2025-08-04 – Pancake Bay Provincial Park, ON
Wawa had one last small beach Sandy wanted to see, Dr Rosie’s Beach, before leaving. We saw it!
The drive to Pancake Bay Provincial Park was mountainous and had quite a few views that should have been breathtaking. Sadly, the smoke clouding the horizon diminished the effect.
The park is really skinny as it is sandwiched between a very long, sandy lakefront and the Trans-Canada Highway. Our site was on a row that backed up to the highway with only a narrow strip of trees separating us. So there was considerable traffic noise all day long. Fortunately, there was almost no traffic overnight so the sleeping was fine.
One of the short area hikes that was promoted was one in the vicinity of Crescent Lake. It described a one and a half mile loop that included some boardwalks and even a section that floated on the water! Well, we don’t know what the copywriters were smoking but they were smoking something!
We parked in the roadside lot and began walking. We walked about a mile back an old logging road when we finally got to a sign that indicated we’d finally arrived at the trailhead. Not what we expected! Well, OK, we started out on the loop trail only to finally figure out it wasn’t going to loop, it didn’t have a boardwalk section, never mind a floating section. The trail had us walking between Mudhole Lake and Crescent Lake when it crossed a short canoe portage trail. That was it for us. We made our way back to the car and returned to camp. Kind Of a bummer!
Ready for some lunch, Sandy whipped up some egg and olive spread, and, yes, we carry a tiny food processor to chop the ingredients.
Did I say something about eating? Well, someone was having a feast but it was the mosquitoes! They were bad all day and we’d dosed liberally with DEET containing spray. The spray was effective at preventing bites but it didn’t deter them from buzzing around your face.
The skeeters seemed to really swarm when Bill started frying a couple of burgers outside. It seems not only are they attracted to CO2, sweat and body heat but also some chemicals given off by cooking. No more burgers in mosquito country! In spite of the mosquitoes, the burgers were good as were the brussel sprouts and sliced tomatoes we had with them.
2025-08-05 – Pancake Bay Provincial Park, ON
We spent a lazy morning reading, writing and proofreading blog entries.
Then, as Bill posted episodes to the website, Sandy went to walk the beach. She eventually came back to the camper all excited. The water here at Pancake Beach was actually relatively warm as in 66°F! It turns out it was the warmest the water had been there on that date in ten years. So, we changed into swim suits and dipped. Sandy to her neck, Bill, the chicken, to his waist. It was our one and only dip into Lake Superior!
Almost next door to Pancake Beach is a public beach at Batchawana Bay. We took a look and were dutifully impressed. This was another beautiful, sandy beach well over a mile long. The really cool part was that the beach drive was shaded and only about twenty yards from the water. So, you simply picked your spot to park along the drive and walked through the shade of the trees to the beach. It was clearly popular but it wasn’t crowded and there was plenty of room to set up your chairs, blankets and coolers in either sun or shade as you preferred. There was even a brand new shower facility near the entrance to the park.
Back at the campground we steamed some shrimp and prepared a salad to eat inside in deference to the mosquito population.
