Camping at Charleston Lake Provincial Park

We started our summer vacation with a relaxing camping trip to Charleston Lake Provincial Park. This park located in Landsdowne, Ontario is about three hours from Toronto.

Hiking trails

We did the 2.4 km Quiddity trail, which is an easy hike. The first part of the trail has a boardwalk that goes across the wetland. 

There are signs where the boardwalk ends, before the hiking part of the trail that leads to lookouts begin. You need good hiking shoes to explore further into the trail. The Scenic lookout over Running's Bay is beautiful. There were some interesting mushroom species, snakes, and frogs that we saw during our hike. 

Quiddity Trail connects to the Tallow Rock Bay Trail, which is a 10 km difficult hike. This trail gives access to the backcountry campsites, and passes through remote areas of the park. There is a 100 m floating bridge across Slim Bay. There are many other hiking trails at Charleston Lake Provincial Park including Beech Woods, Sandstone Island, Shoreline, Hemlock Ridge, and Blue Mountain.

Discovery Centre and Amphitheatre

We enjoyed learning about the different species of snakes, birds, and flora in the area at the Discovery Centre. The young park staff were friendly.

We watched an evening show at the Amphitheatre, just before sunset. This educational video about barred owls reminded us of the times we've seen these owls in Ontario during other trips. It is sad that the population of barred owls are declining due to urbanization and cutting down of trees, as barred owls need to come back to the trees they were born in order to lay eggs.

Beaches and Water Fun

There are couple of beaches. We enjoyed the campers beach by the Shady Ridge campground. There are changing areas close to the beach. I am glad that there are no dogs allowed in this part of the beach. There are separate dog friendly areas. You can also rent canoes and kayaks to enjoy the calm waters. 

Canoes and Tandem Kayaks can be rented for 4 hours $24, full day for $28, or 24 hours for $40. Single Kayak and Paddle Boards can be rented for 4 hours $18, full day for $22, or 24 hours for $34. There is a playground if you have little ones and there is no park store.

We got our wood from Twists, a store just outside of the park. They had seasoned firewood which burnt really well.  

Camping at Bayside

We chose the Bayside campground. The campsites are large and the privacy of the site was okay. There was no cell phone reception for most parts, which was okay as it gave us sometime off of our devices. 

We spotted deer close to our campsite, which is always exciting. We really like that in the night there were a lot of fireflies, which was beautiful to watch. The night sky is perfect for stargazing. 

The comfort stations were clean and it is at the centre of the campground, which is accessible easily from different sites.

The bugs were not that bad, but there was a lot of mosquitos by the Amphitheatre in the evening.

During our stay the campsite became quiet by 10 p.m. The generator/ air conditioner noise of an RV was quite annoying since the nights were not too hot. Many people don't realize noise travels even if they think they are using a normal tone or put music on, it can sound louder and disturbing when you are sleeping on the ground and want to be surrounded by nature. When camping, it would be courteous if every camper thinks of others, so they don't ruin the camping experience for others. 

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