S06E08 Presqu’ile Provincial Park Review

We camped at Presqu’ile from June 22nd to the 25th, 2024. It’s a big park with a lot of sites as well some premium waterfront sights on a bluff. It has a HUGE beach along with a ton of hiking trails and some cycling trails. You can spend time at the Nature Centre, Interpretive Centre and the lighthouse. Please join us as we check out this park.

00:00 Intro
01:52 The Big Apple
04:49 Arriving at Presqu’ile – fill/dump station
07:04 Campsites
14:00 Park- store
14:44 Calf Pasture day use area, Camp Office Viewing Platform, fishing info
15:47 Marsh Boardwalk Trail
16:47 Cheryl’s Loo Review
18:40 Cycling to day use area and Nature Centre
19:25 Interpretive Centre and lighthouse
21:57 The beach
22:31 Pet exercise areas
23:35 Cell service
26:47 Owen Point Trail
28:15 Coles Notes
35:46 Park rating
36:20 Closing comment – what’s next

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Welcome to Presqu’ile Provincial Park on the shores of Lake Ontario. This park has it all. Hiking trails, cycling trails, nature center, interpretive center. This amazing lighthouse behind us, right here. It’s got a fabulous beach with loads of sand. This place is awesome. Join us as we explore it. Presqu’ile Provincial Park is approximately two hours west of Toronto, near Brighton, along the north shore of Lake Ontario. It is designated as a Natural Environment Park. Well. After waking up to a wet morning raining off and on, we are leaving Ferris and heading off to Presqu’ile Provincial Park. But since we are a little bit early, we are going to hit the Big Apple, which we’ve driven by many times in the past but have never stopped. So we decided we’re going to do that today. This is just a slight detour, hardly anything at all and we’ll still get to Presqu’ile for check in time. Have our dog run. And the petting zoo. Farmers market and the food trucks. And train rides. And there’s mini golf at the Putting Zoo. And of course, ping pong. We are going to do a mini Coles Notes for the Big Apple now. Okay, that was surprising. That was a lot more than what I thought was going to be there. We’ve driven by and seen that Big Apple all the time, but we’ve never stopped in there. Glad we did. Finally. That would be ideal if we had little kids. Sorry, kids. Yeah, we our kids are a little too big for that now, but they have the free mini golf, the free little train, the petting zoo, the petting zoo. Yeah, the dog run. Jax got to run free. The prices weren’t that ridiculous or anything. And they had so much good food and apple cider. Yeah, the wine and cidery and then they had all the candy and all the maple everything. And then what was impressive is the monstrous apple pie baking factory in there. I think they just had all these guys making hundreds and hundreds of pies. Yeah, it was very cool. Yeah. If you’re heading out this way on the 401, you’ll see the Big Apple. It’s just before you get to Presqu’ile Provincial Park. You should check it out. Yeah. Lots of food there. Lots of food. Found some firewood at the side of the road between the two railway tracks. $10 a bundle. Oh, right in there. Hello. Day use or camping? Camping. Are you the primary or secondary? Primary. Perfect, we’re going to send you on to the camp office. Straight for 3 km. Stay right. Okay, thank you. Have a good day guys. You go through the main gate, get into the park, and before you get to the campground entrance on the left hand side, there’s the trailer dump and fill station. You turn in there. It is a semicircle. There are two trailer dump spots and then two trailer fill spots. Everything is threaded. Maybe it’s the angle we came in at this, but we can’t let go of the hose, otherwise it falls out of the hole. So Cheryl’s holding on to it. Also, she’s giving a little downward pressure, so that it doesn’t leak. Because if it goes up, it just drains out like that. And good thing we have we recaulked here. You want to make sure that seal is really good in the caulking. Be careful not to snuggle up too close to this post like other people have. Maybe make a bit of a wide a wide left turn. Oh, and this is a papered system, right? It is a papered system still. Yes. Oh, it has a nice newspaper. Look at the booklet we got! Holy, this is huge. Ferris had a good one that we just came from and yeah I’ll have some reading ahead. We would be in. We would be in right there. Pines. It’s a small little loop. And where are we right now? We’re right here. We’re right here, so it’s pretty close. So we just have to loop around like a backwards J. We don’t go there. We go up here. Yeah, that’s what I said. Loop around to do a backwards J. Okay. Never mind. Let’s do it. And This is us, site number 108 in Pines Campground. It is right next to a comfort station. Just flush toilets. No showers, no laundry facilities. We pulled in. It was raining this morning. It hasn’t been raining for a couple of hours. I can see it’s very muddy at the entrance. And just from the look at the site, it looks like it bows in in the center of the site. I have a feeling when the rain comes and it’s supposed to rain in a couple of hours. We are going to be in a swimming pool. Not a lot of privacy here. You can see everybody all around you. But it is nice tree covering. And we’re pretty level. Let’s check out the park. Presqu’ile has eight campgrounds with a total of 387 campsites, eight soft sided shelters, and one cottage. High Bluffs Campground has 81 electric sites, 60 non-electric sites, two Exploration tents, and one Minka tent. Sites 81 and 83 are barrier free. Pines Campground has 24 electric sites. Maple’s campground has 40 non-electric sites and two Exploration tents. Craigs campground is radio free and has 33 non-electric sites and one Exploration tent. Lakeside campground has 43 non-electric sites and one exploration tent. Hidden Valley Campground has 30 non-electric sites. Elmvale Campground has eight electric sites, 66 non-electric sites, of which six are walk in sites and one Exploration tent. Trails End campground has 46 electric sites and one non-electric site. There are three barrier free comfort stations with flush toilets and showers in the campgrounds. Maple’s campground also has laundry facilities. There are two comfort stations with just flush toilets at the parking lot for own point Trail, and at the parking lot of beach parking number two. There are ten group sites. There’s a dump/fill station, a park store, an amphitheater, a nature center, an interpretive center. There’s a beach with a designated kiteboarding area. There are seven hiking trails, all rated as easy for a total of 12km. Jobes Wood Trail is a one kilometer loop. Owen Point Trail is a 1.6km loop. Marsh Trail is a 1.2km loop. It is a boardwalk and is barrier free. Pioneer Trail is 3.8km loop. Newcastle Trail is 4.3km loop. Lighthouse footpath is 300 meter loop. There’s a dedicated walking and cycling lane beside the paved eight kilometer road loop that provides access to picnic grounds, the visitor centers and trails. An unpaved bicycle path connects campgrounds with a paved loop, beach and park store. This is the walk-in sites right here. There are seven Exploration tents that can hold maximum of six people and a Minka tent that can hold five people. In these Exploration tents, there is a double double bed with a single single on top. There’s wood shelves and a wooden table with chairs or bench seats. Ooutside comes with a barbecue. There’s two Muskoka chairs, campfire ring and a picnic table. These do not have any kind of heat source or air conditioning or fans. There are no lights as there’s no electricity. So you have to keep that in mind. There’s no plumbing for these either but there’s a washrooms close by. These are accessible as well. There’s also a cottage that sleeps six. It has seven rooms, three bedrooms, a bathroom, a living room/dining room, a kitchen and a sun room. There are ten group sites that can accommodate between 25 and 75 occupants. Each area is wide open in the sunlight. You have picnic tables and a firing. There is shared water taps between them, and there are two sets of vault toilets that are centrally located. And they are all non-electric. The comfort stations are approximately 15 to 20 minutes away, walking. You can get various supply of items at the park store from ice, wood, they have park merchandise, ice cream, personal items, few grocery items. And in the peak season, they will be getting in like butter, bread, eggs, that sort of thing. So come in the store and get your park needs. Sunday morning. We just had some crazy rain last night. It rained almost all last night and as expected, I figured this would be a pool for a campsite. And it is. It’s just wall to wall mud. And they’re calling for more rain today and tomorrow. This could be a very wet trip. And muddy. This is one of the spots on the other side of the peninsula for a Presqu’ile that you can put your canoes and kayaks in, it’s at the Calf Pasture picnic area. You can fish here for bass, pike, bowfin and more. It’s Cheryl’s Loo Review. Loo Review. Let’s all talk about loos. Don’t ask Ben. Don’t ask Jax. It’s Cheryl, Cheryl’s Loo Review. There’s approximately 27 or 29 outhouses in the park. They vary quite a lot in what they look like and what they have. It was kind of hard to judge what to give them as a rating, because they vary so much. There was two, maybe three that I’ve been to that stood out as not great. This being one of them is down at the lighthouse area. It just could use a lot of sprucing up and a bit be a bit cleaner. The one at the Calf Pasture day use area. That was another bad one. And another one that was in a building like this in the campground. Elmvale. Oh my gosh! The flies just came pouring out. I opened the door and it looked like a prison in there. It was not nice, but hopefully that’s just a one time thing and it gets resolved. But the others have been pretty good. They range anywhere from not having any amenities to them. They’re mostly pit toilets, which is a hole in the ground. Some have water, some have soap and water. Some just have sanitizer. Some have nothing at all. Some have light, some don’t. Some have a trash cans. Some don’t. But overall I think I’m going to give them a flower. But the ones that I specifically pointed out, I’m definitely going to give them a skunk. May and June. The nature center is open 10 to 4 on Saturdays only. Come July and August. It’s open daily 10 to 4. Visitor center, also known as the Interpretive Center, is near the lighthouse. It also hosts the Friends of Presqu’ile gift shop. There’s free Wi-Fi here. They post the password at the door. It’s open 10 to 4 daily from July and August. For spring and fall. It’s just open on the weekends. Let’s start with the name. Presqui’le, french for “almost an island”. It is the first major landform to stick out into the lake east of the Toronto islands, along an otherwise unbroken north shore. A massive 450 million year old sand and gravel standing in the way of the prevailing winds and currents on the lake. Wouldn’t it be funny if you went in. It’s way too slippery. Yeah. We’ll Jax is getting bit. Jax. Oh, no. Oh, my gosh, what did you do? Jax, leave him. Oh! You’re back? No. I’m okay. Beach #1 has a mat for accessibility to get down to the beach. There are no dog exercise areas in the park. Dogs are not allowed on the beaches, but the whole shoreline is rocky. And you can bring your furry friends down there for a little dip in the water. So this behind me is technically not a beach. It’s near the High Bluffs Campground. It’s a nice beach, though, and you can bring your pet here. Still have to be on leash, but you can come here with your pets. And just on the other side of me, going down this way, no dogs are allowed. Actually, nobody’s allowed down there. That is protected area because of the shorebirds that are nesting. So nobody can ever go down there Oh, Jesus, Cheryl! Get the bike. Get the bike out. Oh my God! How many more times can I fall off my bike? For cell service, Bell, Telus, Koodo and Virgin Mobile. It’s not that great. Not that reliable. There are times you try to watch YouTube or something. It does a lot of buffering. Sometimes just on a regular web search you’re not getting any, any connectivity at all. So it’s not that great. But sometimes your phone gets it better than mine does. But it could just be our phones. Yeah, But it’s great when you do get those pockets, but we don’t know how long they’re going to last. It could last 30 seconds. It could last 30 minutes. We don’t know. But it’s great because at the Interpretive Center down by the lighthouse, there’s free Wi-Fi, and they post the password on the door. So you can always go down there and get some work done, or do your calls or whatever you need to do. We did a Facetime with our daughter to wish her a happy birthday. By the way, Happy Birthday Allison! Happy birthday Al! And it worked perfectly fine there using the Wi-Fi. A viewer suggested that what we should do is ask people that have different services, such as Rogers or something like that, to say what the cell service is for them at this park. So if you’ve been to Presqu’ile and you have something other than Bell, Telus, Koodo and Virgin Mobile put in the comments below how the cell service was. And, go ahead. No, I was gonna say that it’s beneficial because everybody seems to need, cannot connectivity nowadays, whether it’s work or family or whatever reasons. So it’d be great if you could just post that in our other videos. Yes, that’s right in our other videos. So even our older videos, if you’ve got something other than Bell, Telus, Koodo and Virgin Mobile, just, go back to our old videos too. And I’m going to pin a comment to the top, of each video, even the old videos asking to comment on your cell service. And if you do that, that would be, very good. It would really help out the community that watches our videos. And then they would know about the cell service for their service provider. So we appreciate you doing that. Thanks for doing it. And that’s it for cell service. That’s it. So, whatcha doing? Roasting a marsh, rice crispy square. And you just eat it like that? Yes. But they get very soft and fall apart. So I gotta put on a plate real quick. Oh, wait. Needs to be on longer. Needs a basket, you know, that you cook fish in. Because it falls apart so quickly. Yeah, I think I better buy one. Oh, no. We don’t need to buy anything else. Yeah. We’re good. Here. Okay. There you go. We started out on the Owen Point Trail and Jax soon got swarmed by deer flies. We had to abandon the hike, so we decided to get some icecream at the store. The deer flies love him for some reason. They love the blonde coat. So we turned around. Cheryl and Jax went back to the campsite, and I’m doing the hike on my own. Oh, and by the way, that sign back there that says no dogs, that’s not for the Owen Point Trail. That’s a trail that goes off of it. So dogs are permitted on the Owen Point Trail. Well, it’s that time again for Coles Notes, and we are at Presqu’ile Provincial Park. Yes we are. And what do you think of the park? I love this park. I think you do too. Yeah, it’s a nice park. It’s a great park. It’s our second time here. We were here last in 2020, I believe. Season two, episode two I believe. Yeah, some things were shut down during Covid, so we didn’t get a good tour around the place, so we had to get back here and try it again. Yes, and here we are. Now, we’ve said many times we like to do activities from our parks and we like to learn about the parks. So we really like this place has a nature center. It has an intrepretive center An interpretive center. A lighthouse. Yeah, there’s hiking, there’s beach, paddling, cycling trails, lots of cycling. You can get done. Yes. So some of the pros, I think. there’s lots to do. If you have bikes, I would suggest bringing bikes for sure, because some people sometimes say, is it we can only bring one or the other, like paddling or bikes. You would want to bring bikes because cycling. Yeah, because the waters can be really iffy here on Lake Ontario. Could be like calm one minute and then angry the next. Yeah, yeah, but a bike you can take, I think it’s the Lighthouse Road or Lighthouse Trail road. Yes. Takes you. Take you all up and around the day use area to the Interpretive Center, to Calf Pasture day use area. And to Jobes Point Trail or something. But you can’t take your bikes on any of the trails either. Right. But on that road, there’s an actual dedicated lane for cycling too. And it’s only one way. It’s in the roads, that main road is in pretty good condition. Yeah, right. Nicely paved. But back to paddling. We wanted to go paddling here. We didn’t go paddling. We figured there’s two sides of this it’s all on Lake Ontario, but we’re basically on a peninsula here, and there’s two sides. So we saw the water is kind of rough on the campground side so that, oh, we’ll go over to the other side and it’ll be calm. we went over, they were ready to put in and it turned out it was rough over there too. So we really didn’t see a good point, good time to go paddleboarding. Now it’s Lake Ontario, these big lakes, lakes. So they change all the time. So there’s definitely going to be a time that you’re going to have it nice and smooth, and you’ll be able to kayak and paddle. But we just didn’t find that time. No. And probably in the marsh area it’ll be a lot calmer, especially with all the reeds there and everything. So it’ll be calmer there. But we’ve had some pretty wild weather since we’ve been here. Yeah, we had that major rainstorm like all of Ontario had on Saturday night, was it? Yeah. And then we had, the wind, just heavy winds too. Yeah. So it wasn’t ideal. So we’re just easing out of that, and it’s been beautiful. Yeah, but normally you can do that. Yes. So. Yes. Bring your bikes. There’s lots to explore. And we also like that there’s. Well, it’s one giant beach divided into two, beach one and beach two parking areas. And that beach is so big that you could probably have a regulation football field on that beach and play a game and still have people sitting along the side of the water. It’s a huge beach. There’s a lot of room. Now those are the designated beaches, but the whole campgrounds, all the campgrounds are along the shore of Lake Ontario, and there’s a rocky beach area all along that shore. Sometimes it’s great big boulders, but other times it’s tiny little pebbles and sand. So there’s beach area all along there. There’s no dedicated pet exercise area. So you can take your furry friend to the rocky beach and sit there and let them splash around in the water. Yeah, it has a beach area, a non-designated beach area that is better than many beaches of parks that we’ve gone to. So it’s pretty good. And another thing we liked was the lighthouse. That was a nice historical experience. And what was new this year that we learned. Oh they put a new top on the lighthouse. The previous time we were here there was no top. Right now there’s a top. So in the original lighthouse there is a top. But then there wasn’t one for many years. And they’ve put a new top on it now. And did you know that apparently it’s the second oldest operating lighthouse in Ontario. Sites that are waterfront in High Bluff, they’re amazing view. Love the sites there. But on the other hand, when the weather turns, The waterfront sights in High Bluffs are normally really nice. You get a great view of Lake Ontario. Most of them don’t really have, easy access to the water. It’s a bit of an embankment to get down. So it’s not like you’re going to be launching canoes or kayaks here, but you can generally kind of climb down and get to it. In windy weather like this, though, it’s scary. There’s no way you’re going to have your awning out and you got a batten everything down to make sure it doesn’t blow away. Sue and John, they had a site along the waterfront last time, and it was beautiful, but they didn’t have this kind of wind. Yeah. So you give and take. Yeah. And last night, the storm that rolled through it was probably pretty scary being here. We were very protected where we were. Yeah. Thank goodness. Yeah. Now, as far as the rest of the park, there are a lot of different, varied, campsites. There’s some that have a lawn that needs to be mowed. There’s some that’s pine needles. Yes, there’s some that are just a leaf bottom. And then there’s some like ours that are mud. Mud! Yes. Gotta love the mud. I love where our site is. We are in Pines. We’re right beside the flush comfort station, which is perfect, but it’s because we’re in the middle, in the center, we have the mud site, and because of all the trees, the sun cannot get in and dry it out very well. Yeah, it’s been a day and a half since it rained. And you’ve been slip slidding along. The surface of our campground is still, kind of a thin layer of slimy mud. And so I still slip on it. And every time Jax comes in, makes a mess inside. He’s bringing some mud in. Yeah, but we’re protected from the wind and the rain here. Yeah, but, yeah, this isn’t an ideal site. We’re 108. I wouldn’t pick this site again. Yes, but, yeah, there’s some very, very, very varied sites here. and, but one thing they kind of all have in common. No privacy. Yes. We’ve been through all the campgrounds. Yeah, they lack a bit of privacy. So but any other cons? Driving to the beach, I guess could be one because it’s off on the main highway road. You could take paths to the beach, but. Yeah, but if you have a wagon and all your gear and stuff, that’s probably not ideal. So you’ll have to drive to the beach. But what you see many people do in their campgrounds is they just head right down to the shoreline and use that as a beach. Yeah, that as well. Some of the side roads to the campgrounds are kind of rutty. Yeah. But the main paved roads are pretty good shape. But on that point too, after the big rain came the next morning we went for a bike ride and we were in High Bluffs Campground riding around. And you can see that the grader had already been in there. They’re trying to grade it to get rid of all the potholes and stuff. So kudos to, to the park staff for getting on that right away. Comfort stations were pretty clean. And what I like this is a very large park and they have like vault toilets everywhere. Like we didn’t even get to check out a fraction of them. No, there’s so many of them. But it’s nice because wherever you go and pretty much everywhere you go, they’ll be a potty. Yeah. Okay. are we at rating? I think so. Okay, I think so. Well, so I’m thinking between maybe eight, eight and a half. Yeah I would say an eight is if we rate something an eight, that’s a good park. We would definitely go back to it. Yeah. And then once you get higher than that, when you’re getting eight and a half, nine, nine and a half, then you’re getting into some really top notch parks. But I think this is a great park. Yes, So but eight is a good score I think so. And that’s what it is right there. It it is eight. Okay. And what park are we going to next. We are off to a Awenda. We’ve been there a few years ago. So it’s time for an upgraded review. I think Awenda was in season one. Was it maybe season two? The viewers know. Yeah. But yeah. So we’re going back to Awenda to do that. But, probably for next week, you’ll probably be seeing another gear review from us for a, auto cooler type thing. And then we’ll have the Awenda video out. That’s right. So with that, happy camping. Happy camping, we’ll see you in the next video. Bye. You you you. You you. Me.