First few days of vacation.

Here we are, safely arrived at Lake St Peter Provincial Park. It was a very long drive on Tuesday, all of it through pouring rain, typical for the beginning of most of our camping trips. We took the long way, through back highways, to get here. If you ever get a chance to drive it, Hwy 118, from Bracebridge over to Bancroft, is beautiful. It is very twisty and turny, with lots of climbs and valleys. It goes through the area called the Kawartha Highlands. We didn't get a chance to stop and take any pictures, both because it was pouring down rain, and also because there were no safe laces to pull off with the trailer hitched to the car. 

We got all set up Tuesday evening, thankfully the rain stopped for that, since it was one of the most difficult set ups we've done. There's a bit of a slope to the front of the campsite, and we had an awful time trying to get the trailer unhitched from the car. With a lot of perseverance and some prayers for help, we finally got it. But I tell you, if I were an alcoholic beverages person, I would have indulged in a big one. By the time we were all set up, it was too dark, too wet and too mosquito infested to do any exploring. We left that for the morning.

Wednesday morning, we woke up to glorious sunshine and, 

after a couple of cups of coffee, we set out to explore the campground. It is a small and quiet one, with only 60 campsites, quite a few of which are right on the lake. The lake itself is quite populated, with all kinds of homes and cottages around the edge, which was quite a surprise. We're used to coming up to this area of the country and finding nothing but wilderness.The wireless reception is quite sporadic. I can sometimes get text messages out on my iPhone, but sometimes not even that. I'm currently sitting in the visitors' centre at Algonquin Park, which has WiFi access.

Wednesday afternoon, we did the trail that heads out from behind the campground office. This one took us to a look out area

 We could see for miles and miles. The picture really doesn't do it justice. It was quite a hard climb up to this area, but it was certainly worth it.

We'll be doing more hikes as the week progresses, and I hope to post on them as we do them. I might have to put more than one at a time in a post though, since we have to come to this centre in order to get the internet access.