My Uncooperative Tent In Pinery

I drove an hour in the rain to get to Pinery Provincial Park.  I had heard good things about this park and I was excited and curious to see if it would live up to the hype. 

I was excited for this part of the trip not only because I had been wanting to see this park for a number of years, but also because my father's cousin, Bende, lives only ten minutes away.  I hadn't seen her and Allan in over 14 years and I was looking forward to visiting and catching up on all the missed years.

Pinery is one of the larger parks so it is a busy place. It's wasn't even the weekend yet so I was imagining it getting even busier later on. There was too much traffic behind me to stop and get a picture of the park sign. I would have to go back and get one later. 

I pulled up to the gate to register at about 2 pm. I am used to getting out of the car and going into an office and having a friendly chat with the staff as I register. But here, you stay in your car and the guy I was speaking to was rather impersonal. Not a bad experience or anything, just not warm and welcoming. He gave me a map but did not give me any directions. There was a line up of cars behind me and no real good place to park to study it. So I just drove, not knowing where I was going. 

To the right of the gate house was a mini gate house but there was no one manning the station. The line up behind me would have been shorter if someone was there too.. 

I decided to just drive until I came to the first place where I could stop and look at the map. That first place was the entrance to the Children's Centre. 

I parked my car in the large parking lot and took a look at the map. I decided that I may as well walk back to the gatehouse and the park sign so that I could get my picture of it. It may be too difficult to get the photo later because my site was quite a distance away from where I was at this point. It was a bit of a walk but I got my photo and got back. . 

​Trying to find my site was a bit tricky because I couldn't read the map and drive at the same time. And there was always traffic behind me. The pressure was on. 

I noticed signs that talked of having to make online reservations just for Day Use now.  No more dropping in to the park on a whim on a hot summer day. I think that is a shame. 

I am used to seeing forest fire meter signs in the park, but I was pleased to see that Pinery has one for wildlife on roadways. The sign warned that the risk level was extreme right now.  

Which is understandable when all the squirrels and chipmunks are out and about looking for food to store for the winter at this time of year.

​The first time driving through here, everything was confusing and I wasn't always sure where I was.  There is a round-about in the middle of the park so I learned to use this as a landmark for future navigation which made things easier the more I learned my way around the park. Eventually, I found it easy to make my way around the park. 

I made one wrong turn but I finally got to my site. Site 208 in the Dune campground. 

My site was a corner site at the intersection of 2 roads. I was worried that this meant I would have to put up with a lot of foot traffic. However, most of the time it was actually pretty quiet here and I was pretty happy with the site. I am sure this is due to the the time of year as well as it being the middle of the week and not a weekend. 

It was still raining and I could see on the ground the places where the pine needles had floated away into little piles. So, I was able to judge where it would be best to set up the tents in order to avoid the floor of my tent getting too wet. 

The dining tent went up pretty easy. Especially since I remembered to fix the broken pole with the duct tape that I had bought at Point Farms. It didn't look pretty but it held. 

The dining tent might have gone up pretty easy, but I wish I could have said the same for the orange sleeping tent.  That was another story entirely. My old faithful orange tent was nothing but trouble. The poles were slippery in the rain and I was already soaked through and getting cold. The poles were contorting and bending in ways that should not be physically possible to do and I just could not get that tent to go up for me. This was the first time, in all the years I had owned it, that  this tent had ever given me any grief. 

After about an hour of fighting with the orange tent and getting nowhere with it, I got fed up and threw it aside in disgust. I started cursing at the orange tent and talking to it as though it were a human. Saying things like "What is wrong with you? Why are you betraying me like this?". 

I brought out my larger red tent that I still had in the car. I had originally planned to have a friend with me on this trip and thought that the bigger red tent would give us some more space. But she was not able to join me and I hadn't taken the red one out of the car. So, I was thankful for that. 

The red tent was a wee bit troublesome too, but at least I managed to get it set up. 

The nice thing about site 208 is that it is right across from the comfort station and not too far away from the water pump and the garbage bins. Everything was a hop skip and a jump away.

The comfort station was very clean and I was impressed by this because it was late in the day on a rainy, muddy day. Despite the mud and dirt outside,  everything inside was immaculately clean. 

Outside the comfort station was a place to put used cigarette butts.

And for those who like to bike around the park, there is a bike rack right outside the comfort station too. 

I decided that the next thing on my list of things to do was to go and check out the park store.  I got into my car and drove down to see it because it was not within walking distance of my site.  The park store is a nice looking building with a restaurant inside. However, the restaurant was closed for the season. There were plenty of picnic tables outside to eat any treats that you might buy at the store though. 

There is also a picnic shelter here. And across the yard I could see an ice cream sign in the distance. 

When I got inside the store I discovered that there was only 10 minutes until it closed (at 4 pm) so I felt a little bit rushed as I tried to browse all the souvenirs and food items that they had.  

I quickly bought the Pinery Park sticker for my parks passport book and left the shop so that the staff could close up. 

As I sat in the parking lot of the park store, the rain drumming softly on my car roof, I picked up my phone to call Bende. The familiar warmth in her voice as we chatted made me feel right at home, and before long, we decided  that it would be nice to get together for dinner. 

I drove over to their house where Bende made a home cooked meal for us.  We shared stories and laughter, flipping through old photographs that sparked cherished memories. Time slipped away unnoticed until the clock reminded us how late it had grown. With the rain intensifying, I opted to stay the night rather than brave the dark, damp road back to my campsite. The thought of a warm bed was irresistible, and I welcomed the chance to recharge. Besides, after a day of wrestling and fighting with stubborn tents, I think my tents and I needed some time apart.  

Tomorrow the weather is supposed to be much nicer and I am looking forward to exploring all the dunes and the trails that Pinery has to offer.