Snapshot #69: Ontario Visit

Posted by: Allison Helps Cats on: August 7, 2015

• In: Teasers
• 10 Comments

Saturday Snapshot invites bloggers to share photos. Following my tradition of sharing photos from our annual family vacation, I shared photos in July from Newfoundland. For this post, I’d like to focus on the last week of our trip.

Most of our time we spent in Ontario, with my Uncle John and Aunt Ruth, who have a house that he built on family land. They treated us to delicious home-cooked meals and restaurant meals. They took us on hikes and to other tourist attractions. By our last evening, we seemed to have worn them out.  We greatly appreciated their hospitality and look forward to visiting them again in the future.

For our first outing, we went to Algonquin Park. Established in 1893, it’s the oldest provincial park in Canada. Algonquin Park is also the only designated park in Ontario to allow industrial logging. On our visit, we explored the Logging Museum. Its 1.3 kilometer trail features a recreated logging camp, a steam-powered amphibious tug called an “alligator,” logging equipment, and interpretative panels about logging industry activities in the park. At the end of the trail, we also saw a chipmunk who came up to me begging for food!

For our second outing, we hiked a steep and windy path to Eagle’s Nest, which offers a panoramic view of the York River Valley. Despite the name, we didn’t see any eagles. 😦

Our third outing took us to the scenic and rocky Gut Trail. The trail is used for canoing, hiking, walking, and whitewater kayaking. It apparently offers something unique from the other trails in the area. It took us about half a morning to explore.

One highlight for me was the long drive to get to Gut Trail. There were very few signs and so, as the dirt road got bumpier and bumpier, we kept wondering if we were even going the right way. Another highlight was the steepness of the hiking trail. At times, we had to help each other climb up and down rocks. Aunt Ruth once even declared: Here I stay! Their dog, Molly, obviously the trail an exertion too, in that at one point she dunked herself in water to cool off. The final highlight was the waterfall at the end of the trail.

 

Tags: Allison's Book Bag, Ontario, reviews of books for young people