So begins our adventure.
July 15th, the Langille Family embarked on an amazing 3-week journey to explore the vast reaches of Canada from Kitchener, Ontario to the Pacific Ocean on the coast of Vancouver Island, British Columbia.
With the help of generous friends via our fundraiser (donations still accepted and greatly appreciated), we set out to the tune of legendary Canadian band Steppenwolf’s “Born to Be Wild”.
Sans one (Connie who had the great misfortune and responsibility of a summer job, was only able to have one week off – she will be representing on the east coast of Canada in Prince Edward Island), Rob, Kathy, Ainsley and Hunter took off Friday night with the intentions of finding a motel or campsite for the evening nearest to Sudbury.
With our trusty trip mascot, “Smelvin the Emoji Poo” on the dashboard, we decided to circumvent the dastardly 401 expressway during rush hour. Taking random back roads as guided by smartphone GPS app “Waze”, it proved to be tedious and fruitless as we ended up on the 400 expressway south of Innisfil behind schedule about 45 minutes.
Stupid app.
To our chagrin, cottage traffic and construction waylaid us another hour.
Ugh. Ontario. And stupid app.
Once traffic started to clear north of Barrie, it was free sailing. That is until we were almost annihilated in a multi-car pile up as a Canadian goose ran (I said ran, yes) across the 400 in front of our group of cars causing drivers to swerve and slam on brakes.
Seriously, it was ridiculous. This is why God invented the dashcam, sure to be my next purchase for future adventures.
After a brief pee break in Port Severn, we made solid time but were going to come up short of our destination of Grundy Lake. We instead chose the popular Provincial Park of Killbear.
Sounds endearing, no?
To be fair, it seems like a very nice park right on the beach of Georgian Bay. Unfortunately, because of our timing we couldn’t take full advantage of said beach.
Arriving around 9:20, it took about 20 minutes to register because of clueless campers ahead of us and we were setting up in full darkness.
Fortunately, Kathy had the wherewithal to invest in a pop up tent and we were off to the races.
An attempt at a fire with wet kindling was smited by laziness and lack of wood, so we called it the evening.
And now I’m learning why investing in foam matting would probably have been a good idea.
Notes:
- The bear waiver was a little disconcerting.
- Invest in matting when ground camping.
- 12°C is pretty cold.
- Filled the tank in Kitchener for 97cents/litre ($63) and travelled about 325kms on one half tank. Pretty happy with that.
- The Northern Lights are disappointing when the sky is overcast. Boo mother nature.
- Hunter and Ainsley are the furthest north they ever have been.
- Saturday morning traffic may have been a better option. Meh. We killed a few hours from our Ontario drive.