Fall trip - North Bay area - 2014

It is not necessary to go too far away from home to view fall color, not if you are living in Canada. The color basically surrounds us, wherever we are, thanks to the abundance of natural gifts that can be seen everywhere, especially in the southern parts. We live in GTA. In fall it turns very colorful here. Yet, every year, we - a few family friends - venture out from GTA to experience some fall color in more natural settings. It is our opportunity to get away from routine life for a few days. This year it was North Bay, Sudbury area. ~400 kilometers from GTA.

This year the fall has been exceptionally warm. We started on a Saturday morning. It was cloudy but otherwise comfortably warm.

Patches of nice color on the way to North Bay. We avoided bigger freeways and opted out for smaller country roads and highways. It was totally worth it. The feeling was great. We felt being really close to the natural beauty around us - within arm's length.

Woods of evergreens. At a distance hills displaying wonderful fall color.

 

Motel Super 8 in North Bay. It turned out to be a very nice place to stay. We had specious suits. We were given a corner on the second floor - all seven families next to each other. That was really great!

We went to eat in the local Pizza Pizza. It started to rain. A view from the entrance of Pizza Pizza.

North Bay downtown looked barren on Saturday afternoon.

On our way to Samuel de Champlain provincial park, located in Calvin, Ontario, about 45 kilometers from North Bay. It is located on historic Mattawa river fur trade route in the scenic Mattawa valley.

A rainbow on our way, my 9 year old daughter and her two friends who were travelling in our car, got really excited.

Inside the park. Mattawa river. Some parts of the park had already closed.

Near this spot there is a large parking space (just cleared space). We played some soccer there using leave heaps as goal posts. (Somebody must have taken some images of that. I'll add later)

The Super 8 is next to lake Nippissing. Some sample of color from that area.

Next day we headed for Redbridge, to hike on the Redbridge Mountain view trail. It was a short drive from our motel. The view was extraordinary, very rewarding trip.

The drive to the mouth of the trail was quite interesting with the last few kilometers being nicely hilly. Kids loved it.

First part of the trail is relatively flat. Fortunately the trail was mostly dry. It rained a little bit in last few days, but not enough to make it really soggy.

This was unexpected. Looked like it was a bridge over the creek in the past. We had to get creative. It was shallow but getting wet wasn't an option.

The trail started to become steep after the creek.

While the adults struggled to hike up, the three girls lead the pack, despite constant nagging. 

At the end of the trail is a lookout. Very rewarding view.

The teenagers, who went back to their cellphones, playing games, sitting on a rock at the lookout point.

On our way back we had to face the creek one more time.

After the hike we drove to Sudbury Bell park. Nice color on the way.

Bell park is located right at the shore of Lake Ramsey.

In Sudbury we went to the Pumpkin festival at night. The festival took place in the Dynamic Earth facility.

The famous Nickel (lights were deemed to allow for especial shows)

On Monday, we started back.

When we started from GTA, we were apprehensive. Weather had been quite warm, often too windy. Leaves started to fall even before peaking. However, what we saw we loved. It was color everywhere.