Wandering Whites RV

Craigleith (Gaelic for Rocky Harbour) Provincial Park is just west on the town of Collingwood.  Long and narrow; the camping portion is small bordered by Highway 26 and the shore of Georgian Bay.  The shore is multi-leveled mix of broken and solid surfaced limestone shale.  The park had placed several picnic tables on the raised, level shale beach making for a great place to sit and eat.  Being about one hour from Orillia, Barrie, and Owen Sound makes it an ideal base camp to explore the Georgian highland areas.  The shale was once mined and heated to extract the oil from it.  The 1859 venture was short lived due to its cost and the discovery of accessible oil in Oil Springs and Petrolia, Ontario, the birthplace of oil production in North America.

Across the road from Craigleith is the larger portion of the park that can be hiked.  There is a rail trail, www.georgiantrail.ca, that goes through the park following the south shore of Georgian Bay.  You can bike or walk the 33 km trail from Collingwood to Meaford.  We stayed 6 nights in Craigleith in order to check out all we wanted to see and do in the area including spending time with our Grandson.

We explored from Owen Sound to Wasaga Beach, the west side of the Bay as our next camp is across the Bay in Awenda Provincial Park.  We spent time with two of our children and only grandson as well as toured and hiked the area towns and trails.  West of the park is the town of Meaford, where we walked along the waterfront trail, chatted with local

fishermen hoping to land rainbow trout, checked out some of the stores, and came across an art fair under the Waterfront Pavilion where Jennifer bought Mother’s Day gifts for herself and our daughter, the new mom.

The town of Owen Sound was next as was a walk along its waterfront.  There is a long shallow park up on a hill on the east side of the harbour called Bayside Park that overlooks the old part of town and the foot of the Bay.  That the stretch of park is still a park speaks well for the town’s planner as it is a prime location for a developer to make millions on mansions with a view.  Instead, they have preserved it so all can enjoy it.  We ate our lunch at the waterfront by the Marine and Rail museum.  There is, mounted on the roof of the museum, a converted steam whistle/horn that was once used to signal the start and end of the work day as well as the lunch hour.  An earlier reading of the sign that described its history would have saved us from jumping out of our socks when it sounded noon.  That thing is loud.

One thing we have noticed about the town waterfronts we have walked is that the nicest are the ones have not allowed development on the lake side of the road.  The broken patchwork of public, residential, and commercial spaces that make up Toronto’s waterfront is a poorly planned comparison to these vistas. If you have ever seen Toronto’s waterfront, imagine Queen’s Quay with no building on its south side.

From here we drove about 15 minutes south into the Township of Georgian Bluffs to one of four waterfalls that surround Owen Sound.  Inglis Falls is well worth a day trip in the Spring.  Well marked trails along the Sydenham River and escarpment compliment the day trip to the multiple viewing areas of the falls and raging torrent of water flowing down stream towards Harrison Park and out into Georgian Bay.  Parking, clean restrooms, and picnic areas make it a beautiful place to spend a morning or afternoon.  Our day of town hopping and time spent at Inglis Falls prevented us from having time to check out the other three; but there will be other days.