We woke up at about 9 a.m.  The sky was overcast but it was still nice out. Saw this pretty coloured Painted Lichen Moth hitching a ride on the tent.

Another insect that wanted to hitch a ride was a little Assasin Bug nymph. It looks like a little green stick bug or something at this stage of its life. 

It didn't take us long to pack up since aside from the screen tent a a few other things that had been in the back of my trunk, most of what we had to pack was light weight back pack stuff. We were all ready to go at about 11 a.m.  Since I needed to gas up the car we figured why not go back into the town of Killarney for another meal of Herbert's fish and chips.  Yes, they are that good! 

Herbert's is located on a little marina where there are plenty of boats docked and a few others coming and going. One of the boats is actually a ferry that takes people over to the other side where there is another long set of hiking/backpacking trails. Maybe we will come back and hike those ones one day. 

Boats aren't the only things you will find in the water. There are plenty of Canadian Geese to be found. 

And there are seagulls and cormorants as well. 

And along the shores there are some interesting old buildings. 

We also went next door to Farquhar's  store to see if there was anything we wanted to buy. The signs on the outside are strange enough to make you curious about what is inside. 

The inside was not what I had expected at all. I had expected it to be a typical convenience store, but this place has all sorts of interesting wares, including a whole wall of Hawberry Jelly. 

There were also camping supplies. In a corner of one shelf was something that caught our eye. It was a Mosquito Pyramid Net. It was small and very light weight. This would make an excellent tent for a backpacking trip on those hot summer nights. All you would have to do is bring a light weight fly to go over it in case of rain and you would be all set. After some debate as to whether to buy it or not, Heather and I finally decided to buy it for my mom for her birthday since it was only a few days away. We are going to have to go on a new backpacking trip soon, just so she can test this out!

Our last stop in the town of  Killarney was the "gas station". Killarney doesn't actually have a gas station per se. The convenience store down the road does sell gas though. When I went into the store to ask about it the lady at the counter said to just drive around back to pump my own gas. And she said "just don't park on the dock".  Park on the dock? Why would I do that? So I drove around back and then I saw why she might say that. The gas pump is located right on the dock and is probably use to fill up boats as well as cars. The hose on the pump was extremely long so that you didn't have to drive onto the dock. 

The gas was a good 60 cents a liter more expensive than anywhere else. But I guess if you are the  only "gas station" in town then you can get away with higher prices. 

Once we filled up the car we were ready to head back. We had a plan to make a stop at Mashkinonje Provincial Park that was along the way just to see what it was like. We made one more stop at a roadside picnic ground before making our way to Mashkinonje. It was a nice day and a great way to wrap up our Killarney trip. 

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. 

I woke up to hear Heather outside the tent talking to someone. At first I thought she may be talking to my mom, but I quickly realized that she wasn't. Apparently we had some morning visitors. Heather was talking to a momma raccoon and four baby raccoons. I guess momma was teaching them how to make the campsite rounds. Can't start too young, you know. 

I went back to bed and just lay there listening to the sounds of the birds, and chipmunks for another hour or so. When I finally got up, Heather was by herself feeding peanuts to her new friend the chipmunk. And of course our ever present wasps were still hanging around despite the fact that there was no food for them anywhere in sight. 

My mom got up about a half an hour later and we wondered what we were going to do today. Call us crazy, but we decided to go on a hike. Yes, after 3 days of being sore and exhausted to the point where we could barely lift our feet, we still had the hiking bug. Heather wasn't going to hike one of the trails, but she was going to walk down to the gatehouse and buy a present for her grand kids. I decided to hike the Cranberry Bog Trail. My mom also chose the Cranberry Bog trail, however, we began the trail at different times so we each ended up going it alone. I left to go to the Cranberry Bog Trail at 12:45 p.m.  and my mom left at
​2 p.m.

I don't mind doing hikes alone because I can walk at my own pace and I can go quietly enough to sometimes be able to catch birds and animals with my camera that I probably wouldn't otherwise be able to photograph.  ​At the Cranberry Bog trail head is a place to lock up your bikes. That's another nice feature of Killarney Park; it is very bike friendly.

The trail starts out as a path that runs along some of the campsites. For the first little bit I could see other campers at their sites and hear them laughing and talking to each other. It looked peaceful but it was too noisy. 

Finally after you get further in, the voices start to fade away and you can finally hear the birds and the crickets. Not too far in I came across a rather rocky section of the path. At this point I was worried that this trail was going to become like the LaCloche trail with difficult and steep rock cuts to climb. I wasn't sure I was up to that the very day after coming out of the bush from the LaCloche trail. 

But soon my worries were abated when I came across a nice little rock bench.  I thought to myself "wouldn't it have been nice if there had been a bunch of these rock benches on the LaCloche trail.  I think there should be more of these on all the trails. These are a great idea! 

I was beginning to wonder if there were any boggy patches to this hike at all. Finally I came to some open grassy and kind of boggy areas. Well at least that was a start. The first real signs of bog was the small patch of Joe Pye Weed Flowers. They are a pretty flower in a faded pastel purple colour and they like to grow on the edges of open water, near the edges of lakes or rivers and require moist living conditions. 

Another sign that I was getting close to the bog was the occasional dragonfly spotted along the path. 

I came across an old tree that looks like the woodpeckers have frequented quite a bit. I was hoping to get a picture of one but there were no woodpeckers to be found. 

A nice little song sparrow did stop and pose for me though. 

It was an interesting old pine tree because it looked like it had a runny nose or something. The pine sap was oozing in long drippy strings down the side of the tree. 

Finally I could see Cranberry Bog through an opening in the trees. 

The very first part of the bog as a little bridge that borders the edge of a beaver dam.  When you are standing on the bridge you can see that the bog is broken up into 3 different water levels and the bridge is on level two. 

The bog is surrounded by orange Spotted Jewel Weed and purple Pickerel Weed.

And what would a bog be without some water lilies.

In a shallow spot near the rocks there was a whole bunch of water lily leaves that overlapped one another to form a giant floating floor where a bunch of ants were busy milking their farm of aphids. 

I found a nice spot to sit and eat lunch. I must have spent about an hour here. It was so quiet and so peaceful and so beautiful. 

Even the rocks were a beautiful shade of red and were smooth and worn by the winds and the rain over the years. 

Way across the bog I could make out two large black birds in the water. One was beating the water with it's wings. It looked as though it were fishing or something. The other was just sitting on a rock and watching. They were too sar away to tell what kind of birds they were. If I had to guess I would say cormorants. 

Eventually I could hear some people coming from behind me in the distance. I took that as my cue to leave. I had only come across one other set of hikers on the trail so far and they had passed me by going in the opposite direction near the very beginning of the trail. I had rather enjoyed my solitude up to this point and wanted to keep it that way for as long as possible. I came off the trail at about 4 p.m. The trail did not end where I had expected it to. I had thought that it went around full circle and that I would end up right where I started. So I was surprised when I actually came out down by the beach instead. It meant doing some more uphill walking to get back to the campsite. As I was walking up the hill I heard 3 gun sots off in the distance. I never did find out what that was all about. 

Upon my return to the campsite I found Heather making "wasp traps". They weren't traps so much as they were lures. She had placed about 3 pieces of home made fruit roll-ups on the picnic table and the usual 7 - 8  wasps were hanging out and chowing down on them. They didn't actually catch the wasps, instead they just kept the wasps out of our hair; both literally and figuratively. 

After just having come back from a hike I was fairly thirsty. We hadn't had a true cold drink in about 5 days now. Even the ones we bought at the corner store were kind of cold but not really cold. So I said to Heather "Let's treat ourselves to some ice!" She thought that was a great idea. So we left our mom a note (she was still on the Cranberry Bog trail) to tell her that we were gone to get ice. We went to the gate house and Heather went in to ask if they had any ice there. The guy at the desk said no, but we could get some at the Killarney Outfitters. Before she left she told the guy about the raccoon that had come to the campsite the night before. Then she asked him  "If the raccoon comes back tonight to play cards again, is it alright if I give it a beer? Or is it still considered wild?" We didn't even have any beer, she was just making a joke. The joke worked because it made the guy laugh. He replied "no...it's still considered wild".  Heather had decided to name the raccoon by this point. The raccoon was now known as "Willimena". 

So off we went to Killarney Outfitters to get ice. Along the way we saw a young black bear crossing the road. By the time we got back with the ice, our mom was also back from her hike. We began to make a supper of dehydrated tuna/cheese and broccoli along with some bannock. We also prepared some home made chocolate pudding in a zip-lock bag which we we put on ice along with the bottles of pop so that we could have it nice and cold. It's funny how things like ice you take for granted at home but when you are camping and it is hard to come by it becomes a real treat. 

It was another very good dehydrated meal. We figured it would have tasted even better if we were way out in the bush on the hiking trail, but we were happy to have stayed camping long enough to try it out.  We were too full for the pudding so we left it to chill. After supper we cleared up the food and the dishes and we settled in for another evening of card games. 

​At about 7 p.m. a raccoon came into the campsite. We had expected that Willimena may be back. She seemed like a regular with the attitude she had. She had arrived at about 9 the previous night so we thought that this was a bit early for her. But what did we know. We had only seen her the one time. The raccoon was reaching up in the tree for something and this pose was just too cute. So I took a picture through the screen of the tent.

​ I wanted to get a clearer picture without the screen in the way so I moved outside of the tent to take another one. This raccoon saw me and got a bit nervous about me coming so close. That's when we knew that this was not Willimena. Our Willimena is not shy by any means. This coon didn't stick around long. Soon we were back to playing cards. 

At about 9 p.m. another coon entered the campsite. Soon I had a coon tapping my butt and searching my pockets. Now this was Willimena! Nothing was scaring her off. We were talking loud and we were even playing a card game (Squarrels) that required us to slap the table once in awhile. The banging smacks on the table did not seem to trouble her in the least.

Eventually she got bold enough to get up on the table and join us in a game of cards. Heather would hold out her cards and say "Which one should I play Willimena?" and Willimena would tap one of her cards and Heather would play it. 

However, cards were not what Willimena was interested in. She was on the hunt for food naturally. She was going through every little bag and container we had on the table. She was searching the dice bag, then the card boxes. She tried for my mom's cigarette package but my mom took that away. Then she went for a baggie with some plastic bottles of juice in them that you can add to water to make flavoured water. My mom tried to wrestle that away from her. It was a tug of war battle until I pointed out to my mom that she may as well let Willimena have it because even if she got into the bag, she would not be able to open the plastic containers inside. Sure enough, Willimena gave up on those real quick. 

We thought we had everything under control when we realized that Willimena was going for the ice bucket...."The Pudding!!!!" we all yelled at the same time. We had completely forgotten about the pudding that we had left to chill.  It was to late. Willimena was too quick for us and she grabbed that whole bag of pudding and ran off like a dart with into the night. I gave chase but gave up pretty quick. After all, even if I caught her, how was I going to get her to drop it? Best case scenario I would have had a torn bag of pudding dripping all over me.  So I returned to the tent defeated. We resumed playing our cards and talked about how we had been really looking forward to that pudding. Wouldn't you know it, about a half an hour later the little devil came back to the tent looking for more! The nerve of some coons! This time we didn't ask her to play cards with us. We told her that she was not welcome anymore and that she should go to someone else's campsite instead. We had no more chocolate pudding for her anyways so she didn't stay long. 

We played cards until about 11:30 p.m.  As we were packing up the cards, once more we had a wasp buzzing around us in the dark. I have never seen anything like it. These bees were just always there. 

Heather and I decided to walk down to the beach to do some star gazing because it was such a beautiful night.We lay down on a picnic table, one on each bench and looked up at the stars. The sky was so clear and the stars were so bright and the evening was so warm. It was absolutely gorgeous. It was about the time that the Perseid Meteor Shower was beginning. It wasn't due to  peak until  August 11th; but sure enough we saw quite a number of "falling stars" in a very short period of time. We also were lucky enough to see the International Space Station go by. 

We stayed down by the beach for about an hour. When we came back it looked like the wasps had finally gone to bed. But the coons hadn't. As we lay in our sleeping bags we could still hear them roaming around outside the tent. I lie there thinking how odd it is that humans tend to feel safe even with just so much as a paper thin piece of material between us and the wildlife on the other side. It's silly really. We may as well have nothing between us. But at least the material does have some uses such as privacy from other humans, and protection from rain and bugs. That's about it though. But from what I have seen of the wildlife in this park the past couple days, the terrain seems to be much more wild than the animals are. 

Turns out I had nothing to worry about when it came to needing an alarm clock. By morning the wind was not howling anymore, but you could definitely hear the birds. We were woken up at about 6:30 a.m. by the chorus of Canadian Geese. Then came the sounds of a flock of crows, followed by the sounds of herons and then after that some other unidentified birds. It was a bird alarm clock!  We packed up the campsite and and headed back to Killarney Provincial Park so that we could be first in line to get one of the 5 available campsites. 

We arrived at 7:50 a.m. and when we did there was already a line up in front of us. The ranger had told us the day before that 8 a.m. would be guaranteed to be early enough to get a site. But we should have come to the gate even earlier than we did because it was looking dicey as to whether or not we would be getting a campsite.

At 8 a.m. the doors opened and we all went in single file. While we were waiting in line we started talking to the people we were in line with. There was a young couple behind us who were just there for the day and were going to run the 25 km trail to Silver Peak.

After a few moments a second ranger opened up another cash register and called out "can I help who's next? " The next couple in line went  ahead. There were two other people in line ahead of Heather by this point. No one else moved to go to the second line so Heather did. Just when Heather was about to go next an angry voice from behind us growled "Hey! I was next! There is only one line not two!" He made a big production about how we had cut in line and how he was entitled to be next. We had no problems with him going next and we tried to explain to him what happened but he was not having any of it.  If he had stopped to think about it he would have realized that no matter which line he was standing in he was already next in line because the guy in front of him was finished. So instead of walking up to the counter in the line he was already in, he loudly pushed his way forward to be next in line in our line instead. Then after all that, it turns out that he was only there to claim a site that he had already reserved. So he was already guaranteed a site and had no competition and didn't even have to worry about if he would get a site or not. After the big commotion we figured we had better be extra careful as to who goes next. Some people are apparently not morning people as we had witnessed first hand.

So we made sure that the one other couple that had been in line before us got to go next. By that point there were only 2 sites left in the whole campground. The couple in front of us were super nice people. They did not know what the sites were like so Heather explained the pros and cons to him of both sites and they made their decision.. That meant we got the very last site in the whole campground. It was site number 111 in Red Deer Ridge section. However, the current occupants had until 2 pm to vacate the campsite which meant we had to find something to do until 2 p.m. (or earlier if the current occupants left earlier). 

To pass the time while we waited we drove a few kilometers down the road to the Killarney Outfitters. This place is a campers dream store. They had everything you could possibly want for camping, canoeing and backpacking. This is also the place where you rent canoes and kayaks for the park.  As we were looking around we bumped into and had a nice little chat with the couple that had been in front of us at the gate and had gotten the second last campsite. They were passing time here while they waited for their site to open up too. 

Last year when I was at Killarney with Heather I did not buy a T-shirt because the prices were way too high. But here you can get Killarney Park T-shirts for about half the price they were selling them for at the park. 

At first I had a hard time deciding which T-shirt that I wanted. But then I found the perfect one to represent the hike we just did. It was dark blue with the silhouette of trees making it look like the forest at night. And it had white writing with spots of white that could almost be stars. The words say "Killarney. Into The Wild" and on the back it says "Suck It Up Princess".  I had to have it. I think it has become one of most favourite T-shirts. 

I also had my eye on a pair of Zem Playa Round shoes. They are good for going into the water with and for walking around the campsite with. They claim to be the shoe you want to wear if you prefer to walk barefoot. I hummed and hawed about it and decided not to get them. Besides, they looked like Ronald McDonald feet on me. 

We bought out stuff and a couple almost cold drinks and went and sat outside at the picnic tables. We had a bit of a chuckle when we saw a fire extinguisher that had bold letters saying "Keep Clear" and there sitting on top of it was a fallen down post (It used to be sitting attached to the post but the post had fallen over and on top of it). Looks like the post didn't get the memo. 

Killarney Outfitters had plenty of humming bird feeders and red flowers hanging up all around. We were seeing 3 or 4 humming birds at a time at the feeders. 

After Killarney Outfitters we went back to the park and sat down at the beach playing card games like "Squarrels". The whole while a little chipmunk hung out to keep us company.

By 12:30 our site was finally vacant.  We took no time to setup the tents and get ourselves settled. 

Our site was located at the top of a hill and the bathrooms were at the bottom of the hill. Hills were not our friends at this point. The muscles in our legs and feet hurt every time we ascended or descended the hill.  There wasn't much room for parking a vehicle but we managed. Other than those tiny issue, the site was a very nice site.

There was even a bear box on the site. We usually keep our food in the car but since this was available we decided to use it. You can ask for them at the park office, but I think that someone had asked to use this one and it just never got brought back. 

Next on the list of things to do was showers and laundry. My mom found out that the shirt she bought didn't quite fit and she wanted to exchange it for a different size. So while Heather looked after the laundry I drove my mom back to Killarney Outfitters. Once I was there I broke down and bought my Ronald NcDonald shoes. They were very comfortable and I figured they would come in handy since all I had with me were my heavy hiking boots.

My mom spotted a "Provincial Parks Trail Guide" book and picked that up. That was the start of more serious thoughts on where and when we were going to backpack next. I was eyeing up the trails at the Sleeping Giant Provincial Park.... but we will see. 

After laundry we headed back to camp for an early supper. We prepared one of our freeze dried meals of Beef and Vegetable Noodles. It was our favourite of the freeze dried meals so far. That was bout the time when the bees started showing up. Not the fuzzy little bumble bee type, but the nasty wasp type. 

Normally, a wasp or two around my food is not a big deal and I can co-exist with them. I go with the idea of if you leave them alone they will leave you alone. Not these guys. This was a pack of about 7 or 8 wasps that were into everything and were more curious than a bunch of cats about to lose their nine lives. They weren't angry bees.... they were just very annoying. Annoying enough that I had to escape to the car from time to time because they just wouldn't stay off of me. 

It had looked like rain off an on all day and combine that with the bees we decided to put up a screened dining tent that I had with me in the car. (No, we did not bring this backpacking with us. I happened to still  have it in the trunk of the car from a sales event I had a booth at a week or two previous).  The screen helped to keep most of the bees at bay. So we stayed in there and played cards for the evening. 

It was about 9 p.m. or so and it was getting dark when we heard noises in the bush. I thought nothing of it because I knew it was just a raccoon. If you want to see a raccoon this is definitely the place to see them. They are everywhere here.  We would have continued to ignore the sounds, but the critter making them refused to be ignored. Right into the screen tent, bold as brass tacks waddled this big ole raccoon. She had no fear. In no time she was sniffing around at our feet and then to my surprise I felt her little paws digging through my pockets!  

​When she found nothing there, she climbed up onto the bench beside me and started checking to see what was on the table. 

We had long since put all the food away, but that didn't stop her from checking every bag and container she came across. 

She even got her nose right up to the lens of my camera as I was taking her picture. She was not shy at all. 

When she was satisfied that there was nothing for her to eat here, she eventually moved on to the next campsite and we went back to our card games. As we finished up our game at about 11 pm, from out of nowhere a wasp showed up and was hanging out on the lantern. I was thinking that this was crazy.... wasps should be sleeping somewhere for the night, not buzzing around in the tent. We finally managed to get rid of the wasp and headed down to the bathrooms. A little later we went to get in the tent and there was yet another wasp hanging out on Heather's hoodie. We just couldn't seem to escape these things. We did a wasp check when we got in the tent, just in case,  and definitely made sure to have the tent door closed before going to sleep. 

I woke up at 6 a.m. to the sounds of my mother tearing down her tent. She wanted to get it packed up before the rain started. By 6:30 a.m. there was a light drizzle. Heather heard her too so she got up and went out and had coffee with her. I was so achey that I could barely sit up or roll over. So I took a Robax pill and went back to sleep for awhile.  By 8 a.m. I was awake again. The Robax helped quite a bit and I was hoping that getting out and stretching would also help. It did help a bit. 

Out on the lake a loon came swimming up fairly close to us. Once it noticed us moving around though it put some more distance between us. 

Devin and Kendra had decided to go home today. They had things they could be doing to get ready for college and wanted to use their time to get things done.  My mom, Heather and I figured we would hike out to the main campground and stay a few more nights in Killarney park. Since Devin and Kendra were not staying and would be able to make it out of the bush faster than we would, we transferred some of our now unneeded items to their packs to take home with them. It was nice to lighten our loads a little. But we didn't want to weigh them down too much so we didn't over do it on how much we gave them to take back. 

We were all packed up and ready to go by 10:30 a.m. Just as I was putting on my pack I slipped a little on the wet rocks and cut one of my fingers. I was surprised because the rocks were fairly rounded and not that sharp and they weren't all that wet  yet either. It didn't hurt really but it was bleeding quite a bit.

 I did a quick clean of it but there was so much blood that it was hard to tell how deep it was. It looked more like a paper cut that anything else. It wasn't until later when it stopped bleeding and I was changing the bandage that I saw how bad and deep the gash really was. That's gonna leave a scar I bet. I just thought "if I can cut my finger that badly on rocks that are not even that sharp, imagine if any of us had made a serious slip on the really sharp rocks (especially since it's starting to rain now) and sliced open a leg or a foot or something."  Could quite easily be a bad scene when you are way out in the bush. We were fortunate that these injuries were the extent of what we sustained on this hike. 

 I told Devin and Kendra that it only took us about 2 hours on the way into do this leg of the journey so it should only take them that time or less to get back to the campground. That made then happy and they left at a much faster pace than we were travelling at. Once again mom, Heather and I took it slow. We had no need to hurry and mom was feeling more achey today than the past couple days. I was able to look around more and take in the scenes more. I came across plenty of little tiny brown toads along the way. It was hard enough trying not to trip on roots, rocks and your own two feet. Then there is me trying not to step on the toads as well. 

At around noon the rain had stopped. Guess the weatherman was right this time. We came to a pretty little bridge. Coming across this bridge on the way in was a breeze. But on the way back we faced a pretty steep rock face that required either helping each other to climb it or taking your pack off. Heather somehow managed to get up it without any help and she helped to pull me up and I turned around and helped to pull my mom up. 

Once we got to the top we just sat for a bit. There was a nice breeze from up here and it felt good to cool off a bit. 

From up here, off in the distance over Heather's shoulder,  you could see a beaver pond.

After a bit of a rest we continued on. Some parts of the path would take us over dried up or partially dried up creek beds. 

We stopped just outside campsite H1 for lunch at about 12:30. While we were sitting there waiting for the coffee water to boil a group of 3 people passed by on their way back out. They were one of the same groups of people that were going in the same direction we were going in the day we came in. They couldn't make it either and had turned back after making it to campsite H7. 

As we ate lunch I could hear a bit of a commotion up above us. I looked up to see a nest of baby birds right above our heads. I am not sure what kind of birds they were but the way the nest was built was pretty neat. It looked to be made of birch bark strands. It was built underneath a branch of leaves so that the leaves were acting like a roof to keep rain off the baby birds and to keep the nest hidden from any hawks or other predators that may be lurking above the nest. 

After lunch we continued on but the path wasn't getting any easier. It wasn't long before another group of people passed us on their way back out. Again, they were a couple that had passed us on the way in the first day. They had made it as far as H21 before his hiking boots had fallen apart. All he had left to walk in was his running shoes so they knew they would never make it full circle and had turned around. 

About 20 minutes later a third couple passed us on the way out and once again they were a group of people that were headed in the same direction as us the day we came in. This couple had only made it to campsite H19. They were just too hot and too tired and, like us, knew their limits and stayed within it.  We thought about it for a few moments and realized that we were one of 4 groups of people that had turned around and came back out of the bush within a couple days and hadn't gone full circle. If there were any feelings of defeat up to this point they were gone by now. We had done better than we thought we had. We talked about it as we walked and started making plans for our next hiking trip already! We discussed the things we would do differently like less weight, less food, and a less strenuous trail. We counted this trail as a learning experience. 

Eventually we began to get pretty tired again. There were more rocky hills ahead of us and that slowed us down some more.  Heather had a bit more energy so she went up ahead of us and for awhile we couldn't see her anymore. But eventually we came across her again. She was standing near a tree singing out loud to herself. I thought "well, she is in a cheerful mood!".  When we got closer to her she called out to us. "I just heard a baby bear calling for it's momma. So I am singing out loud so that the bears know I am here and  we don't take them by surprise. I figured I would wait here for you guys to catch up so that we can stick together just in case". 

So we stopped to listen for a moment or two but we didn't hear anything. We kept together and talked to each other and made some noise as we passed through the area just in case. Sure enough as we started to get some distance from the area, we did hear a faint baby bear call behind us. It was a much quieter and shorter version of the sound you can hear here:  Baby Bear Call  

We also passed what appeared to be some very old and weathered claw marks in a birch tree. 

When we were nearing the end of the hike we came across two young men starting just beginning their hike and on their way into the bush. One of the guys was taking his boyfriend on the hike for his birthday. When we asked them if they had seen anyone resembling Kendra and Devin on their way in, they said yes. They had seen Devin and Kendra just leaving the trail about 40 minutes ago just as they had started the trail.  So we knew that Devin and Kendra were now on their way home and that we only had roughly 40 more minutes to go (probably more like an hour at our pace) and then we would be out of the bush too. 

We kept walking for some time and we were almost at the point where we couldn't go any farther anymore when finally we came to the end of the trail. We were so happy to be back and not have to carry the heavy packs anymore! 

Well, my mom's and Heather's hike was over but not mine. Since we didn't end the hike at the other end of the park like we had originally intended, my car was still  at the other end of the park. I still had to hike across to the other end to get it and drive it back to the trail head so that we could load the packs into it. And to top it all off, part of that walk was up a large hill. At least I didn't have to bring my pack with me for that part of the walk. 

Our plan was to go to the office gate and get a camp site for the next few days. So we headed to the gate only to find that the campground was full and there were no more sites left. One of the rangers suggested that we go into the town of Killarney to a privately owned campsite for the night and then return here by 8 a.m. to get a campsite for the following night. We asked if she was sure there would be one available for us. She assured us that there were 5 unreservable sites that would open up tomorrow and that if we were there by 8 a.m then we would be well in advance of any others looking for a site.  So that is what we did. 

We made the short drive into the town of Killarney that has a population of maybe 500 people at best. There are only about 4 main roads so Rocher Rouge Campground was pretty easy to find. We made our way to the main office which doubled as the owners house and was greeted by a super nice, super friendly lady who gave us a campsite "on the waterfront". We were given a photocopy of a hand drawn map and told we were on campsite number 42. 

 Now normally I do not like privately owned campgrounds because they are usually like trailer parks and usually don't have much in the way of trees. But this place was designed to take on the over flow of Killarney's Provincial campers and much of the layout and signs bore resemblances to the Provincial Park. The campsite we were on was beautiful. 

The site was huge and had a great view of Georgian Bay. It had a better view than any of the campsites we could have stayed on had we gotten a site int he Provincial Park. True to her word, the site was "on the waterfront", however, waterfront does not equal beach.  There were large open areas of rock that went up to the water, but there were weeds and cat tails all around with no real place to swim. 

We probably wouldn't have swam that day anyways because we were way to tired. The other thing we noticed was that it was extremely windy on our site. It was windy enough that it was hard to hear each other talking. There was no real wind break since we were so close to the water and the waves were crashing against the rocks. 

Despite the high winds we were really enjoying this campsite. We quickly went about setting up the tents. We had no close neigbours  next to us (40, 41 and 39 were empty)  so we had a huge amount of space. There was no toilet paper in the washrooms, but that's OK because we had our own. And the water was municipal water but it tasted pretty bad. Luckily we had the platypus with us so we were able to filter out the municipal water and make it taste a whole lot better. 

The sites even came with free firewood! Unfortunately the town of Killarney had a fire ban on so we were not going to be able to use it. But the thought was nice. 

And there were plenty of picnic tables, including a pretty blue one up on the rocks over looking the waterfront. 

When you looked across the bay you could see one of Killarney's lighthouses on the other side. 

By now it was about 3:30 p.m. and we were starved. It was way to early for supper but we really didn't care. We decided to go to Hebert's World Famous Fish & Chips which was just down the road,.The fish and chips in this place is amazing! The have a windowed section inside where you can watch them filet the fresh caught perch that they are about to cook for you to eat. It tastes so wonderful, especially after being in the bush for the past 3 days. It was heavenly. 

When we were done eating we went down the street to the corner store to buy some much needed essentials that we hadn't brought with us on the hike (like shampoo, fruit, razors, etc)

When our bellies were full we headed back to the camp. We had a whole afternoon of time so we spent it exploring. While Heather found things like "zombie hand prints" in the grass (I guess I could see that if I looked real hard) I was off to find things like birds and plants and animals. 

And I wasn't disappointed. This place was full of things to take pictures of. There were plenty of white breasted sparrows around. 

And frogs were plentiful too. 

I found a little trail with a bit of a board walk to it. 

Which lead to other trails that went right up to the water line. I was hoping to get pictures of some bigger birds. But they are crafty things sometimes and although I did see some larger birds (perhaps a heron or a commorant, not sure). I could not get in close enough to get pictures before they flew off. 

Instead I settled for the easier to capture, ant on white flowers. 

And a plain and simple glistening of reeds in the sunshine on the bay. 

Eventually I went back to the picnic tables where Heather and my mom were just trying to stay awake until 9 p.m.  They didn't want to go to bed too early or they would be up all night. And if they went to bed too late we wouldn't get our campsite. So to help pass the time we played dice games (it was too windy for card games)  until the sun started to go down. 

At first the sunset was pretty unremarkable because there was only one cloud in the sky and nothing for the colours to really bounce off of. But soon the sun had sunk really low and the moon came out and that was when the sky turned into a thing of beauty. 

A flock of Canadian Geese flew in and landed on a near by set of rocks and nestled in for the night along the shoreline. All you could make out were their silhouettes against the water. 

We started to crawl into our tents now and get ready for bed. It was going to be an early morning tomorrow. I was not sure how I was going to manage to get up so early since I did not have an alarm clock. 

The wind was still blowing pretty strong and the sound of it created a blanket of white noise that was beautiful to go to sleep to.  Once again we were able to sleep with the door of the tent open (just the screen door was up). There were no bugs because the wind was so strong. I took one more look at the orange moon in the sky before going to sleep for the night. 

We woke up the next morning and finally got to see our campsite in the daylight. It was actually a very pretty site. It was a shame we wouldn't be able to spend more time on it. Site H6 is situated on Cave Lake. It is up on some rocks and over looks the lake. 

Down closer to the shore a gaggle of geese joined us for breakfast. 

We got Kendra to climb back up the tree to take down our food packs that she had put up in the dark for us the night before. 

Squished muffins for breakfast (and a bee to help me eat it)!  That's OK, the muffins still taste good even when they are squished. From here on out the rest of our food is dehydrated food. 

There had been some talk the night before about what to do next. We barely made it to the first campsite which was only 8 km and now today we were expected to do another 20 km with Heather having blistered heels. There was no way we would make it. Our options were to continue as far forward as we wanted and camp any ole where along the way, or hike all the way back to the beginning in one day, or the third option of hiking back the way we came and stay over night at the nice little unofficial campsite that was right near H3 and H4.  Over breakfast this morning we decided that option 3 was the best.

So after breakfast we started to break camp. I noticed that Kendra's and my mom's tents were pitched in a little area of sand kind of like a horseshoe pit. Our tent was pitched right beside the sandy area. 

This was also the first time I had gotten a look at Devin's tent. Now this guy had the right idea! All it comprised of was one of those emergency shelters with some netting at either end to keep the bugs out and some rope. Definitely did not weigh very much at all. Smart thinking!  

And the rope doubled as a clothes line to hang his socks on. I was impressed, but at the same time it reminded me of a giant baked potato. 

Before leaving camp we made sure to go to the bathroom first. It took awhile for us to find the bathroom but once we spotted the sign we knew it wasn't far off. 

The bathrooms in the back country sites are called "boom boxes". Just a simple little box with a hole cut out to sit on. 

Maybe they are named "boom boxes" because you go there to make a "boom" but when the lid closes it makes a very loud "boom" noise. So perhaps that had something to do with the name as well. 

We also made sure to refill our water before we left. We discovered that we were drinking a whole lot more water than we had expected to. There were not a whole lot of other water sources between here and our next campsite so we took the opportunity to fill up the Platypus while we could. 

The clean water we got from the Platypus we transferred into water bottles, canteens and a couple of handy little water bladders that Devin had picked up from the dollar store. With the water bladders you can either drink straight from the bladder or pour it into other containers. It was a great way to carry extra water with you while you walked. Especially since there can be long periods of time where you may not be near any lakes, streams or other water sources. 

So at about 11:30 a.m. we started on our journey back. We were all so sore and achey. Heather had to wrap her feet before she left. Every step was difficult and slow going because our muscles were so sore that we didn't want to lift our feet very high. Uphills were particularly difficult and there were a lot of uphills.To make the hills more bearable I would go up about 6 feet and then stop for a minute. Then I would set a new goal of about another six feet (pick out a rock or a stump or something that was roughly 6 feet away)  and then stop for another minute or so when I reached my goal. Once I reached the top of the hill I would reward myself with a drink of water. The water was warm and I don't even like water but it was still a reward! My mom had a different approach. She would reward herself with a drink of water every time she reached one of the blue trail markers on the tree. It was very hot out; even in the shade and we were drenched in sweat. Of course since we went down the avalanche of boulders the day before, we had to climb back up them again today. I just thought to myself "wow...and I did this in the dark!...twice!" 

Since we were only going half way back today we took our time and stopped to rest more often. Our breaks were also longer breaks. We stopped for lunch right in the middle of the path in a nice shady area under the trees. My mom boiled water for coffee and while Kendra took a nap right in the middle of the path. I had a bit of a nap myself on Heather's sleeping bag on the side of the path. My mom added water to the dehydrated pizza sauce and let it sit for a few minutes. She explained that she should have thought to add the water before we left so that it would be re-hydrated once we got here, but it just meant waiting for a bit longer and we didn't mind that at all. Once the sauce was ready we put it on some tortilla bread and cut up some beef jerky (pepperoni sticks), added some sliced cheese and voila.... pizza wraps!  Once we were fed and rested we carried on at our slow pace. 

Eventually we reached the rock I had dubbed "Turtle Rock". It was right around the bend from our intended destination so on the one hand I was happy to see it but I also dreaded having to climb back up this thing again. Luckily it was so much easier climbing up it on the way back than it is on the way there. There are more foot holds when you come at it from the opposite direction. 

By 5 pm we reached our destination. It was a beautiful spot between two sections of Acid Lake. On one side was crystal clear waters and on the other side (the beaver dam was between the two sections) was a marshy area. There is no fishing allowed on this lake because they are trying to rebuild the ecosystem here. You can tell by it's crystal clear waters that there is not a whole lot of things living in the water. But there were some signs of it slowly coming back around.  Heather saw a turtle on the marshy side.

​The first thing I did before anything else was to go in for a swim. The water was the perfect temperature and it felt good on the achey muscles. I couldn't stay in too long though because I was just too tired. As I was in swimming a group of 5 young guys hiked past us on their way to H4. This was their last night of their trip. They had come full circle from the opposite direction. One of them looked a little more worse for wear than the others. You could tell that it was a difficult trip for them. 

For supper we cooked spaghetti (with bow tie noodles instead of spaghetti noodles) in a pot made from a light weight coffee can that Heather brought with her. It had a clothes hanger for a handle. It worked surprisingly well. We had left over sauce from the pizza earlier today and we mixed that with the noodles and made a nice meal. 

Our heat source was a small tin of "Cook'n Heat" by World Famous. These neat little cans of fuel are a gel fuel (not liquid) so they do not pose a big spill risk. They are light weight and they last about 6 hours. We each carried a can with us so we had plenty of it. They work great with a little fold up stove we had. So we never had to worry about having an open flame during fire ban season. (There was no fire ban in the park while we were there, but there were fire bans in the surrounding areas. So it doesn't hurt to be too careful). Besides, if it rained then we wouldn't have to worry about wet wood or anything like that either. 

It was so nice to sit and relax and have supper by the side of the lake....in the daylight. 

Heather was particularly grateful to get out of her hiking boots and into a pair of crocs. Her feet looked pretty painful but she never complained even once. Half the time I kept forgetting that her feet were so bad off because she never complained. She also had huge bruises on her shoulder and arm from putting the pack on and off. I couldn't imagine how she would have made it all the way around the 78 km loop with her heels like that. It was a good thing we had turned back. 

After dinner Devin set up his tent to one side of the path. Heather and I had our tent on the other side of the path and my mom's tent was on the same side as Devin. 

Kendra, however, set up her tent away from the rest of us. It was nestled in a pretty little corner by the lake.  

We sat around relaxing and waiting for the sun to set. We all wanted to get a picture of the sunset on this pretty little lake.
   As we sat there talking the campers from H3 came to pay us a visit. It was a gentleman named Brandon and his 11 year old son from the Hamilton area. We explained  why we were camping here for the night and not on a numbered site and he completely understood. He told us that this was his 4th time on this hiking trail but that he only ever did the whole 78 km loop once. He went on to say that he and a buddy did the loop but by the time they made it out they were in really really rough shape. Both he and his friend had hurt themselves (hurt their leg) when they were about half way through the loop. At that point it was a decision to turn back or go on. So they figured at half way, they may as well finish the loop. He said that ther further you go back there, the worse the trail gets. In some places the trail is not marked well and they ended up going off the path and on some game trails (deer/moose trails) instead before they realized what they had done and had to back track. He said that happened more than once. He also said that there are places where you have no choice but to cross over beaver dams and the mud after a rain can sometimes be 4 feet deep. At one point they had come to one of their reserved sites only to find someone else on it. But they had felt sorry for the guy because the bottoms of his feet were blistered and wrapped in shoes made of duct tape. The guy who was squatting on Brandon's site had his wife with him who had made him bring things you would never bring on this type of hike, such as a giant bag of gummie bears and a huge bowie knife and a full roll of duct tape, etc. So Brandon and his buddy let the guy and his wife have the site and they just camped nearby. By the time they were done the loop Brandon and his buddy said "Never again!" But, he laughed, despite all he went through, about 3 months later they were planning another hiking trip. He says that now he usually only goes as far as H19 as a group with his buddy and his buddy's son, and his own son. He then said something that completely surprised me. He said that this trail is the second most difficult trail in all of Canada.  After his story and that statement we all felt a whole lot better about having only made it as far as we did. 
   Brandon seemed pretty impressed with Devin's tent, But he had to chuckle because he said it reminded him of a giant Jiffy Pop bag. That made me chuckle and I told him I thought it was like a giant baked potato. 
   We also gleaned a few good tips from talking to Brandon. We learned that 25 lbs is the max you should be carrying (no wonder we were tired...we were carrying about 40 lbs each). We learned that you should always have a second pair of shoes (even if they are not hiking boots and are just something light weight). And we learned that it is easiest to hike in a bathing suit because then you don't have to carry as many clothes and you can just jump in the water to cool off and that will clean off what you are wearing too. 
   

Brandon said that he and his son were heading to H6 tomorrow and that they had never been there before. They had always gone to number H7 or further. We told them that H6 was nice and they would like it there.  Eventually they went back to their own campsite and we were just in time to see the sunset. 

Since we were in a fairly open area and not deep in the trees, when the sun went down there was still some daylight left. It was light enough that we were able to do a little more exploring of the area before bedtime. I went over to the boggy side of the lake to see what was over there. 

I was hoping to see the turtle that Heather saw earlier, but it was a no show. 

I did see plenty of Spatulate-leaved Sundew (also known as Spoonleaf Sundew). These pretty red plants are only found in bogs and are similar to Venus Fly Traps in that they eat insects. Each of the hairs on their leaves are covered in a sticky substance which looks like dew that traps an insect if one lands on it. When the insect can't get away the plant will begin to eat it. 

The long stalks have buds on the end where little white flowers will open up. This particular plant didn't have the flowers in bloom quite yet. The flowers only bloom in the sunlight so it could be that they were just closed up for the evening. ​

Soon enough it got too dark to see very well. That was OK because we were pretty exhausted and wanted to go to sleep anyways. Before we did we once again hung our food in the trees. It was a beautiful night and we would have liked to have slept with the tent door open again, however, we were expecting a 60% chance of rain the next day from about 6 a.m. to about noon with a chance of a thunderstorm, so we had to sleep with the door closed. 

It was about 1 a.m. when I woke up to the sound of a clawing noise in the food tree. I knew it was a raccoon trying to get at our food. I was so achey that I could barely roll over or even move. I worried that it would still manage to get into our food despite it hanging in the tree (I have witnessed a crafty coon get into a locked cooler hanging from a rope in a tree many many years ago so I knew anything was possible). At the same time though, I knew we were going to be out of the bush the next day and I almost wished that it would get into the food so that we didn't have so much weight to carry out with us. He didn't stay in the tree long and he seemed to give up pretty easily. 

It wasn't long before I heard it back on the ground. This time it was going through Devin's tent! That's when I knew I couldn't just lie there and ignore it. I jumped up and turned on the light, opened the tent door and yelled at it to scare it away. It worked and the coon ran off. Of course the commotion woke Heather up and I told her that the coon was in Devin's tent. She said "That's OK. Devin decided to stay in Kendra's tent tonight because it was too hot in his and because Kendra's tent was so far away from everyone else's that they thought it would be safer."  That explained why we didn't hear any yelling coming from Devin when the coon was in his tent. I lay back down to go to sleep and in my over tiredness I started giggling to myself. All I could think of was the description of Devin's tent as "Jiffy Pop" and "Baked Potato". No wonder the raccoon was rummaging through Devin's tent. He probably thought that he had found the biggest dinner of his life! I fell back to sleep giggling and quietly muttering the words "Baked Potato". 

We had spent almost an entire year planning for this trip. We had dried out our food using a dehydrator and we had packed and unpacked our back packs probably about a hundred times to test out what would weigh less and what we should take out and what we should put back in. We had poured over "Jeff's Map"  (best map ever! This guy put over 2000 hours into this online, printable map...check it out) We had called the park back in April to reserve all the interior spots that we intended to camp on for this trip. We were all set to do our 80 km backpacking trip in the interior of Killarney Provincial Park. 

Along for the trip was my mother, my sister Heather, my niece Kendra, my nephew Devin and myself. We are all avid campers and canoe travelers. My parents have often gone on long 10 day portage trips. We thought we were prepared for the journey ahead but we were very wrong and we had quite the eye opener. Backpacking is very different from tenting or even from canoeing. We learned a whole lot very quickly and we had quite an adventure. 

We arrived at the park at about 4 pm and registered at the park desk. Then we headed down to the main beach where the LaCloche  Trail Head begins on the west side of the campground.  We were going to end the hiking trip at the east end of the campground. Since we had arrived in two vehicles, we dropped our stuff off at the west end, drove down to the east end and parked one of the cars there and then drove back down to the bridge at the west end again. That way we would have a car to get into when we came out of the bush all tired and not wanting to walk anymore.

​Our first destination was to make it to interior campsite H6 on Cave Lake before nightfall which was roughly at 8:45 pm.  That meant going 8 km in about 5 hours. .

The next day would be out biggest day. Since we had been unable to reserve anything closer, our next site after H6 would be H 23 which was about 20 km the next day. After that H35, H38, 2 nights on H46, H50 and then out of the bush the day after H50. We knew reaching H23 would be taxing but we figured once we got that out of the way then we could enjoy the rest of the trip and we were really looking forward to spending two nights on H46 which was on Bunny Rabbit Lake. The Killarney Park store sold us some very nice waterproof maps of the trails and we had all our sites circled. 

And so we began. Right away I thought we may be carrying too much weight. We were each carrying close to 40 pounds or so. But it was too late now. I thought it was going to be tough, but doable.  One of the things I realized almost immediately was that with a heavy pack on your back it is much more difficult to take pictures and to really enjoy the scenery around you. You are too busy concentrating on where your feet are and trying not to trip over rocks,roots and branches. 

The first part of the hike was quite nice and the paths weren't too bad. There were even some helpful boardwalks in a number of places. 

After the first hour or so though the paths became less groomed and the vegetation grew more wildly. 

And eventually the paths turned into rocky paths or a combination of roots, vegetation and rocks all in one.  There were rarely any smooth flat surfaces on the trail anymore. At one point I was up ahead of everyone else and I rested on one of the rocky outcrops as I waited for them to catch up. As I lay looking up at the sky a little humming bird came flitting by. Too fast for the camera though. 

To top it all off, it was an extremely hot day. We would have been sweating even without carrying the weight of our backpacks. We became very thirsty very fast. I was amazed at how quickly we went through the drinks we were each carrying with me. I had brought some pop with me in a reusable water bottle and I polished that off in no time.  By the time we had gone about an hour we finally made it to H1 and I was dismayed that it had taken us that long to get there. At H2 I thought were were at H3 and was disappointed when I realized that H3 was still a long ways off. After about 2 hours or so of hiking we made it to H3. We took a bit of a break here because we were tired and we really needed some water. 

​That was when I got to see the Platypus Water Filter in action. When you are travelling in places where there is no clean water readily available this thing is "The Bees Knees"!  You fill one end up with water from a pond or stream and hang it in a tree. The water trickles through a filter and then goes into a clean reservoir bag that you can then pour into your drinking cups and bottles. 

It was amazing to think that the water we were about to drink came from this lake where the beaver and fish were swimming and hadn't gone through a city water treatment plant and wasn't coming from a tap and that we weren't going to be sick from it. The water wasn't the coldest, but it was definitely drinkable. I don't even like water but at this point we were so thirsty that even I was drinking the water. (and anyone who knows me, that is saying a lot). 

We had been anxious to get to H3 because we knew this was about half way to the site we would be staying at for the night. It was a beautiful spot and we couldn't wait to see our spot. Just past H3 (and H4 which was right across from it) was a beautiful little open area along the path over looking the lake and I thought to myself "would be nice to just camp here for the night", but I kept going. 

​The next section was to cross over a beaver dam to get to the path on the other side. It wasn't until later that Devin told me that there was a path around the beaver dam and that I didn't have to walk across the top of it to get to the other side.  Oh well, it was fun crossing it without falling in. 

Just past the beaver dam we came to a rock that I now call 'Turtle Rock". The reason for this is because going up it is fairly steep (the first step is about waist height) and the only way I could go up it was to crawl the first part on my hands and knees. I got only half way up when the weight of my pack got unbalanced and I fell over sideways and couldn't get back up (much like a turtle that is on it's back with it's legs flailing in the air). And so there I was when Heather and Kendra came around the corner. They laughed and laughed at me but finally they helped me up and I was able to continue on. 

By this time it is about 6 p.m. We figured that we were doing pretty good. We were half way there and we still had about 3 more hours of daylight left. We did this leg of the route in 2 hours so we figured that it would take about 2 more hours to get to the camp and then we would have about an hour to set up camp before dark.  Devin had already forged on ahead by this point so Kendra went on to catch up with him. By this time Heather's heels were starting to blister. She had worn her boots around the house for a week before the trip to break them in and hadn't had any problems with them so she was very surprised by this. This of course slowed her down considerably. The weight of the packs were also taking their toll on us. My mom stopped for a rest and told us to go on and that she would catch up with us later. She said when we made it to the camp to just have some coffee water ready for her and she would be happy. So we carried on without her. I was looking forward to seeing the sunset on the lake at our campsite. Soon we were entering some densely forested areas and it dawned on me that our scheduling of daylight was going to be a bit off. What we hadn't taken into consideration is that when you are in the bush, the thick trees will block out much of the sunlight so it will get dark much faster than the time sunset is scheduled for. But we figured that was OK because Devin and Kendra would already be there and would help us set up when we arrived. If we had to set up in the dark then so be it. Sure enough, the daylight started to disappear with each step we took. Sadly, so did our energy. 

 Heather and I came to a spot with a rock face on our right. We were so very tired so we stopped and leaned against it for awhile. That was when I got an idea. Seemed like a great idea at the time, but once we put it into play we realized it was not such a great idea after all. We figured that if we weren't carrying so much weight we would be able to move faster and it would be easier on us. So the plan was to take our food and the tent and a few other key items out of the packs and carry them, leaving our packs behind. We would take these things to the campsite, have Devin and Kendra set up our tent and make coffee water for my mom while Heather and I went back for the packs and also to meet up with my mom and help her back with her things.

So we proceeded to put our plan into action. Once again we were on our way with lighter weight to carry and we were feeling pretty good about this plan. The next leg of our journey took us down what I would describe as an "avalanche" of sharp small boulders down a very steep hill. We picked our way very carefully down those and were not looking forward to going back up them in the dark on the return trip to get our packs. We walked on for about another 45 minutes until we thought "surely we must be getting close". In front of us was a huge fallen tree that you had to   climb over to continue on. We just wanting to be done now. We stopped and sat on the log for quite a bit and discussed our situation. We didn't know how far we had left to go. We tried calling out for Devin and Kendra to see if maybe they could hear us and would respond which would help us figure out if we had much further. But there was no response from them. We were hoping that they would worry about us and come back to look for us. Then we could send our stuff back with them and go back for the packs. By now it was dark and we had given up hope of reaching the camp tonight. So we formulated a new plan. We decided that we would just camp right here for the night. However, our packs and mom were still behind us. So we would go back for our packs right now, bring them to the fallen log we were sitting on and then camp here. But, there was not much sense carrying all this stuff all the way back with us because that would defeat the purpose. So we left it on the log and turned on the lamp and started to make our way backwards.

We walked for about 10 minutes when we heard mom's emergency whistle. We called out for her saying "We are here! We are coming!' Until finally we met up with her. We told her our plan and how it had gone wrong and what our new plan was. She asked us why we didn't whistle back when she whistled.  We explained that I had left my whistle back with the packs. We had Heather's originally but she had forgot hers back at the log. We asked if she had seen our packs on her way through and she said "yes but they are about a half a kilometer back". At first she had thought we were just off peeing in the woods somewhere. Then she realized that a few things were missing from the packs so she thought someone had gotten hurt and we had to leave our stuff behind to go rescue them. We should have left a note but the paper and pencil I had were buried deep in the pack and I didn't know exactly where it was. And we were so tired that we were making stupid mistake after stupid mistake. 

By this time it is about 10 p.m. So we discussed what we were going to do next. Mom was going to go on ahead and when she reached the campsite she would send Kendra and Devin back to help us. We were going to go back and get our packs and then continue on to the campsite. So she went on ahead and we started our way back. We picked our way through the dark back up the avalanche of small boulders.  We went on for a few minutes after that when Heather finally said. I just can't do it anymore. I can't take another step. (Keep in mind she has huge blisters on the back of her heels).  I wasn't sure what to do. All of our stuff was in two different directions and I didn't want to have to spend the night in the middle of the path with nothing but the lantern and the clothes on our backs.  So I said to her "Are you OK if I leave you here in the dark (we only had the one light) and I go back to get the packs and bring them here. (I would have to make two trips but I figured I still had enough energy in me to do it.) I told her that once I brought the packs back we could go to the log and camp there for the night. She said yes and so I said a little prayer and left her there sitting on the path in the dark with her sore blistered feet and I continued on alone with nothing but the LED lantern and God to guide my way.

The woods are very different in the dark. All I can hear is the jostling of the water bottle that I was carrying, my clunking footsteps on the path, and my laboured breathing and I was glad for it. I didn't want to hear anything else that may be out there in the dark. I was surprisingly unafraid (probably too tired to be) and was more worried about Heather sitting alone in the dark than myself. I tried to go as fast as I could without getting hurt or lost. Eventually I made it back to the packs. I put mine on and was about to go back and then thought to myself "there is absolutely no way I am going to make it all the way back here a second time to get Heather's pack".  So I picked up her pack and stated carrying that too.  It was a struggle and I had to switch hands a lot and drag it in some places. Even if I couldn't get it all the way back I was determined that I was going to get it as close to where Heather was as possible. 

I traveled about half way back to where I had left Heather when suddenly I saw a flickering of light up ahead. It looked like a firefly. It flickered on and off, on and off. As I got closer the light seemed a bit big to be a firefly. "What is that?" I wondered. I entertained the idea of the folklore of a Willow-The-Wisp. Soon I could hear a voice calling out to me and I realized that it was Heather! She had a lighter in her hand and was using it to follow the trail which was why it was flickering on and off. She say the light of my lamp and started calling to me. Her timing was perfect because I was about to give up on her pack and leave it. She said that after she had a good long rest she had found the energy to come find me. Besides, it's no fun sitting alone in the dark when you are not 100% sure of where you are. So we rested for another minute or two and she put her pack back on and we started back for the log. I was hoping that no animals had gotten into our food that we had left there. 

We walked another 10 minutes or so when we saw some lights up ahead and heard some voices. It was Devin and Kendra! We were so happy and so grateful that they had come to help us. They said that they made it to the camp around 9 pm (an hour past when we thought we should have arrived) and that they set up camp and when we still hadn't arrived they came back to look for us. It was about 11 p.m. by this point. They had passed mom along the way, who had told them that we still needed help. Kendra put on Heather's pack and Devin was going to take mine but I told him that I was alright and instead could he just grab my food and stuff at the log. So he went on ahead to pick up my stuff and bring it back to the camp. 

There were the 3 of us now. We asked Kendra how much further past the log we would have to go to get to camp and she said "about 20  minutes" .  We now had hope that we may actually make it to the campsite tonight. Once again we had to pick our way down the avalanche of stones and boulders. After about half an our we made it to the log. My stuff was gone so we knew that Devin had been there. Every once in awhile Kendra would stop to think for a moment on which way to go. Apparently there were some splits in the path and if you weren't careful you could take the wrong path.  We started to hear some weird whistling noises that none of us recognized. To this day we don't have a clue as to what it was. It was a bird of some sort I think. Maybe a grouse or something. 

Just when we were thinking "will this ever end"? We finally heard mom's voice and popped into the open space that was our campsite for the night.  It was midnight but we had finally made it! 

We were exhausted. We sat for a bit on a rock and eased the packs off of our sore shoulders and backs. There was the beautiful sound of an owl hooting in a nearby tree but it was too dark to see it.

We still had to put the tent up and eat supper and hang our food in the tree so that the animals wouldn't get it. Sadly while Devin and Kendra had gone back for us, some animal (probably the owl or a coon) had gotten a hold of Kendra's chicken that she was going to have for supper and ate it. So she snacked on other things and I ate a very squished sandwich for supper. 

At about 1 a.m. we crawled into our tents and went to sleep with the sound of the owl hooting in the trees above us. About an hour later my leg cramped up like a charlie horse from my ankle all the way up to my knee. It was hard as a rock and hurt. It took quite a bit of massaging to get the knot to let go. But after that I went back to sleep and had a good night's sleep. It was a hot night so we slept on top of the sleeping bags with just a sheet on top and with only the screen door between us and the great outdoors. 

I woke up in the morning to the sound of woodpeckers knocking on the tree just above our campsite. I grabbed my camera and ever so quietly headed for the tent door.  Just as I reached for the zipper, the neighbouring campsite started making noises and talking and I knew that my opportunity was lost. I was so disappointed. 

So I crawled back into my sleeping bag for a bit and listened to the stirrings of the various campsites beginning to wake up. Luckily though the new campsite neighbours were pretty quiet people and they were actually packing up to leave. They were only making minimal noise and it wasn't long before one of the wood peckers came back.  Once again I grabbed my camera, and I slipped out the tent door  and managed to get a couple of grainy not so good pictures of a female Pileated Woodpecker. 

Once Heather got up and we had our breakfast we had to make the decision on whether we wanted to tackle the Cranberry Bog Trail. We had to tear down the tents, pack up  and be off the site by 2 pm, plus our feet were still aching from hiking the previous day, so we opted to just walk around and see the other side of the park instead of doing the hike. I think we made the right choice. Just walking up the hill to the car was making our feet hurt. 

So once we were pretty much packed up we took a walk down to the main beach to see how it compared to the smaller beach that we had already been to. 

There was a nice winding set of stairs that led to the main beach. 

The exact way to the beach was a little unclear, since there were no signs that said "This Way To The Beach" or anything. But we had the paper map and we just kind of winged it. 

As we descended down the stairs we noticed some informational signs that were encased in plastic that we hadn't noticed before.  As we walked along we spotted more and more of them.  Turns out that these signs belong to some sort of Orienteering Course that you can do while you are there. 

The stairs to the beach led us past the place where the canoe rental storage area is. I have never seen as many canoe racks as they have here. There were rows upon rows of them about 5 racks deep on both sides of the path. Canoeing is clearly a popular activity for this park. 

Kayaking is also popular here. I was pleasantly surprised to see that Killarney also offered the rental of stand up paddle boards  which you could rent from the Killarney Outfitters located about 4 minutes down the road from the park. 

Just before we reached the shore we saw the giant sign saying "No cans or bottles". It is the little things like this that I am sure help to keep this park as clean as this one is. You can tell that they care and take pride in their park. 

The main beach was just as sandy and almost as nice as the smaller one was. However I think that the view from the smaller beach was much nicer. 

The other thing was that this beach had a number of run off drainage pipes buried in the sand all over the place to route the rain waters that come from down the hill into the lake without it washing away the beach sand. All though these are necessary I guess, they do detract from the otherwise beautiful beach. 

We walked the shore line until we came to the dog beach on the other side. It's one of the nicest looking dog beaches I have seen in a provincial park so far. What we didn't know at the time was if we had just gone a little further from this point we could have seen the Yurts that this park has. I guess that will have to be saved for a future visit. 

Right beside the dog beach is the other entrance to the La Cloche Silhouette hiking trail which begins with a boardwalk bridge. 

The edge of the water was lined with beautiful flowers such as this Joe-Pye weed. 

Up in the grass we passed by this Wooly Bear caterpillar.

Close to here was another nice convenience that the park provides. Not only can you rent canoes and kayaks, but if you bring your own then they have a public rack that you can use to to store it on. 

It was getting close to two o'clock and it was time to go home. We went back tot he site and finished with the last of the packing. We said good bye to the chipmunks and then headed for home. 

Despite the rather over cast and chilly weather we had, we still had a really good time. It isn't any wonder why this park is the favourite of almost everyone who comes here. I have a feeling that not only will we come back to do the La Cloche trail, but we will probably be back many more times after that. 

We woke up at the crack of noon this day. Could be because we stayed up so late. Could be because it was cold and over cast and kind of gloomy out. This did not matter to us though. We were excited to soon be hiking up "The Crack" that we had heard so much about from the other campers and park staff. There were even T-shirts in the park office that said something like "I survived The Crack". We didn't buy one though because they were way over priced (something like $34.99 each....ouch!) 

Our campsite neighbours and fellow raccoon battlers were packing up and leaving and a new campsite neighbour was waiting in the wings. I heard him say to his daughters "Make sure that you pick everything up. Remember to always leave the place cleaner than you found it".  I smiled and told him that our family had the exact same motto for when we are camping too. Then we said good bye to our new friends and wished them luck on their future camping adventures. 
 
We cooked breakfast, packed a bit of a lunch, made sure everything was tidied up and secure at the camp site and then jumped in the car. Unfortunately the entrance to the trail is a 7 km drive down the road for the park and we were warned that there was no sign indicating that it was there. You had to already know where it is (we had gotten directions from the park office). 

Finally we arrived and hopped out of the car and went over to examine the trail sign at the foot of the trail. 
The Crack is a 6 km hike over difficult terrain and should take roughly 4 hrs. By this time it was 3 pm and we were going to take it slow so that we could take pictures and enjoy the scenery. I estimated that we would be back around 7 or 7:30 pm. The Crack is the beginning of the 78 km La Cloche trail and there was a warning sign that this trail does not loop around. So if you didn't turn around and come back the way you came once you got to The Crack then you were going to be on your way for the 7 - 10 day hike! 

Hiding up in the top of the sign was another big ole Orb Weaver spider. They seem to be fairly common to this campground (however the Daddy Long Legs were even more plentiful). 

The trail started off very wide and nicely groomed. You could drive an ATV down this trail. We said to each other "If this is how the path is going to be the whole way then this should be easy!" 

Some areas were a bit boggy and others had nice little meadows. There was one real pretty meadow that had a fallen tree stump right in the middle of it which kind of looked like moose antlers or something. 

One plant that we saw and don't often see was some Doll's Eyes. These white berries are poisonous, so if you find some don't eat them. 

Eventually the trail went down a bit of an incline and opened up on to a marshy area that had a great view. 

There was a quaint little winding foot bridge to allow you to cross over the marsh.

Waterlilies were floating in the water. 

The shores were lined with Pearly Everlasting flowers (also known as Anaphalis ). 

As we went along we met more and more people going the opposite direction. We said hello and talked to just about every one of them and asked them what to expect up ahead. Most of them were coming back from the 80 km hike and had been out on the trail for days. 

We passed by a very steep, very rocky portage and we were glad that we were only hiking and not portaging. It looked like an avalanche of rocks had come tumbling down the hill and you were expected to climb it with a canoe on your head. 

We chuckled at the portage sign because it reminded us of of the" Four On The Floor" show we used to watch many years ago with the "Mr. Canoe Head" skits. 

At the bottom of one of the portages, by the side of the lake, we met a nice couple that showed us their detailed map of the La Cloche trial. Their version had all the back country campsites listed on it. So we were able to see how far apart each site was. Our version just gave a rough idea of where the trail went but that was about it. 

Every time we came to a lake or a marshy area I kept hoping to see a turtle or something interesting. But the best I could find was a little frog that was playing "Where's Waldo".

The farther along the trail you went the more increasingly difficult the terrain became. About a little more than half way we came to an incredibly steep hill of rock. We looked up and thought we must be nearing the end because it was starting to look more like a rock climbing expedition. 

And to top it all off, near the very top were massive amounts of tangled roots all over the place. The roots were almost preferable because at least it was something you could hold on to while you made the climb. 

Just as we were saying "Just think ...we are going to have to climb back down this somehow later on" along came two guys not walking, not climbing, but literally running down the side of this very steep hill.  As they zipped on past us I was just picturing a mass of tangled broken bones at the bottom of the hill if they were to at all lose their footing.  We stepped aside and got out of their way. Later on we met up with some other hikers who told us that those two that had been running had actually started the 80 km trail at about 6 a.m. that morning and had finished the entire trail in one day. Actually we calculated that they finished the entire 80 km trail in about 12 hrs!!  They were the talk of the park. Even the next day you could hear other campers still talking about them. 

As we got near the top of the steep hill with the tangled mass of roots we stopped to take a quick break and sat down. Along came another family of 3 and one of the women in that group said "I am so glad to see that I am not the only one that needs a break on this trail once in awhile!" (Most other people seemed to be taking the trail rather quickly and I wondered if any of them were even taking the time to enjoy themselves and see what interesting things were around them, like this tree that had fallen down but had completely twisted right around before it did; almost like a giant had taken it between it's thumb and forefinger and twirled it around or something). 

The farther along you go the more confusing the trail becomes. Some of the markers are missing and instead they have large piles of rocks to guide you along your way. At one point the red markers disappeared altogether and I thought we had arrived at our destination. But Heather said "nope, we are not there yet". I was tired and ready to turn around by this point. But we persevered and I am glad we did. Eventually we saw "The Crack" in the distance. 

Getting to the top of "The Crack" though.....well, let's just say that it was more like rock climbing than hiking. I was glad we weren't carrying back packs and it made the other climbs we had done on this trail up to this point look like child's play. 

But it was all worth it. The view at the top was absolutely breath taking. I imagine at sunset it is even more gorgeous. You could see for miles and miles around. So far in fact that you could see multiple lakes at one time. 

We sat for a little bit and ate a snack and caught our breath. We laughed and shouted " I'm on Crack!" 
 The bears that Heather wanted to see were no where to be found. The only one to join us up here in this remote little corner of the world was just a little chipmunk. 

By this time it was about 5:45 pm and you could see the rain clouds starting to come in. The wind had picked up quite a bit since we were so high up without a whole lot of trees for shelter and it was starting to feel cold up there. I  had visions of us being stuck on very steep slippery rocks in a down pour and with  night time setting in, getting lost in the woods somewhere.  I did not want to have to be rescued by the park rangers from a crumpled heap at the bottom of the hill somewhere.  

So we made the trek back down the mountain side and we picked up our pace a little for the way back.  We at least wanted to make it to the tree line and into the woods before it started raining. 

Once we got past the rock climb portion of "The Crack" the way down was actually much easier than I thought it would be. It wasn't long before we were back to the wooded part of the trail again. 

Even though we had picked up the pace again we were still able to enjoy the sights around us. Heather pointed out what she calls a "Love Knot" in one of the trees. 

We were making good time and it hadn't even begun to rain yet. We only had a about a half a kilometer left to go and we were talking and laughing and having a great time. All of a sudden Heather stopped dead in her tracks and whispered under her breath "Bear!" . Then she said it quietly again " Bear, bear, bear!"  I looked where she was looking and sure enough there were not one but two bears! They were in a little meadow just off to the side of the trail and were only about  25 or 30 feet away from us. One was only a cub and the other was not much older...maybe a yearling. 

We quickly realized that with bears that young, there is most likely a momma bear around somewhere. So we remembered to make some noise so that we didn't take them by surprise and we began to walk past them. heather had an empty plastic water bottle in her hand so she squeezed it in her hands to make crinkling noises. The little cub stood up on it's back legs to see what it was and when it saw us it started to go farther away from us. The older one just looked up from what ever it was doing (maybe hunting for frogs or berries or something) stared for a second and then went back to what it was doing. It didn't seem to care at all that we were there. 

We did not stick around long to see how long they would tolerate us being in their space. Keeping an eye behind us to make sure they didn't start coming after us, we just kept walking. 

It wasn't long before we made it back to the parking lot and were on or way back to the campsite. 
It was about 7 p.m by the time we got back. It took us about 2 1/2 hrs to go up to The Crack and only about 1 1/2 hrs to come back. 

Once again just as we started supper it began to rain. It got to the point where no whenever Heather and I are together and it starts raining we say "Oh, it must be supper time!"

Once again our friends the raccoons were back. But this time there was nothing for them to eat so their visit was short lived.  We played a game of Settlers Of Catan and then called it a night. Our feet and muscles were very achy from all the exercise we got that day and sleep came quickly and easily. It had been a really great day . 

We actually set a wind up alarm clock to make sure that we got up on time for the Chickanishing hike. Setting an alarm for a camping trip is something we almost never do. Usually it is just sleep in until it either gets too hot or too noisy from our surroundings. But we didn't want to miss this.  

Our campsite neighbours told us that they had seen some Pileated Woodpeckers in the nearby tree that we just missed before we got up. I hoped to see them before we left. I have only seen Pileated Woodpeckers once many years before in Driftwood Provincial Park and I had been amazed by the size of them. They are about the size of a large crow.  Instead, on this morning,  I ended up seeing just a small red headed woodpecker. 

Our campsite neighbours headed out on a day of canoeing and kayaking and we hurried with our breakfast and headed on our way to our hike. You actually have to drive out of Killarney Park and down the road to get to the entrances of a number of the hiking trails for this park. The  Chickanishing trial was one of those, so we drove a kilometer down the road and then down a long winding back road until we got to the parking lot of the trail. We made it just on time. 

The group that gathered there consisted of a family of 5, Howard and his wife and their dog Daisy, another young couple who were spending their vacation going from park to park, a wonderful older lady named Winnie (nick named Windy) who came all the way from Florida (but had been to Killarney many times because it is her favourite park), and of course my sister Heather and myself. Our band of merry men was lead by two guides Rachelle and Ian. 

Before we began we all went around and introduced ourselves in turn and told everyone why we had chosen Killarney as our place to camp.  The common sentiment that we kept hearing from the various people we met on this trip that had visited Killarney before was that this was their favourite park. With this group of people it was no different . Everyone said that they loved it here and had plans to visit again. We weren't sure exactly what to expect on this interpretive hike and was pleasantly surprised by how well we connected to the people in the group and we began to swap stories and get to know each other as we walked. 

The hike was all about connecting with the land. One of the first stops for us on the trail was at a rocky clearing that had some very nice views of the surrounding scenery. 

We were asked to close our eyes and describe what we smelled. Then we were asked to describe what we heard. Finally were were asked to spread out and find something in nature  that symbolized a memory or had some significance to you. 

Someone chose some pine needles because it reminded them of tea from back home. Someone else chose blueberries because it reminded them of summer. I chose a rock because it reminded me of when I used to go rock collecting on the shores of the beach with my grandmother and we would bring them back to her house and put them in her driveway so that she would have a driveway full of beautiful colours instead of boring old grey gravel.  And finally it was Winnie's turn and she reached down and put her hand lovingly on the pink granite rock we were all standing on and said that she had also chosen a rock. But hers was the rock in it's entirety. She said something like "I chose this rock because it is full of cracks and is weathered and shows its beauty and strength  in its age. These cracks are the rocks wrinkles , just like mine."  I thought that what she had said was quite beautiful and profound and I felt connected to her from that moment on.  

You could tell that she just loved the beauty of the granite we were walking on and that she just loved this park. She would often point out the various colours of the pinks and the white quartz as well as the  beautiful changes in the formations of the stone as we went along. 

At one stop along the way you could look down the side of the rock face and see a little river or waterway below which connected with George Lake.  

It was the perfect place for canoeing and kayaking. It was protected from the wind and the waves from the lake (and it was pretty windy that day) and I am sure there was lots to see. I think on a future trip to Killarney I might like to do some canoeing there myself.

Every stop we made along the trail was nicer than the previous one. Rachelle was even nice enough to take pictures for each of us with our various cameras. Killarney Park is one of the main places that The Group of Seven used to do there artwork. Looking at the landscape around us you can definitely picture in your head where they may have sat and sketched and painted. 

So when we got closer to George Lake Rachelle and Ian had each of us sit quietly for awhile and either draw something that we saw, or write a poem or do something artistic. I saw this beautiful blue damsel fly and decided to draw a quick sketch of it.  Heather wrote a poem about the different colours around her. But the most unique was the song that Howard made about his dog Daisy. It was to the tune of "Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds"  but the words were "Daisy on the Bay with Lichen". Soon we were all singing the chorus together and swaying back and forth tot he song. Other hikers going by probably thought we were crazy but we were having a good time. 

Soon we continued on and along the way we came across a plant that looked like cotton balls on the end of a stalk of grass. We asked each other what it was but no one seemed to know (I had to Google it when I got home). Turns out it was  some Tussock Cottongrass; also known as Hare's Tail.

At the half way point of  the trail we crossed over a little foot bridge and reached the shore of George Lake where we all stopped for lunch. It was the end of the guided part of the trail but we were welcome to stay for lunch and continue back with Rachelle and Ian.  Almost everyone else left but Heather and I stayed with Winnie and ate together. Winnie shared her stories as well as some wonderful Brie and Sweet Potato Triscuts with us. Sweet potato I am usually only 50/50 on but those Triscuts were delicious! I highly recommend them. 

When we were done eating we joined up with Rachelle and Ian and the 5 of us finished off the trail together.

We had an excellent time on the trail and were glad that we had gone. I don't know which I liked better, the hiking or the people we were with. We heard some interesting tales about a place called Topaz Lake which is a dead lake that is named after the colour of the water. When you swim it the water is so blue with nothing in it that you can't tell how deep it is. Could be 10 feet or it could be 200 feet. I don't kow where this place is but I want to look it up and check it out. We also heard about Acid lake which is another dead lake that you can actually get to from the La Cloche trail in Killarney Park. And we heard more about hiking "The Crack". Heather asked Rachelle where the best place to see bears would be and she said that most sightings are either on the side of the highway when you are coming in to the park or at the very top of The Crack which is like a big rocky mountain side. Once Heather heard that she might be able see bears up there, that sealed the deal. Tomorrow she wanted to hike The Crack. So we put that on our list of things to do for the next day. 
For now though we headed back to our camp site. 

After the long hike we thought we might want to take a nap, but instead we got a second wind and decided to look around the park a little. There are two beaches at Killarney and we headed over towards the secondary one because it was closer to us. Along the way we found the entrance to the Cranberry Bog Trail and thought we might hike that on the Wednesday just before leaving the park. 

The first thing that we noticed when we got to the beach was the sign that said "Radio Free". Actually there was no excessive noise allowed anywhere in the park in the first place but this whole end of the park was designated as Radio Free. So the entire trip was very peaceful and enjoyable. 

The other sign we noticed was one that said "Caution Uneven Lake Bottom".  I thought that was a bit peculiar since I have never known any lake bottoms to be very even in the first place. But I guess there must be some extreme drop offs in the swimming area for them to have to post signs for it. I am not really sure how the bottom was because we never went in. It was way too cold for the entire trip to want to go swimming. The weather felt more like autumn weather than summer weather.

The sandy part of the beach was a little bit narrow, but the water was clear and clean and  the view across the lake was quite beautiful. It was definitely a nice little beach. 

At the far end of the beach was a little foot path. Not a hiking trail by any means, just a little path that lead up to the top of the rock cliff where there was a look out that gave you a yet another gorgeous view. We remembered that as kids we had come to this very spot on a couple of evenings to watch the sunset. It would be nice to do that again while we were here, but the weather was not really co-operating with us for that to happen. 

After sitting for a bit and enjoying the view we continued down the path and past a couple of empty campsites which were only about 2 sites away from ours. We had come full circle. I did a quick comparison of the other sites to ours and found that they were nice and big too and would make an excellent choice for future trips. Number 79 would not be the best though because although it looked big, the roots on the ground would make it difficult to put a large sized tent on the site without having difficulties pegging it into the ground. But sites 76, 77 and 78 were prime pickings.  

Soon enough we were getting hungry and it was close to supper time. Once again the sky became over cast and it started to rain a bit and the temperature took a dive.  I saw a single red maple leaf lying on the wet ground and thought "No! Not yet! It can't be that cold out ....Come on, it's only August!"  

Inside our dining tent even this big ole Orb Weaver spider was taking refuge from the rain. 

We weren't going to let any rain stand in the way of our supper though. Tonight we were having hot dogs and sausages and the part we were both looking forward to..... bannock! 

We started up the fire and found a couple of roasting sticks. I had pre-mixed all the dry ingredients for the bannock before we cane so all we had to do was mix in the water and a bit of melted butter. 

If you have never heard of or made bannock before, it is a type of bread that originated in North America with the First Nations (there was a European version that came from Scotland and used oatmeal, but this is not what we used). The bannock of The First Nations people was made of corn and nut meal, and flour made from ground plant bulbs. There were many variations of bannock depending on what region they were from that included different types of flour, and the addition of dried or fresh fruit. There are different ways to cook bannock. Many people just use a frying pan, but we like to wrap the dough around a green, hardwood stick and toasted it over an open fire. We had to throw a couple of flat rocks over the grill to try to keep the rain from dousing out our fire before we were done cooking. 

In case you are interested in trying this yourself, here is the recipe for it:

Bannock

3 cups  flour
1 teaspoon salt
2 tablespoons baking powder
1/4 cup butter, melted
1 1/2 cups water

Cook until it is a golden brown and not doughy in the middle.


It's that simple. The trick is to not to put the dough on the stick too thick or it won't cook all the way through. When it is done you take it off the stick and add some butter and eat it. Or you can do like Heather did and use it as a bun for your hot dog or sausage. It tastes very much like a tea biscuit. 

Next was dessert. We had decided to have the traditional campfire treat of S'mores.  We had bought the perfect cookies for this and in fact had two different kinds. They are Leclerc's Celebration cookies and come with the chocolate already on the cookie. One kind was plain chocolate and another kind had caramel. I was looking forward to trying out the caramel because it would be a bit of a twist from your normal everyday S'more. 

But first, knowing that it was almost time for the raccoons to appear, we decided to clean up the food and wash the dishes. 

We had just finished the last of the dishes when it was starting to get dark. It was also starting to get pretty cold. Cold enough that you could see your breathe. We sat around the camp fire for a bit in the light rain drinking a hot chocolate and trying to keep warm. Sure enough, it wasn't long before we heard the raccoons. I am pretty sure there were two or three of them. Since we put the food in the trunk of the car already, we thought nothing much of them when we noticed one of them in the dining tent just behind us.

Then it hit me....wait a minute! We didn't put ALL the food away! We had left the marshmallows and cookies out for the S'mores! Oh No!!

I jumped out of the chair, flashlight in hand,  and raced over to the dining tent yelling "The marshmallows! The marshmallows!" Heather realized our mistake at about the exact same moment as I did and she jumped up with her flash light too. 

But it was too late and the raccoon already had the entire bag of marshmallows in hand. When he realized we were making a bee line right for him he grabbed the bag and dashed under the wall of the tent and straight into the woods. We ran after him in hot pursuit shining our lights this way and that.  Finally our lights landed on him and there he was calmly eating one of the marshmallows. We ran after him again yelling at him "Come back here with our marshmallows you evil raccoon!". He saw us coming and grabbed the bag and ran off with it even further into the woods. Once again we found him and he was once again just calmly eating one marshmallow at a time waiting for us to catch up before he took off again with the whole bag. By this time I am sure we were the talk of the campground. The neighbouring campers were all laughing and it looked like a scene out of a comedy movie. The chase finally came to an end when the raccoon disappeared over the edge of the ravine and we could no longer find him anymore. 
 

We made our way back to the site, a little disappointed that we no longer had any marshmallows for the S'mores. That's when our neighbours from the next campsite over came to our rescue. They showed up at our site with a bag of their marshmallows to share with us. We laughed with them about what had just happened and thanked them and took a few marshmallows. We were all set for making the S'mores! 

So Heather and I each made one regular one and one caramel one and put them over the fire to cook. We were just finished eating our first one when we heard the raccoon in the dining tent again.  Oh No! The Cookies!!!  We had figured that the bag of marshmallows would take him awhile and that us yelling at him would have kept him away for a bit. But either he was back or one of his friends was. Either way, the chase was on again. This time for the box of the caramel cookies. The raccoon took off with the whole box dropping a trail of cookies behind him as he ran. Our chase was only half hearted this time because we knew from experience that we would never catch him. And even if we did, what were we going to do? Take them from his hands? .... Not likely. That would be a really bad idea.  The main purpose of this was to try to keep him from wanting to return by making a big fuss and maybe, just maybe rescuing a cookie or two as the dropped. But the cookies that fell were a lost cause so we gave up this chase pretty quickly and instead focused on protecting the last remaining box of cookies just in case there were more raccoons waiting for us to leave some goodies unattended. 

We made sure that our last box of cookies was put safely in the car and doubly sure there was nothing else lying around. By this time it was pretty dark and we were busying ourselves with setting up the light in the dining tent and setting up a game of Dominoes. We had just sat down to play when we heard the raccoons were back again. Perhaps to see if they could find any of the cookies they had dropped on our last chase. But we had nothing left for them to find. That didn't stop them from looking though and they weren't shy about it. At one point Heather was sitting at the picnic table and looked down to see one of them sitting beside her right at her feet. 

Eventually they gave up and continued on to the next campsite. We could hear them trying to get into things but our neighbours had learned a lesson from us and there was nothing available from them either. 

So we played dominoes in the freezing cold (I heard that it actually snowed on the other side of Sudbury that night.... not sure how true that was but I certainly could believe it) until about 3 in the morning. As we crawled into our sleeping bags we talked about our plans to hike up to "The Crack" the next day.  We were looking forward to another day of hiking.