We woke up at 10 a.m. and everything was perfect! The weather was perfect, the temperature was perfect, and there was a perfect amount of sun vs. shade. The birds were singing and it was a lovely morning!
We made our way through the trees and down the path leading to the comfort station. Between us and the road were a bunch of wild flowers that smelled heavenly. They smelled almost like lilacs. And the Monarch butterflies were flying all around.
We made our way through the trees and down the path leading to the comfort station. Between us and the road were a bunch of wild flowers that smelled heavenly. They smelled almost like lilacs. And the Monarch butterflies were flying all around.
It wasn't any wonder because the flowers we were smelling were Milkweed. It is a pretty pink flower that smelled so nice I wanted to just stand there and breathe in the scent for a long time.
Another plant that was attracting the butterflies was the Goat's Beard plants that were mixed in with the Milkweed. They had huge puffy seed pods that were like a dandelion on steroids. They glistened with a golden sheen in the sun.
Goat's Beard plants have a beautiful, yellow, star burst shaped flower on them.
Other insects were enjoying this wild flower bed too. There were grasshoppers on the purple thistles.
And bees on the Milkweed leaves.
And Box Elder beetles on the Milkweed too. There were even humming birds flying around everywhere, but they wouldn't stay still long enough for me to get a photo of them.
The comfort station was your typical provincial park comfort station. It had 5 showers and flush toilets and was clean.
It had a bike rack outside. This park is a fantastic place for biking. As a matter of fact they have a trail that is specifically for bikes that runs much of the way through the park.
Today we decided that we would hike the Look Out Point Trail.. It's a 3.5 km loop trail and the entrance was close to the Blind Bay section of the campground. This trail winds through a variety of forest types to a breathtaking view of Georgian Bay. We made some egg salad sandwiches and packed some snacks and drinks and headed out.
We got to the Lookout Point Trail head at about noon. There was almost no place to park. Killbear Park is a large park with over 880 campsites. Since the park was almost full it was not too surprising that there were so many people on the trail today.
We grabbed an interpretive trail guide and began our hike. The very first part began as a little board walk into the woods.
It was a beautiful warm sunny day and even the dragonflies were enjoying a bit of sun on the boardwalk.
The boardwalk went on for quite a ways through the trees. I imagine it must be pretty wet through here in the spring time.
We came across this measuring stick along the side of the trail.
Apparently there are some of these on each of the hiking trails. You can help to do some "Wetland Science" by reading the water levels on the measuring stick and texting the information to the McMaster Ecohydrology Group who monitors the water levels. We didn't send in a text because we were pretty sure that some kids had been playing around with this one and that the measurements weren't correct.
This trail was pretty easy going. You were even provided with some benches along the way.
Soon we came to a stand of Hemlock trees. It was a nice open space and there was trail marker # 3 on a post. We referred to our trail guide to see what it said, and I learned something that I didn't know before.
Apparently these hemlock stands are important to the deer and wildlife in the winter. They provide shelter from the snow so that the deer are able to move around beneath the branches easily and can get to their food. It went on to say that we were unlikely to find deer here at this time of year.
We came across this oddly marked tree. For some reason there were two orange markers on it instead of just one. (The trail does not split here or anything like that). I joked with Heather that there were two of them because one was the English version and the other was the French version. :)
At one point we were pleasantly surprised to see some stairs along the trail. They were rough, but they were a nice touch.
There were plenty of dragonflies on the trail. I was happy to see them because they were helping to keep the mosquitoes and other bugs away.
Saw this cute little mushroom hiding under a rock. It looked like a scene from a fairy book or something.
On the path up ahead we saw this fat little chipmunk drinking from a puddle. I don't know if it was well fed or pregnant, but it certainly was a round little thing.
Saw this red-shouldered pine borer warming itself on a rock.
At the end of the trail before it loops back around we came to the Lookout Point that the trail was named after.
It was a beautiful lookout. The view was amazing. You could see for miles around.
There were two picnic tables but there were people already at the first one so we went to the further one to have our lunch.
As we were eating a family came up behind us and took off their shoes. Then they walked past us and down the hill towards the water and disappeared from sight. All was quiet for a few minutes. One minute stretched into two and two stretched into three. I wondered why they left their shoes up at the top of the lookout and I wondered what they were doing. "Maybe they fell in" I said to Heather.
Heather said "Nah, you would have heard them yell and splash" Just as she finished saying that, we heard some yelling and a big splash! We had to laugh at the timing of that.
After we finished eating we continued on our way. The Sumac trees were a beautiful rich red colour. I had never seen them so red before. The pictures I took do not even begin to show how red they were.
There were plenty of wildflowers along the trail, like this rough-fruited cinquefoil.
And this purple Hyssop flower.
It was 3:15 pm when we came off the trail. The brochure said the hike is usually 90 minutes long, but we were walking very slow and had stopped for lunch and to take pictures.
We enjoyed the hike and we were not quite ready to go back to camp yet. So we decided to go into the Visitor Center to see what they had in there.
It was quite nice inside. Many of the windows were decorated with scenes of various types of birds.
There were a couple balconies where you could go out and look around or sit and enjoy a quiet moment. There were picnic tables outside on the lower levels.
We took the opportunity to ask the Park Staff that were manning the desk, what the strange fences were for that we kept seeing along the road. They explained that they were snake fences. They are put in place to keep the snakes (and turtles) from going across the road and getting hit by cars.
They pointed out that we might see some grates or some speed bumps running across the road at various points. These are actually under passes for the snakes and turtles to go through to get to the other side of the road. The fences are intended to guide them to these underpasses. We hadn't really noticed the under passes before, but once he mentioned them we started seeing them through out the park. These aren't in place because there are so many snakes. The rattle snake is actually very rare so the fences are there to protect the population.
We didn't get to see a wild rattle snake while we were in the park (although we kept hoping that we would) but we did get to see one behind glass in the Visitor Center. It had been run over by a bike a number of years ago which broke it's back. Since it can no longer survive on it's own in the wild they take care of it now indoors.
They also had this Eastern Foxsnake there too. The Eastern Foxsnake, like the rattlesnake, is a threatened species of snake. The only place this species is found in the world is in the Great Lakes Basin, specifically around the western portion of Lake Erie and on the eastern shore of Georgian Bay.
The Visitor Center was filled with various displays of taxidermy animals. One display I thought was nice for the kids had a stuffed moose in it as well as some other birds and animals. It was set up as an "I Spy" game.
On the glass of the display was a little card with a list of the things that you had to try to find.
In another part of the Visitor Center was a stuffed Black Bear. They had some information and some art work featuring bears in various places through out the building.
They were very creative with their displays. One display I found to be entertaining was the one that listed the bears food. They had the list set up like a fancy restaurant menu. There was one for each season except for winter.
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On the Fall menu, at the very bottom, it said " Please Note: The restaurant will be closed for the winter"
One of my favourite parts of the Visitor Center was a table that had a couple pf old fashioned looking phones on it. The phones were not real phones, but if you chose a number you could sit and listen to a recording of a story.
 |  My two favourite stories were #2 How Killbear got it's name and #5 Rattlesnakes.  The story of How Killbear got it's name involved a man who had a bear get into his boat and they fought in the boat. The bear won and then the bear was last seen floating away into the distance on the boat. |
Next stop inside the Visitor Center was the store. This Park Store had some of the best deals I have ever seen in a park before. I got a combo pack of a hat and T-shirt together for a little over $16. I was very impressed with this. We also bough some fudge and a package of kerosene fire starters. We had never seen these types of fire starters before and we wanted to check them out. Then to our surprise, they threw in two cans of brown beans for FREE! So we went back to our site as "happy campers".
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Just behind our campsite the road goes up a blind hill. It could be quite dangerous if people were to go over either side too fast. There are no warning signs or anything like that posted anywhere. So we were pleased to note that most people were honking on their horn before going over it to warn people on the other side that they were coming. It's nice to know that people are still cautious drivers, even in a park.
back at the camp we played some board games for awhile until supper time. We had chicken tornadoes and instant mashed potatoes for supper. Then we headed down to our private little beach to see if we could see the sunset.
The colours were not overly bright. They were subdued pastel colours mixed with greys. But it was still pretty.
There was one cloud that looked kind of like the shape of a dove. I watched it turn from grey to pink as the sun sank over the tree line.
After the sun went down we went back to camp and made a fire. We used our new fire starters with the kerosene in them and they worked very well.The flames just rocketed out and we had a nice fire in no time flat. We cooked banana boats over the fire and sat around talking until 12:30 a.m.. Just before bed we could hear a raccoon in the bushes but we never saw it.
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