Murphy's Point Provincial Park

Murphy's Point Provincial Park.

On the first weekend of August we went camping at Murphy's Point Provincial Park. It's located about 4 hours east-north-east of Toronto not far from Perth.

On Friday night I slept over at Peter's. Emily and Ken and Ken's two friends came by on Saturday morning. Our first stop would be breakfast at Stockyards on St. Clair, west of Bathurst.

We got there right around the time they were supposed to open, but they were a bit short on staff so they asked us along with the other few customers that were there to wait a bit longer before letting us in.

Once inside the place is pretty nice looking. The kitchen is open so the guests facing it can watch as their food is being prepared.

We ordered a variety of items from their breakfast menu. Emily had their Stockyard Sandwich. It's a deep fried poached egg w/stockyards bacon or county sage sausage, and aged cheddar on a buttermilk biscuit - $8.

I had the Biscuits W/Sausage Gravy. It's a couple of house baked buttermilk biscuits, smothered with house sage sausage, black pepper pan gravy, soft scrambled eggs. - $11. I thought it was so-so. The sage sausage was ground up with sauce that seemed a bit thin/runny.

Peter had the Fried Chicken & Waffles. It's simply fried chicken over Belgian waffles w/chili maple molasses citrus glaze - 4-pieces $16. I thought the sauce was a little spicy. I never really understood the appeal of the chicken and waffle combination. Not my cup of tea.

As usual we made a stop at the Big Apple on our way east along the 401. It was the first time there for Ken's friends. It's become old hat for the rest of us.

We got to the park a bit before 3:00. After checking in we got organized, set our tents up, bought some firewood for later that evening then headed out for a hike.

The bugs weren't too bad. Maybe a 1 or 2 out of 5. I wore my bug jacket just in case though. In certain areas you needed it.

What we needed more was our raincoats though. The skies had been threatening rain ever since we got there.

The first trail, the Sylvan Trail, we tried was a short one at 2.5 kilometres. We completed it in under an hour.

We then tried to find the Point Trail. Like the Sylvan Trail it's a loop trail. But this one was longer at 5.5 kilometres.

During both our hikes we heard huge thunderclaps. It was like the storm was right upon us. We were lucky enough not to get rained on until part way through the Point Trail. It wasn't overly heavy so we trudged on.

By the time we finished the hike and returned to our campsite it had, thankfully, stopped. This afforded us the luxury of not having to cook in the rain.

Dinner was good. Peter had marinated lamb the night before. It was really tasty. Along with the lamb, we tossed some corn on the cob and sweet potatoes wrapped in tinfoil into the fire to cook. As well we boiled some water on our camp stoves for cup noodles.

We finished the meal off with S'mores (though I just toasted some marshmallows for myself) and then hit the sack.

Peter and I left at around 10:00 the next morning. I had to go to the boarding home in the afternoon. We made one stop at the Narrows Lock along the Rideau Canal to take some shots along the way.