Murphy’s Point = Murphy’s Law

Bad directions, a bad fall, forgotten and broken items, and of course, the rain!

Let me just preface this by saying that we had an ok time, but my heart still belongs to Bon Echo Provincial Park. However, when you leave the reservations off until a few days before, you get what you get. That’s what happened this time.

But, we also wanted to try something new…a new place that none of us had ever been to, nor even heard of before. And, what an adventure…and not necessarily a good one either.

If you’re going to go to Murphy’s Point Provincial Park, and you’re coming from the west, DO NOT….I repeat….DO NOT USE GOOGLE MAPS OR MAPQUEST! We had Google Maps for our directions (apparently they are both the same) and we ended up on a wild goose chase that took us over the most evil roads ever made by man. These roads were so evil that they belong in the fifth ring of hell kind of evil. Windy roads, roads so narrow that we were sure that we must be going the wrong way, and roads that led us off the beaten path. The directions told us to go down this one road that led us over a swing bridge so narrow, we honestly didn’t think our truck or trailer would be able to make it.

Then the map led us down a road that actually led us towards private property. Hubby wasn’t exactly impressed that he had to turn around on this narrow lane with a trailer in tow…but, I guess you could say that he just honed his backing-up-with-a-trailer skills that much more. Practice does make perfect.

Of course, instead of following the map that google maps gave us, if we had just continued on straight, we would have found the park entrance. Instead, it gave us the “uncivilized” route. A lot of expletives were uttered, and sometimes rather loudly, by my hubby. Not exactly the kind of language a nine year old needs to hear.

So, we find the campsite and start getting set up. Hubby mentioned something about emptying the back of the truck first to find the blocks that go behind the trailer’s wheels to keep it from rolling. I get this brilliant idea (well, I just wanted to help) that I would hoist my big butt into the back of the truck to help unload it.

What happened next remains a mystery to me. One minute I’m climbing up the back of the truck (something I’ve done a million times) and the next minute, I’m falling backwards. I somehow scraped my right outer thigh on something and my right knee…and the fleshy, sensitive area of my arm (you know, that flappy skin most of us have that closely resemble wings)…I have no idea what I scraped it on either.

I’m just glad that I didn’t hit: 1. My head. 2. My teeth. 3. My face in general, particularly my nose. I’m also thankful that I didn’t land on some big ass rock or tree root as well. That could have required a trip to the hospital!

After feeling lightheaded twice (I swear I didn’t hit my head…I think I was just feeling sorry for myself…), I was finally able to help out with the rest of the setting up.

That’s when we realized we were missing some crucial items…namely, a step-ladder so that we could put the awning up. We ended up not being able to use it because we weren’t tall enough to put it up without it. Also, the poles weren’t cooperating with us. It was like Murphy’s Law was against us…anything that can happen, will…well, it did. Hubby forgot his jeans, I forgot some food, and to top it all off, we get there and there’s a fire ban.

What’s camping without a fire? Well, ok, I guess…still, it’s so much nicer when there’s a fire. If I wanted to sit outside in the nighttime with no fire, I could have done it more cheaply at home!

Prior to going on the trip, I read someone’s blog about their visit to Murphy’s Point. They had some really interesting pictures. I wondered if we would encounter these same animals on our trip. I had hope anyway.

Well, our first day there consisted of seeing a lot of these…Gigantic Millipedes or something…they seemed to be all over the roads…thankfully, they weren’t near the campsite. I think I would have freaked if they had gotten into the trailer. Not exactly pretty looking critters!

Just when I was beginning to think that there wasn’t any actual wildlife in this park, we went to the visitor center to look at the friendly neighbourhood Rat Snake (he’s 30 years old and lives in a cage at the visitor center…he’s also 6’4″) Jamie wouldn’t hold him but she did touch him…with a little help from me. Apparently they are native to this area and are tagged…but totally not poisonous and don’t bite.

The snake was quite docile and liked to wrap itself around whatever or whomever was holding him. He also likes to climb trees. BTW, this is Ian, one of the park employees who was handling the Rat Snake.

And, just before meeting the Rat Snake, we saw this little beauty…it\s kind of hard to tell what it is, but this little guy is a dragonfly…a navy blue colour and very pretty. I tried to get a good picture of him, but it was difficult to get close enough without scaring him away.

On the way back from seeing the snake and dragonfly, we encountered these two deer. One was a young doe and the other, a young buck with two six inch horns on the top of his head. The buck was a little further away and it was difficult for me to get a good picture of him. The doe was a little less skittish and stayed where she was, eating her grass and leaves and allowing us to videotape and photograph her. We were probably about ten feet away from her most of this time.

As far as wildlife goes, this last little guy was something I’d never seen up close before. We decided to do a nature/history trail on Thursday, and this is one of the little guys that we encountered.

He’s a little green tree frog…of course, silly little guy is a bit confused…he’s actually sitting on a stone column that had once been part of a barn. This was the first stop on the hike we did (guided by the park warden himself, and three park employees) which was called The Lally Homestead. This had been the barn they used while they were farming/living there.

The stone was also confusing him as he normally is either green in the leaves, gray or brown in the dirt…however, the pink seemed to be confusing to him…I guess he wasn’t sure what colour to turn himself, so he just stayed green.

Another little critter we saw a lot of, were fire flies…you gotta love a fire fly! We were making up little stories trying to figure out why they light up. My story was that they held their breath until their butts glowed. But, I’d never seen so many in one place before.

We had quite the adventure this time around…as I said before, Bon Echo is my favourite place to go…and, it’s a place I want to return to again…Will I go back to Murphy’s Point? Well, I’m going to say no…it was ok, but it wasn’t as pretty as Bon Echo and there wasn’t as much to see or do…however, my next blog will be a little bit of the history of Murphy’s Point, so stay tuned!

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