Awenda

I thought it wouldn't be possible to top the beaches at Killbear, but Awenda beats them hands down. We spent about 6 hours at Beach 1 today. I is a beautiful crescent of sand fringed by large rocks, somewhat reminiscent of the Baths on Virgin Gorda. There actually are 4 beaches here, but we were content to laze away the day without taking a look at the others. I'm pretty sure they are every bit as nice since lots of other folks were walking to them.

I usually get a quizzical look when I tell people we come to Canada for the beaches, I've not found a beach anywhere in the states that is nearly as good as those along the shores of Georgian Bay, on the east shore of Vancouver Island or on Lake Okanagen. These are all beautiful settings with the north woods meeting the water and rocks. The temperatures are moderate, today was 28, with very low humidity. You can easily while away the day in sun or shade, your pick. What could be better.

Brief note on temperature. It's celsius up here; we find it easier to go with the flow and not be continually converting to fahrenheit. All you really need to know is that good weather starts around 20 and it gets warm at 30. Here's the conversion formula. You multiply the celsius temp by 1.8. I do this by doubling the number and then reducing it by 10%. So if the radio says its 20, you double that to 40 and subtract 4 (10% of 40) to have 36. Add 32 to the 36 and you know that 20 C = 68 F. So 20 is long sleeve shirt weather. 28 C = 82 F, a pretty good temperature for sitting at the beach.

Awenda is not a big park by Ontario Provincial Park standards, but by any Iowa measure it is huge. The sign as we entered the park told us to expect 6 km of winding roads before we got the the entrance station. That's about 4 miles and it was another mile from there on to our campground. There are 6 campgrounds including 1 that is pet free and 1 that is radio free. This is a big park, but then Ontario is a big province. It's so big the AAA map just cuts off some part of the northern most piece. The map just ends up without any indication how much is not on the map. Its all rocks, trees and water; not a road anywhere.