Fitzroy in the Fall

When you think of fall, camping is not usually the first thing that comes to mind, especially in October. But sometimes there are some advantages to camping in autumn.

 We had the opportunity to find out what they were by spending a night at Fitzroy Provincial Park just outside of Ottawa, Ontario.

Here we were on a sunny, warm October 3rd and not only was the camp ground open, it actually had staff on site. To top it all off, it was going to be open the following weekend as well. There are not too many provincial parks that are open past the first or second week of September so this was pretty impressive. Driving down the leaf littered park road, we were happy to be one of the very few people who were taking them up on this opportunity. 

We could have probably set up a tent, it was that warm, but we didn't know what the weather was going to be like so we had opted to borrow my parents RV for this trip instead. 

We ended up on site number 97 which was a short distance away from the comfort station.  We had seen maybe two or three people as we came into the park, but on our side of the park there was not a soul to be seen except us and a ranger truck that went by maybe twice. Advantage number one of camping in the fall.... we had pretty much the whole place to ourselves. 

As far as comfort stations go this was one of the worst ones I had ever seen in a provincial park. It was more like a regular bathroom than a comfort station. The floors were rough and cracked and broken and the paint was peeling off the walls. When I think of comfort stations I think of bathrooms for those who don't like to rough it. This comfort station was not for the faint of heart when it comes to bugs and spiders. The whole bathroom was covered in dead bugs, live bugs and spiders everywhere. One spider even jumped out of the toilet while flushing, which reminded us to look inside the bowl before sitting every time we visited the bathroom there after. There was one shower stall and a coin run washer and dryer in another part of the building but they were pretty run down looking too. For a regular bathroom this would have been pretty OK (aside from the bugs) but for a comfort station it was lacking. 

Luckily the minute you stepped out of the bathroom you forgot how ugly and buggy it was inside because the outside was absolutely beautiful. The comfort station was the only negative thing I have to say about the entire park. From there on out it was beauty at every angle. 

We were not there more than 10 minutes when we had our first encounter with the animals of this park. Between us and the bathrooms were 4 deer grazing along the edge of the road. 

They played shy a little but they were so close you could almost touch them. they were only about 10 to 15 feet away from us.  Advantage number 2 of camping in the fall, is no one to scare the wild life away except yourself. 

As we stood still watching them they began to relax a little and stepped out a little more into the open. 

There was one point where we moved a little too fast or perhaps rustled the leaves a little too much and it made the nervous so they bounded a short sprint further up the road from us with their white tails up in the air as a warning to the others. 

But they didn't go far, maybe only another 100 feet away. They stopped in the tree line and continued to eat the grass. 

We watched the deer for awhile longer and then we decided to head off and go for a hike down one of the two hiking trails that Fitzroy has. The roads were so covered in fallen leaves that it was hard to tell where the roads even were sometimes. 

It was a short walk up the road until we got to the bridge that connects one side of the camp ground to the other. 

Looking down over the bridge you can see the creek running below. It is shallow and the rocks in it are large and flat. Looks like a fantastic place to go out and sit if the water wasn't too cold. 

On either side of the bridge there are some stairs and paths to follow. You can choose to go along the hiking trail or to go down under the bridge. We decided to take a quick peek to see what was under the bridge. 

The view from under the bridge was just as nice as from on top of the bridge. 

Looking in the water we could see hundreds and hundreds of little dark bumps that looked like someone had thrown in a bunch of dark pebbles or fish tank stones. I stuck my hand in the water to see what they were and found that they were snails. There were so many snails! And you could see little snail trails all over the place in the sand at the bottom of the creek. 

Along the edge of the bridge path were some pretty purple flowers and lovely leaves turning colour. 

Even the creek banks were an interesting shape and neat to look at. 

The trail begins by winding along the edge of the creek. You are up above it and can look down below to see all the pine needles that have fallen to make almost like an island of pine needles in the middle of the creek. 

The trees took on so many interesting shapes and had branches that grew in weird ways. Some had giant holes in them that made you wonder what could be living in them. 

Even the roots of the trees were interesting to look at in this place. I could almost swear there were ents  or dryads living here. 

A little further up the trail we saw a bunch of ducks hanging out in the shallow water of the creek. 

I am pretty sure they were eating the snails that were so plentiful in the creek. 

No wonder the ducks stick around when there are bodies of water like this that look like a little piece of heaven. 

It was very peaceful to look at. 

At this time of year the water levels are pretty low so it was a little unusual to see a board walk bridge in the middle of the trail with no water under it. But I can imagine this would be pretty useful in the spring and early summer. 

Near the boardwalk were a whole lot of plants that looked like miniature bamboo. These were actually Scouring Rush plants, otherwise known as Horse Tail plants. 

The brilliant oranges and yellows of the turning leaves really stand out through the grey bark and branches of the trees that have already lost their leaves. Oddly enough there weren't many red leaves on the trees.  

Perhaps this is why we weren't seeing too much in the way of red leaves. Strangely most of the red leaves we saw were a very faint pink or sometimes even white in colour instead. It wasn't a mildew mor was it powdery. It was just like an absence of colour. It was kind of weird and yet pretty in a way. 

But not all of the red was gone on all of the trees. Some of them were still displaying their beauty. 

The trail eventually loops back to the edge of the creek but just before we get there we hear a rustling in the trees. We turn around to look, and there is another deer walking along the trail behind us. As soon as it notices that we noticed it standing there, it wasn't long before it took off deeper into the trees.

That's OK though. There were plenty of black squirrels and chipmunks running around chasing each other that we could watch instead. 

We followed the leaf covered road back to the campsite. It was getting dark and we didn't have time to walk the other hiking trail. But we felt privileged  enough to have had the opportunity to  enjoy this trail.

We started the campfire and made supper and roasted marshmallows. Then we lit the lantern and had an enjoyable evening of playing board games. It was the perfect ending to a perfect day.