Almost an Island

 Our next camping adventure has taken us to Presqu'ile Provincial Park. For those of you who do not understand French, Presqu'ile is literally translated to: almost an island.Because there is land on three sides of Presqu'ile it is more of a peninsula, surrounded by the town of Brighton, Ontario on one side and Lake Ontario on the other, it ends in a point which is called Lighthouse Lane as there lies the oldest operating lighthouse in Ontario. 

To say this park is beautiful is an understatement. When you look out onto Lake Ontario, with the vast expanse of water, it feels like you have been dropped into Paradise. Bike paths and walking paths line the water from the lighthouse to Owen Point, the home of many species of shorebirds, swans, gulls, commerants and geese which you can hear crying and calling from a far distance, probably a distance of 20 km, end to end. 

Although we do not come here often, I always try to make it up here for Labour Day weekend, which is entitled Monarchs and Migrants. Every Labour thousands of butterflies gather at Lighthouse Point in order to catch the winds that will aid them in their journey to Mexico for the winter. On Saturday and Sunday, campers have a chance to tag a monarch and personally send it off on its journey. The sight of  hundreds of monarch butterflies flying around you is an almost spiritual thing. I am always filled with such joy to see them, flying around. They also set up nets to capture and band the migrating songbirds to track their journies to the south. If you are lucky, they will let you hold the little birds as they tag them and release them back to the wild. So awesome.

We arrived here Wednesday and have already seen many monarchs flying around, feeding on flowers for the nectar to give them energy to fly south. Most go to a place in Mexico where they will overwinter and return to the north where they mate and die, producing the next generation of Monarchs. Natures circle of life. There are some songbirds left, but are hard to spot. In general we do not see much wildlife here, but last night, around eleven o'clock we had a skunk come into our site and go into the fire pit, where the previous tenants had left unburnt food. Luckily Finnegan, my dog did not see it or smell it, he was inside asleep.It stayed away from us, and we stayed away from it, when he was finished he left and went into the bush.

Today dawned clear and I was able to have a long bike ride along the water to Owen Point and beyond to the Park store. I have already been on two walks and will be doing many more before the day ends. I have waded in the water, and hopefully have some swims, the water is cool but not unswimmable.

Stay tuned for all my adventures here!!