Bruce Peninsula National Park (BPNP) is popular for very good reason - it's stunningly beautiful!
Most notably, it's turquoise-blue waters will have you closing your eyes and sniffing the air for the scent of salt and surf - it's really that gorgeous.
Like most Canadian national parks - this one's well kept - clean, quiet and spartan. Staff here have done an excellent job preserving the area's natural beauty while still providing relatively unfettered access to hundreds of thousand of visitors a year.
The park's visitors center offers a handful of programs for both adults and kids - from wildlife to crafts to geology.
It also has a terrific exhibit, which you can access with a National Parks Discovery pass - this pass also exempts you from paying for parking at various park sites, which is well worth it. If you're going to visit more than one National Park in a calendar year, buy the pass!
The Grotto
One of the main attractions in the BPNP is its Grotto - a cave carved into the rock face of the Park's shoreline along Georgian Bay. The rock face is a steep, often straight vertical cliff that juts in and out and has been weathered to varying degrees by waves and wind.
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| The boys at the grotto archway |
If you look hard, you'll see me in the water!
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| The grotto from above |
In the Grotto area, the wave action has carved out a large cavern. The rocky bottom is very light in color, and, even more impressively, the waves have bored another sub-surface cave entrance from an adjacent wall which imbues the cave with an otherworldly blue glow from underneath its already turquoise waters - it truly is eye candy!
We visited in August, 2019 - I figure the water was a **very refreshing** 6-8deg Celsius - not for the faint of heart! I swam with un-deterable kids and 20-somethings.
Access to the grotto area is via a superb, well-used walking path from a paid parking lot (buy the Discovery pass) or, if you're a camper at the Poplars campground, you just walk or bike right in. Parking spaces are limited, so the Park sells only a certain number per day.
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| Parker on the grotto path |
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| The grotto trail |
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| The boys clambering around beside the path |
Once you arrive at the grotto cliffs, the descent to the water for cold-ignoring swimmers is a bit gnarly - a scamper down a bouldery cliff followed by a crawl across a narrow ledge - its relative unapproachability helps to further limit the number of swimmers - not a bad thing ;)
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| The cliff descent |
All told, plan on at least a few hours of exploring the cliffs.
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| The cliff top trails |
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| Indian Head Cove |
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| A run to the cliffs |
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| The kids watching dad swim... |
This is a VERY popular destination in the area - expect crowds - no throngs - in the peak months of July, August and September.
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| The boys found caves of their own |
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| Chelsea taking in the grotto |
Cyprus Lake
We camped at Cyprus Lake Campground - car camping with secluded sites but not a shower to be seen. Turquoise is the colour of the BPNP!
The campground is very well run with all you'd expect from a government-run campground... ice and wood, an RV fill/dump station, basic-but-clean bathrooms and a strong focus on nature and its preservation.
All three camp areas at the Cyprus Lake campground are on the shores of Cyprus Lake.
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| Campers! |
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| Parker at the awesome Cyprus Lake beach |
The lake gets nice big waves, further embellishing its ocean-like feel.
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