Saturday, September 11, 2010 (Sleeping Giant Provincial Park, Thunder Bay, ON)

We woke to rain this morning so we decided it was a good day to take a drive back to Thunder Bay and have a look around there. We left just after 9:30...which is pretty early for us these days! As we approached Thunder Bay, we took the Bayview route turnoff rather than taking the highway all the way into the city. We drove for quite a distance taking roads that would lead us closer to the water but unfortunately it is all an industrial area along the lakefront. That was a disappointment as we were hoping to find a touristy area with shops and restaurants on the water.
We stopped at Moxies in the Intercity Mall and had a nice lunch. By this time it wasn’t really raining anymore...just cloudy, gloomy and a little windy, so we decided to go to Kakabeka Falls Provincial Park... http://www.ontarioparks.com/english/kaka.html. This seemed like a really good idea at the time but no sooner were we on the highway heading west when we came across highway construction...and this wasn’t just a little repaving...this was a total rip up of the old highway! It was single lane traffic so after waiting for our lane to move, we carried on to find that it was total mud for several miles! You can well imagine what the truck looked like once we got through that mess! As we were driving through the town of Kakabeka Falls, we noticed a spray car wash...we will be visiting it once we have seen the park...and we will not be going back that way!

Once we arrived at the park, we noticed there is a fee to park—$5.25 for 2 hours...more if you plan on staying longer...and you have to have the exact change for the machine! Otherwise, you have to drive further to the Visitor’s Centre where you can pay with debit or charge card....sheesh! Luckily, there was a family just leaving and they had just over an hour left on their parking ticket so they gave it to us...thank you very much!

Known as Niagara of the North, Kakabeka Falls plunges 40 metres over sheer cliffs and some of the oldest fossils in the world. It is very cool! There are several viewing platforms on both sides of the river so we walked across the bridge taking plenty of pictures from all angles. There was also a fairly short trail that went further along the gorge so we figured it would be good to get a bit of exercise...and more photo ops as well...

After our walk, we stopped at the Visitor`s Centre and then continued back to the truck...and back to the car wash. After about 40 minutes and 9 loonies later, Steve had rinsed off all the mud. As we were heading further west down highway 17 to take the alternate route back into Thunder Bay (highway 102), we drove right into some major, major rain! Okay...well, that should help rinse off the undercarriage!

We had an hour and a half drive back to the campground...arriving home after 5:00 p.m. That was a good day...we could have done without the mud and washing part, but all in all, it was good seeing the area.

We tried sitting outside to enjoy our lakefront view, but it got a bit cool with the wind and we didn`t have any firewood to build a fire so inside we went. We had dinner and after cleaning up, we decided to take a walk. We went down to the beach area and then walked back and decided to walk down to the end of our loop to see how many fellow campers there were. We were really surprised to see how many had left...guess the rain sent them all away...

After our walk, we watched a bit of TV and then it was off to bed...