Our second day of camping and already we were sleeping in. Breakfast dragged on as kids and grown-ups alike rose late and wandered out of tents in pyjamas. Some outhouse trips were arranged, first one has to go then another decides that they’d better run and catch up. As trivial as it sounds, it’s a good idea to arrange some kind of protocol for the morning call if you’re camping with kids. In outdoor trips I took before, with a camper van or trailer, there was generally a building with shared community washrooms within visible distance of the camp site. Wasaga Dunes (where we stayed) definitely has adequate clean facilities, but they’re a couple minutes walk from the wilderness tenting site we stayed in.

I guess there’s a trade-off that’s inherent in choosing a spot like we did. The great thing about the site was that it’s less crowded and has much more of a feel that you’re in the woods. I’ve got plenty of pictures that attest to the real, natural outdoors that surrounded us, so it was a success in that respect. (There’s lot’s more to read - click more to read on) Other parts of the campground have less trees and more people. More people, their pets, their cars and so on. It wouldn’t have felt like we were roughing it, even though we could still have set up our tents and cooked over a fire all the same. Bathrooms are the convenience where I draw the line though. I’ve never said I was a big camping enthusiast, just an amateur with a great fondness for being closer to nature. That said, I guess I make an exception for modern plumbing.

Anyways, back to my little morning memories. The clever thing that we did when we packed for the trip was to bring along a pair of FRS walkie-talkies. If you’re not familiar with them already, these are kind of like the walkie-talkies that were around years ago, but with a few important differences. First off, they’re cooler. Just like other technology has become better over the years, walkie-talkies have gotten smaller and can do more. FRS walkie-talkies are the size of the average cell phone, but they only talk directly to one another. Since they only communicate directly between the handsets, there’s no need for any cell towers and no dialing but you have to be close enough for the signal to get through to the person you’re talking to. The nice thing about using them out in the woods (or on the beach as we also did) is that there’s not much interference out there. No tall buildings, no TV stations, no satellite dishes or microwave ovens. That meant that we had great reception between the walkie talkies we brought along. In places like this FRS radios are said to reach up to a few kilometers. Another difference from cell phones is that there’s no air time charge (at all, ever), so you can give one to your kids without worrying. The kids loved having them around since it gave them more independence. We loved it because kids that we knew were responsible could now have the freedom they deserved to explore the campgrounds. Walkie-talkies are a fun way for them to keep in touch with us while they did their exploring.

On that bathroom trip, we entrusted the oldest with one of the FRS walkie-talkies and kept the other with the grown-ups and the little one left at the campsite. It worked out so well that we picked up another pair later on that day so mor people could be covered.

As you might have guessed, we got off to a pretty slow start. We decided to head out to Collingwood and eventually on to the Scenic Caves. The Scenic Caves are the big attraction at Scenic Caves Nature Adventures, but they used to be the only attraction I knew about there.

Enviropark and Trees

Now they’ve been expanding with some new exciting family and grown-up choices. Before we went out there, we thought there must be some nice places in Collingwood that we could stop and have a picnic lunch. I was driving, so we headed out past the town of Wasaga Beach and drove out north along County Road 26. The road turns in to Pretty River Parkway then Huron Street. I think it was just as we hit Huron that we just chose a street and turned right, toward the water. The sensible thing for a town to do near the water is build a park. Collingwood certainly didn’t let us down. What we found is a park called Harbourview Park on the water side of the road and the signs on the opposite side say “EnviroPark.” The environmentally friendly title, I discovered later, comes from a cleanup in Collingwood Harbour that was completed over ten years ago. The harbour had been an “Area of Concern” but was the first such area to make a rebound. Today I never would have guessed it had ever been anything but a fun playground with a gorgeous view of the lake.

There are plenty of large picnic tables available with lots of shade from the many old trees there. We settled in to lunch and afterward the kids ran off to play on the equipment in the large playground. Besides climbing equipment and the usual swings and teeter-totters, there are a few nets for badminton or maybe volleyball on the far side.

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