. Quiet enough that I happened upon two Grouse. I practically stepped on them and didn't see them until they started to run/fly away from me. One took off in one direction and the second in another direction. 

Turns out Heather made it back before we did and she was waiting in the parking lot for us. We didn't have to wait very long before mom showed up too. 

Once we got back to the campsite I decided to go for a swim before supper. The trail had been hot and besides that the wasps were annoying me again. So I drove down to the beach and parked the car. This was the smaller of the two beaches and the buoy lines did not go out very far. 

I assumed this was because of what the signs posted say; that there is an uneven lake bottom. I imagined that there was a sudden drop off somewhere. The buoy lines only came up to my waist. There were 3 other people out past the buoy lines when I went in so I went past them too. If I had been alone on the beach I probably wouldn't have, just in case.  I quickly realized that the water didn't get deep until about double the distance that the buoy lines are set at.  ​I didn't really have anything to worry about . I had my Ronald McDonald shoes on and I was glad because the bottom was a bit mucky. But the water was clear, clean and refreshing.  As I dried off I watched some people in the distance jumping off the cliffs and into the water. That looked like fun. 

I got back to the campsite just in time for supper. We had dehydrated manwhiches and potatoes. For desser t we had dehydrated fruit cocktail. The fruit cocktail looks a little gross once it's rehydrated but it tasted pretty good. This time we made sure to eat all of our dessert before any coons showed up. 

Sure enough, Willimena showed up again while we were playing cards. This time we didn't accidentally leave any food out at all. We knew Wilimena was coming before she arrived. This was because we could hear a couple of kids in a campsite across the way yell out "A raccoon! Look! A raccoon!"  They were so excited.

She had only been at our tent for a moment or two when we could hear the kids, two boys about age 9 or 10, coming up the road looking for Willimena. We called out to them and asked "Are you looking for the raccoon"?  "Yes, have you seen it?" they replied.  Heather said "Yes, it is over here. You can come and see her if you would like".  So we invited the boys to sit at the picnic table with us while we played cards because we knew they would get a kick out of Willimena climbing up the table.  We told them that they had to sit quietly and that they couldn't feed her. We explained that she would probably touch them but they can't pet her just in case she bites them. They didn't have long to wait and Willimena did not disappoint them. Soon enough she was searching their pockets and climbing up onto the bench beside them. The boys were delighted by this. One of them said in a hushed voice so as not to scare Willimena away "This is so cool!" The boys stayed for about 5 minutes before Willimena was sure that there was no food for her and she moved on to the next campsite. The boys said thank you and then went back to their own site and we continued with our card game..  Now the boys had a story to tell all their friends at home.   

We only played cards until about 9:30 because I wanted to go on the "Learning about Night Time Creatures" walk. Heather and mom didn't want to go so I walked to the Nature Center by myself. I decided to walk to the Nature Center in the dark. I had a flashlight with me but I didn't turn it on. Someone had pointed out that if you are walking down the road in the dark, just look up at the sky and you will see the way to go because there are no trees to block the view. Sure enough, it works! 

I arrived at the Nature Center 10 minutes early. There were 2 tour guides already there waiting in the dark with no lights on. I was the first to arrive and I said hello to them. Right away, I heard a familiar voice say "I know you! You were here last year. You are the one who writes the blog on camping" . Without her even telling me who she was I knew right away that it was Rochelle who had been our guide on the trail last year.  I was impressed that we both recognized each other without really being able to see each other in the darkness. 

Soon other people started arriving and I learned that the other guide's name was Bethany. As people showed up with their flashlights they were asked to turn them off because it takes about 45 minutes for your eyes to fully adjust to the dark. 

They began by doing a couple of interesting activities to test out how well you can see and smell in the dark. We were all given a different coloured popsicle stick and you had to find the group of people who had the same colour of pospsicle stick that you had.  Then they passed around little containers of scent and you had to identify what it was you were smelling. Ours group had cinnamon, but one lady beside me thought it was mint. The other group had Maple syrup but some people thought it was vanilla and some thought it was chocolate. 

Next we walked up to the gatehouse in the dark to see if we could find any fireflies. We didn't find any because it was a little late in the season for them. While we were looking for fireflies we heard some howling coming from the Granite Ridge trail area. At first we thought it was wolves but then we realized it was just people doing wolf calls. 

Next stop was the wall of the gate house where we looked at moths and discussed the differences between moths and butterflies. 

Then we walked back to the Nature Center and listened for bats on a little machine they had. We talked a bit about bats and the white nose disease that is affecting them. At this point someone drove up in a vehicle and parked with their headlights shining directly at us. We thought it would only be a couple seconds and then they would turn them off but they just kept sitting there with their lights in our eyes.  Bethany finally had to go over to the car and ask them to turn off the lights. But it was too late; they had completely ruined our night vision. The worst part was that our next stop was to take a wooded, rocky, root filled path down to the beach. It wouldn't have been much of a problem if our eyes were adjusted to the dark. But now that we had been blinded by the light, it became almost a safety hazard to try to walk this path. Rochelle had to turn on her flashlight at one point just so we wouldn't trip. 

It was a gorgeous night on the beach and the stares were bright and clear. We were lucky enough to see the International Space Station go by (twice in two nights for me!). At the beach we talked about owls. There are 6 types of owls found in Killarney Park.  Rochelle and Bethany passed around the skull and the talon of an owl for everyone to see. Rochelle said that owls are known as the "silent killers" because their wings are completely silent when they beat. Owls have ears on the side of their head and one ear is lower than the other ear. They can also turn their head 270 degrees. These things allow the owl to know exactly where a sound is coming from. 

Next, Bethany played the sound that a Barred Owl makes on her phone so that we could hear it. The Barred Owl makes a call that sounds like it is saying "Who Cooks For You? Who Cooks For You All?" 
Then we took turns making the owl call and trying to get an owl to respond. Apparently they have had success doing this on other occasions. We thought perhaps we may have heard one very faintly way off in
the distance but we were not completely sure.

When our Night Time Creature walk was done I headed back to my site in the dark. This side of the park was noisy, smoke filled and crowded and I was happy that even though we had got the last available site in the park, it was a quiet and peaceful one. There were plenty of coons down at this end of the park too. I could hear a couple of them snarling at each other as I walked by. 

I got back to the site at about 11:30 and played cards with Heather and mom for a short while longer. Tonight was much cooler than all the other nights had been so this was the first night where there were finally no wasps following us into the tent at night.

I finally fell asleep at about 12:15 a.m. but I was awakened at about 3 a.m. by the sound of none other than....a Barred Owl! It was really close and quite loud.  If I hadn't have gone on the Night Time Creature walk earlier in the evening I would not have been able to identify what kind of owl it was. I went back to sleep with a smile.