Lake Superior Circle (Part 3)

8/28/15
Breakfast burritos with eggs, sausage, vegetables and hash browns to start the day. Chipmunks supervised breakfast. We walked to the visitor center for hike intelligence. We chose a coastal hike- dunes, woods, rock, blueberries (ate a lot!, Rocky too), beaches, driftwood- beautiful.

Beach dunes meeting the forest.

The trail went along the beach for a ways.

Lots of driftwood.

A crack in the bedrock.

The trail climbed through the woods.

Rock is never far below the soil.

View to the lake and the rugged shore.

Blueberries!

The blueberry walk.

Another view of the shore.

Birch tree and fungi.

The lush woods and rock.

Rocky on the trail.

Birchbark.

More driftwood.

Driftwood detail.

Rocky likes to lead the hikes.

Are you guys coming?

We had a late lunch back at camp and returned to the visitor center to charge electronics and send messages to the kids. I downloaded pics to the computer and had a nice chat with the young park ranger. Back to camp at 4, we packed up in anticipation of leaving early in the morning. We made dinner of leftovers, had a nice fire and showers before bed. Tomorrow's agenda: Wawa and Lake Superior Provincial Park.

The view of Hattie Cove from the visitor center at Pukaskwa National Park.

The beach at sunset.

8/29/15
We had a rain storm overnight and woke to a very foggy morning. We had a cold breakfast and packed up. We drove to Wawa, gateway to the most remote section of the north shore. We visited Young's General Store, a tourist trap in the guise of an old fashioned general store. We enjoyed browsing the vast collection of all things tourist (including some very funny t-shirts) and bought some fudge. We ate lunch with the locals at the Viking restaurant in town and drove to Lake Superior Provincial Park. This is the most wild part of the north shore of Lake Superior, a beautiful drive in the fog. We stopped at Old Woman Bay, Katherine Cove (of course), and Agawa Bay.

Katherine at Katherine Cove

Agawa Bay is the site of native pictographs on a lakeside cliff. The hike in to the site was challenging- rocky, steep and slippery in parts. Access to see the pictographs is from a sloping rock ledge at edge of Lake Superior. The lake level was higher than recent times. Signs warned sternly of the danger of getting washed into the lake by a rogue wave. Lots of people were there. People were taking their shoes off to go barefoot for better traction on the rock. After waiting my turn, I did the same. Although these paintings are not ancient- probably made within the past few hundred years, they were interesting to see and learn about.

Warning!

Rocky shore at Agawa Bay.

Rock cliff.

Stuck rock.

Rock steps through a crack in the bedrock.

Trail to the pictographs.

The rock ledge leading to the pictographs.

A sign interpreted the pictographs and showed more that were not visible from the ledge due to the high water level.

After seeing the pictographs we drove to Agawa Bay campground. We got a nice site overlooking the lake. Kathy did laundry while I made dinner. The Ontario Provincial Parks were the nicest parks we have camped in. Clean facilities, hot showers for no additional fee and useful amenities like laundry machines. Kathy had a shower after our dinner of chicken and vegetable teriyaki noodles. We had cell service, a rare event so far and got a text from the kids (a photo of them together) and sent them one. We watched a nice sunset and walked around the park to exercise Rocky.

Camp at Agawa Bay Provincial Park.

Setting sun over the lake- view from camp.

Nice campsite.

Kathy called her friend who has a cabin not far from Sault Ste. Marie, Ontario and we made plans to stop there for a visit the next day.