You might think I'd be slowing down as fall sets in, but not on your life. Indeed, I feel the urge to go somewhere and do something with every sunny, half-way warm day that comes along now.
That definitely included yesterday, when the sun came slowly out through the course of the morning and the temperature rose to a pleasant but not hot 12°C (53°F).
Earlier in this series of posts, I paid a visit to the provincial park on Long Point, on the shore of Lake Erie -- you can read about that one here: Taking the Long View
In that article, I made a passing reference to other locations on the Lake Erie shore which share common environmental characteristics with Long Point. One of those is the Pointe aux Pins peninsula southwest of London, home to Rondeau Provincial Park. This is actually the second-oldest provincial park in Ontario, dating back to 1894 -- the year after the establishment of Algonquin Provincial Park. Rondeau is where I headed yesterday.
Like Long Point, Pointe aux Pins takes the form of a sandspit protecting a sizable wetland area and sheltering behind it an enclosed bay. It slopes out from the shore of the lake at a very similar angle to Long Point, but in the opposite direction. The resulting bay is roughly oval in shape, hence the name "Rondeau" from the French ronde eau ("round water").
This aerial photo from the internet gives you an impression. The camera is facing almost due south.
Unlike Long Point, Rondeau Provincial Park occupies almost all of the peninsula. The picture shows clearly that most of Rondeau Bay (on the top right) is very shallow and sandy. Much of the Bay is also contained within the park's jurisdiction. Even the sizable cottage community visible along the shoreline of the peninsula lies inside the park boundaries, with all the cottages built on leased land. Those cottages have been the source of much controversy, with the local government declaring them a heritage district while the province has more than once attempted to terminate the cottagers' leases. I won't venture an opinion on this issue, except to say that both sides undoubtedly have persuasive arguments for their respective points of view.
Again resembling Long Point, this peninsula is actually mostly wetland, even where it is forested, and it's the role of that wetland as a nesting and migrating area for birds that has made this park such an important natural resource.
So, time for a visit! If you want to get to Rondeau from either east or west, the easiest way is to follow the main freeway, Highway 401, and exit southbound at Kent Bridge Road. This road, Chatham-Kent Municipal Road 15, will take you straight to the park. I was intrigued to see on Google Maps that the trip should take only 2 minutes longer if I forsook Highway 401 and instead followed the parallel provincial Highway 4 and Elgin County Road 3 from London. Definitely a smart move -- a much less stressful drive, and much more varied roadside scenery. The trip down from London took about 70 minutes.
Also a smart move: waiting until this late in the fall to go. The campgrounds are closed for the winter, and at 10:15 on a weekday morning I had the entire park nearly to myself.
Upon reaching the shore of the lake, the road crosses what is in effect a causeway -- although a very short one -- flanked on both sides by wetlands. Here's the view on the east side, which shows the innermost end of Rondeau Bay, a tract of sandbanks and flooded grasslands.
A sharp right bend takes you onto the point proper, and after a short few hundred metres of driving you reach the gatehouse of the park. The day use fee can be paid through an unmanned parking meter by the entry driveway, or you can detour into the park office to buy your permit. I used the meter, and also picked up a map of the park from the help-yourself box next to the meter.
The roadways into and through the park are paved, but are narrow. If you meet a truck coming the other way, such as a delivery vehicle (as I did), a certain amount of shoulder-kissing has to take place on both sides. But the fall colours along these roadways are still truly lovely, even though the peak colours may have passed a week or two back.
I saw nothing all day quite as spectacular as this tree near the park entrance, apparently lagging a week or two behind others of the same species.
Across the road from the park's Visitors Centre, I parked at a small lot by the beach, two thirds of the way down the peninsula. The east side of Pointe aux Pins is a sandspit, but (unlike Long Point) it has not built up into any sizable sand dunes. This east-facing beach looked very quiet and placid on this fall morning when the wind was coming from the west.
You just have to look a little way further
back from the water to see that the last sizable gale from the east
drove the waves a good deal higher.
Flooding in Rondeau is fairly common, especially in fall storms and during spring high water periods. Across the point, on the west side, even the relatively narrow width of Rondeau Bay generates some choppy wave action.
Right by the beach you will see a boardwalk traversing the marram grass which anchors the low sand dunes in place. This is the beginning of the Tulip Tree Trail, which is the one I chose for my daily hike. Right at the outset, the boardwalk passed next to a couple of trees which hadn't yet finished putting on their annual colour show.
The boardwalk snakes around in a curve back towards the main road. At the road, you cross on a marked crosswalk and enter the Carolinian forest which covers most of the park. Soon after you cross the Harrison Trail, one of two trails running all the way to the tip of the peninsula. This sign shows that this trail is optimized for cyclists, although I'd presume that wide tires would be a must despite the lack of any hills.
The Tulip Tree Trail zigzags its way into the forest with frequent short boardwalk stretches to cross the many shallow pools in this wetland. The forest here is plainly a favourable environment for the growth of large vines entwining around the trees. Their twisting strands create fascinating, not to say bizarre, patterns of natural sculpture.
Even some of the trees get in on this game of twisting and curving.
Despite this being a relatively short trail (30 minutes or so for the entire loop), the variation in density of the forest growth is striking. Very little of this woodland is actual old growth, as it has been logged over in the past. All the same, some areas are very open and light while others become much denser and darker. Like any good park whose focus is on the natural environment, Rondeau leaves the trees -- and vines -- to lie where they fall, allowing the natural cycle of decay and fertilization to run its course.
It's no surprise (to me at least) that, in a wetland region like this, some of the most striking views are found on the numerous boardwalks -- seen by looking down at the reflections rather than up at the sky.
Particularly eye-catching at this more open spot was the brilliant green of the algae-covered rear portion of the pond.
Now, what about those tulip trees? I'm not enough of a botanist to pick them out at this time of year although I'm sure I walked past some of them. I'll just have to come back to Rondeau next spring during their flowering season to enjoy that spectacle.
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