Giving Bon Echo a Second Chance
/Bon Echo Provincial Park
September 11 - 13, 2020
It’s about a three hour drive to Bon Echo Provincial Park from our house. Everyone raves about this park, but we went at the beginning of the 2019 season and the bugs were SO BAD that we didn’t really get to enjoy the park. We also booked pretty last minute back then and our site was fine, but certainly not spectacular. During that stay, I took a walk to scope out some of the sites we might like to stay on for a future visit and wouldn’t you know, one of those sites was available for this particular weekend in September! Yippee! While this wasn’t a “get up and book at 7 am” win, I did book it a little later in the day on April 11, exactly 5 months earlier.
We managed to pull out of the driveway at a reasonable time in the early afternoon. It was a beautiful, sunny day and the drive on Highway 7 was pretty and easy. It’s generally a busier 2 lane highway that we take often, but I still find it a scenic drive as far as highways close to home go. If we lived in the rockies, we might think otherwise!
pretty clouds!
Always a welcome sight!
Our trip before this was to Sudbury, where we stayed at the Walmart, so we stopped on our way into Bon Echo PP to dump our tanks. It must have been raining or really, really buggy last time we were here because I didn’t notice how pretty the dump station is! It’s surrounded by tall trees and with the sunshine and blue sky, it felt so picturesque.
We arrived at site 139 (Sawmill Bay Campsite) and quickly set up. Although our site isn’t called a pull through, we’re so small that we were able to treat it like one. Also, it’s an electric site! Unusual for us to get a site with electricity these days. I prefer not to be up at 7 am, in the middle of winter just to get an electric site, but this one was available when I was looking, so I snagged it! The electrical outlet was a bit far from where we wanted to set up Holly and we ended up just using our 15 amp extension cord. Unless we need the A/C, we’re good with 15 amps.
Pretty much as soon as we arrived at our campsite, we were set up and made our way down to The Narrows across from the mighty Mazinaw Rock wall. There was a great pathway that passed just below our site that took us there. The North Beach was also very close and easily accessible from our site! The Narrows is such a pretty place, with a few benches and very shallow water. Daisy had a great time chasing sticks and rocks in the water. The view from there is very pretty, especially as the sun is setting. It’s not west facing but the light, reflections and shadows are lovely. There are a few paths and roadways that went behind our site to the Visitor’s Centre and The Narrows and they all seem to intersect with the Cabin on the Hill. A number of times we found ourselves on this small piece of paradise. Even though it’s meant to be private for the people who are staying there, there aren’t any signs saying this until you’re practically in the yard (at least that’s how it seemed to us?). There were a number of times we were all of a sudden there and each time we seemed to come from a different place. The campground map doesn’t have these backroads/trails. marked on it, so it wasn’t very helpful. I don’t think we were the only ones confused by this!
We had a late dinner and settled in for a relaxing evening. We were probably the only ones that didn’t have a campfire over the weekend! We considered it but then didn’t unhitch right away and then we realized we didn’t need the car at all, so unhitching just to get a bushel of wood for one fire didn’t make any sense for us. We watched something that Chris downloaded for us and then headed off to bed.
I took Daisy out for her morning walk and took my camera with me. Despite not being much of a morning person, I really love the morning light and the fog, especially during the fall. We walked around by the beach and through our campground loop before returning to Holly for coffee and breakfast.
The last time we were at Bon Echo, we weren’t successful at finding the off leash dog trail, so after breakfast we decided to go looking for it. We found the dog beach easily again and Daisy had so much fun (as always) chasing sticks in the water. She could do this for hours if we let her! (although, too much water time isn’t great as she swallows water each time she goes in and at some point, it becomes too much water for her system).
The pet exercise trail was still elusive and we ended up having to ask two different people for directions! It’s location is not well marked (in our opinion) and it’s off the beaten path. There’s a parking lot so maybe if we had driven, it would have been much easier to find.
The off leash trail is about 1.4 Km long and isn’t really very difficult (it’s marked as easy on the trail info), but Daisy had so much fun running around off leash! I think we saw one other family on the trail and they were finishing up just as we were starting. Otherwise it was very quiet. The trail is pretty wooded and shady, with lots of green foliage.
Other than the pet exercise trail, we didn’t really hike at all, but instead enjoyed exploring the campground. There are a few hikes that I’d like to do someday…
We made our way back to the main beach area, where lots of people were out paddling in canoes, kayaks and stand up paddle boards. There’s a pretty quite little bay where people can rent or launch their boats, but once you get out near the main beach it was much windier! It looked like some people weren’t really counting on this and we heard a few people coming back saying how hard paddling was in the wind!
Main beach
main beach
Lagoon (also where you can rent canoes)
After nearly 3 hours of hiking, walking and chasing sticks, we arrived back at our campsite, where we spent some time relaxing and reading. It was a beautiful day – nice and warm and sunny. The downtime was perfect and I spent my time reading a book, while Chris watched a movie.
After supper, we went for another long walk along the beaches and pathways. The water views are so beautiful here and I can see why this is a favourite park for many to camp at.
The forecast for the next day was rain, so we packed up our outdoor things and went inside to watch a movie.
In the morning, we woke up to a grey and rainy day. We took our time getting up, having coffee and eating breakfast. We packed up and pulled away just past noon. It was still raining, so we opted out of dumping in the rain. Our next reservation was at Sandbanks two weeks later, so we figured we’d take a chance on nicer weather and dump when we arrived there!
“pull through” site 139 (it’s not technically a pull through site!)
Ottawa - Bon Echo Provincial Park - Ottawa
Towing: 387 km
Driving: 0 km (we didn't unhitch at all)
Battery: We had an electric site! Our 30 amp cord wasn’t long enough to get to the post, but we only needed 15 amps for the weekend, so we used our regular extension cord. We brought the right connector, so we were able to hook up our iPad to the TV and use it for a few shows on Netflix.
Fresh Water Tank: a bit remaining
Black Tank: pretty full
I didn’t take any photos (again!) of our tank usage.
