Because I had hurt the knee on the last hike in July, it
took quite a while to be able to be out and about on the trails again. So when
we thought we were ready to go, we looked up on the internet to find the most
beautiful part of the Bruce Trail. I believe we found it.
We left the house at 4:00 am in
order to try to get to the Bruce Peninsula National Park by 7:30 am. We were
told that the parking lot filled up very quickly so you had to be there early
to get a spot, especially on a long weekend with beautiful weather. We were
among the first 10 – 20 cars in the parking lot. However, it did fill up very
quickly after that.
As
I was researching some of the dangers of hiking here, I found quite a few
warnings about what a difficult hike it was and what to beware of. We came
across these signs, which warn of snakes, cliff jumping, poison ivy and the
importance of proper footwear.
We started off in a northeast
direction, heading around Horse Lake. It was a photographer’s paradise this
early in the morning. (In all honesty, the whole hike was a photographer’s
paradise!)
As
we got further north, we were able to catch our first glance of Georgian Bay.
As we walked
along the beach, we were amazed to see how the trail was easy to follow even
with all these rocks.
The beauty of this coastline is
one that would rival some of the world’s greatest! It is rugged and clear and
stunning!
On one of the information signs it
said that some of the trees here are over 1000 years old, making this the
oldest forest on this side of the Rockies.
As
we walked the coastline, we were walking on trails where we could see the
gorgeous clear water below us and the awe-inspiring cliffs above us.
And
everywhere you looked there was absolute beauty.
As
we hiked a bit further along, we came to “The Grotto”. In all honesty, until I
looked all of this up to come here, I had no idea what “The Grotto” was.
However, since coming here, we have spoken to so many people who have come here
to swim and hike.
“The
Grotto” is, according to the Parks Canada website, “a scenic cave containing a pool of blue water, located on the
Georgian Bay shoreline in Bruce Peninsula National Park, near Tobermory,
Ontario.” According to www.atlasobscura.com, “The
interior of the grotto itself is an open cave filled with amazingly blue
turquoise waters. The waters are made even more stunning and vibrant thanks to
the light that emanates from an underwater tunnel in the grotto.” (I also found, while looking at this website, that the
parking is really a thing and they have now come out with parking passes you
can buy in advance…)
From the Grotto, we travelled to Overhanging Point. In all
honesty, we thought we had found Overhanging Point several times before we
actually got to it 😊.
To get to Overhanging Point, we had to go over Boulder Beach.
Again, this was something brand new for us. We had never seen a beach made of
boulders. According to www.geocaching.com, they are formed by “the
shape of the shore line and the seasonal lake ice activity. Shoreline has
bottle neck shape with two strong limestone sides. When the ice starts breaking
in Georgian bay, strong wind pushes all the ice into the bottleneck. It's
called ice shove or ice push. It's the movement,
offshore or shoreward, of rock fragments over the bedrock surface by ice. Rock
fragments are either scattered on the platform or concentrated in shallow
depressions and along small scarps. They may also form large block ridges in
the high storm events.”
And finally, Overhanging Point….
As we followed the coastline, we found this beautiful cove
with what looked like a very relaxing time for whoever owned the boat.
And another boulder filled beach:
From here we turned back inland towards Loon Lake. It was
very swampish and not nearly as picturesque as Horse Lake.
All along the way, especially from Boulder Beach to Coony’s
Dump, the trail was made of rock that was pitted and rounded. Our feet became
so sore that after we made it to the other side of Coony’s Dump, we had to turn
around. We ate our lunch in this beautiful, breathtaking spot.
As we were eating on these rocks, we found this very curious
formation:
After our meal, we trekked back to Marr Lake and took that
trail back to the car. We were so very sore and so very tired…. (no pictures because the camera really started to hurt from hanging around my neck.)
In retrospect, I must agree with the websites we looked at,
so far, this is the most beautiful stretch of the Bruce Trail.
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