Nottawasaga Bluffs Conservation Area has been on my microadventures list for quite some time. But with one and a half hour drive, there never seemed to be enough time to go. Last Saturday, inspired by beautiful weather and lured by the promise of fall foliage, we finally made the trip.
The view from Nottawasaga Bluffs is spectacular in its fall attire
Those who have been following this blog are aware of my frustrations with the extremely un-wintery behaviour of this year’s winter, at least in my part of the world, and the extent to which we’d been going to find even a little bit of snow. So you can imagine my delight when we woke up to a major snowfall this past Sunday. We knew this winter spike might no last long so we dropped all our chores and headed outside. It was magical.
On Christmas night, we found ourselves zigzagging our way down the South Outlier Trail at Mono Cliffs Provincial Park. The last sunlight had already slid behind the cliff and the much-hyped rare Christmas moon hadn’t made its appearance yet so it was pretty dark, especially under the thick cover of a cedar forest. We did bring a couple of flashlights with us so we could at least see roots and rocks under our feet. My friend, who decided to join us on our adventure, wasn’t particularly excited about this development and proclaimed that it was about 20% too much adventure. I think that percentage shot right up when we heard some distant howling.
But let me backtrack a little.
You know those lists of “Ontario’s Natural Wonders” or “Places You Wouldn’t Believe Are in Ontario” that are often circulated on Facebook and Twitter? There is no shortage of them on social media so you’ve probably seen at least one. I occasionally click on those links to see which places we should visit in Ontario. Every time I scroll through those lists, I am amazed that while we have been to parks like Sleeping Giant, Kakabeka Falls and Ouimet Canyon that are two days away from Toronto by car, we haven’t visited any of the places that would take less than an hour to get to.
Gone Camping 