10 - Boondocking

We were excited to get on the road again because it meant that we would finally begin to head north and away from the populated areas. We’d checked the many campsite guides we’d obtained and found that a lot of the more northern sites would not open until between the 15th April and the 15th May. This is due to the remaining permafrost which means frozen water pipes. Unavailable campsites wouldn’t cause too much of a problem because ‘boondocking’, a term that means setting an RV for the night away from a campsite, is also a possibility. Walmarts are also known for letting RVs stay overnight because they know the boondockers will spend money at their store.

We left the campsite at Niagara Falls late in the morning and filled up with propane at the local garage which cost us a small fortune…a whole $8!

Then we headed back up towards Toronto planning to get into unfamiliar territory. The scenery became more and more stunning as we drove. The temperature had fallen to around 18 degrees which felt a lot cooler but the sun was still shining and the sky was dotted with what looked like fluffy cotton wool. There were plenty of moose warning signs and I was hoping to see at least one of the magnificent beasts but was left disappointed. With hindsight, I shouldn’t have been so impatient because the wildlife sightings were soon to occur thick and fast!

We drove about 400km which took us to Huntsville, not far from the boundary of Algonquin Provincial Park, where we hope to canoe in May. There, we found ourselves in a Walmart car park and, after enquiring whether they allowed RVs, we stayed overnight. We shopped for essentials and then endured an awesome windstorm in the evening which blew sand and grit, left from the days of snow, all over the car park in swirls. The gusts were so strong at points that we feared we would blow over! Someone we chatted to at the airport said that one can never rely on the weather in Canada and, judging be the speed at which it changed that night, he was right.
The morning was quiet and the car park empty because it was Easter Sunday. There had been, however, a truck which had also spent the night and had its engine running for the duration. So, we had the obligatory bacon sandwiches and left promptly in the direction of Algonquin.
Entering the park, we were pinching ourselves as visiting there had always seemed a distant dream. We have had a book on the park for about five years now. The one highway that runs through it is almost 70km long and traverses only the southern-most part. The park is the oldest in Ontario, covers 7725km² and the interior (away from the highway) is accessible only by foot or canoe. There are many moose, bears, wolves and a diverse range of birds in the park, all of which we hope to encounter there, the large mammals at a safe distance, of course!
We stopped at the information centre not far from within the boundary of the park and enquired about obtaining permits for our canoe trip in May. We can register our trip up to three days before we begin so we have plenty of time to decide on our route. It is necessary to confirm our trip with the Algonquin authorities in great detail, mentioning our exact route and which campsites we will use on which nights. This is mainly for safety but also to stop inconsiderate campers abusing the environment. When you read campsite, please don’t imagine lines of tents, a reception and an entertainment hall! The campsites in the interior will have level tent areas, a fire pit and a thunderbox (a box without a bottom which leads into a pit for…you’ve guessed it!) if we are lucky! Some have only level areas to erect a tent.
We picked up a few booklets on mammals, trees and trails in the park and returned to the van for lunch. It was such a nice area that we ended up staying for a couple of hours. I did a bit of studying – the ontological argument for the existence of God, Fred read some of the newly-acquired information, Tala had a snooze and we also spotted more unfamiliar birds. The White-breasted Nuthatch which is also common was a real treat.
Back on the road we planned to travel east through the park and loop around the top, back towards the west.
That night, after driving about 300km, we ended up boondocking again in a pharmacy’s car park in Petawawa, a small town home to a Canadian army camp and the Petawawa river. We forgot that everything is super-sized here and bought a portion of fish and chips each with a side of onion rings. I was surprised to see deep-fried Mars Bar on the menu which I thought only existed in Scotland. We struggled to reach the halfway point of our meal so Tala thought it was her birthday!
We managed to connect momentarily to McDonalds’ wireless network to read our emails then went to sleep.
The next day we had our sights on a campsite another 300kms away. We needed to dump our tanks, refill our water and get online to contact our families. We also thought that we would stay a few days because we had travelled so far and were getting tired. So we drove around the top of Algonquin and stopped at North Bay to buy some food. We ended up at a Walmart again and were bemused to discover that it didn’t sell any fresh produce, just processed and frozen food! That meant we had to visit another store to buy what we needed. We stayed for lunch in our little hideaway then moved on.
The journey was enjoyable apart from the bumpiness in parts. We passed through some beautiful isolated wooded areas but the few agricultural parts were also quite lovely, a lot wilder in appearance than what we are used to. This is partly due to the budding stage of trees which is about a month behind the part of Germany where we used to live. The grasses and shrubs are also yellow and dry looking as if they have endured a drought. Things will look vastly different in a month or so.
After another day of driving, we finally reached our destination, River Haven Resort, near Britt.