On the twelfth day of our Provincial Park Adventure trip, we left Bon Echo and headed to Fitzroy Provincial Park. We stopped in Renfrew where we got gas for $1.22 / litre, bought some baked goods and took Chloe for a nice walk downtown. As we continue to Fitzroy we talked about how exciting it would be to finally have electricity after going 9 days without it! We didn’t have a lot of sun at either of the past sites and our 100-watt solar panel didn’t help very much to keep our battery charged. We really need a better system if we’re going to be doing too many trips without electricity.
The park was small with fairly open sites and a view of a hydro-electric dam across the Ottawa River. In the evening, after a quick setup and dinner, we took Chloe down to the boat launch and came across five monarch caterpillars and piles of clamshells.
An interesting thing about camping in a lot of provincial parks is that many still allow campfires even if the area is under a fire ban. We saw the signs in the area that said that there was a fire ban but when we arrived at the park we were told we could have a small, attended fire but not between the hours of 9 am to 6 pm. So, I had a small fire in the evening, played my ukelele, had a snack and a cooler.
The next morning I was up early to drive into Kanata Nissan to have the hinges on our gate window replaced. One of them snapped while we were at Bon Echo and we had to tie it down until we could get an appointment. It worked out pretty good though because we called ahead and they had the parts and an appointment all set up for up the day after we arrived to Fitzroy Provincial Park.
The truck was fixed and I stopped for supplies before heading back to the campground for lunch. Since Fitzroy only had one trail open, we made our way to Morris Island Conservation Area, which wasn’t too far away. It cost $3 for parking and then we decided to take the Voyageur Trail and check out all of the shoreline lookouts. It appeared as if this was a popular place for people to go canoeing, both on the Ottawa River and the inland areas. It was a very nice trail with well-maintained, flat paths. There was a trail map at the beginning of the trail, or you could download the electronic version.
We really enjoyed our hike around Morris Island and would have come back again if we were staying in the area longer. There were picnic tables, washrooms and about 5 kilometres of trails to explore and the river was so calm it would have been nice to get out on a canoe if it wasn’t such a hot day.
Our last stop was at Arnprior downtown, which was very quaint and picturesque. Again, if it wasn’t so hot we might have taken the Heritage Walk to see some of the historical buildings in the downtown area. Instead, we walked down the street, on the shaded side, and then drove down to the Robert Simpson Park and beach area.
The Robert Simpson Park had it all. There was a beach with lifeguards, splash pad, washrooms, shade and even a snack shack! The other really cool thing at the park was this beautifully built gazebo that reminded me of the old-time ones were there would be town dances or live music playing. Wouldn’t that be something?
Later in the day we hike the Terraces Trail at Fitzroy, but that’s another post, and another video!
Watch the video below!
