A Quick Trip to Ardbeg and South River

Funny how plans can change. With a week off in front of us, Darrell and I had to decide how to spend that free time. We chose to break it into two trips. A few days away, then home for Thanksgiving, then another few days away. Darrell suggested we start by heading to Ardbeg to try the offroad trails.

For those not familiar, the Ardbeg Trail is west of the town of Ardbeg, north of Parry Sound, Ontario. It’s a place where overlanders, offroaders, and ATVrs get to spend time testing their vehicles and doing some rock crawling. We had been talking about a visit for a couple of years, so on a Friday, we headed north for what would hopefully be some offroading fun.

The leaves were passing their peak, with gold and red carpeting the ground. As we headed up Bunny Trail and closer to the trailhead, I felt excited for what was to come.

Things start getting fun once you pass Clear Lake. Up and down, in the water and out, choosing the right lines to clear the rocks. The final 3km to get to Black Lake took quite a while, especially since we were towing the teardrop trailer and didn’t want to beat it up.

It was really cool to see how well our Ford Ranger Tremor and the Gnome Homes Teardrop Trailer handled going down the trail as we made our way to Black Lake and the hydro corridor that contains the main trail.

It was neat to see how many people were there on Thanksgiving weekend. There were vehicles and trailers of all shapes and sizes. A small teardrop-like trailer. A fifth wheel trailer. So many ATVs. We drove around for a bit and realized we weren’t going to find a good camping spot on Black Lake, so we started south on the hydro trail.

The thing is, depending on my mood, I’m not always a fan of rock crawling and slowly working down a trail (which is what you have to do when driving your daily driver). I’m less of a fan of camping in busy areas. After going down the trail a bit more, we decided to turn around.

Fortunately, we were just over an hour to South River, one of my favourite places to explore. The old logging trails are fantastic, and although you still have to take it slow in places, it’s not a big worry. It’s always a fun place.

The change in destination led to two awesome things:

First, we saw a moose cross the road in front of us! Yay! There was a car between it and us, but we still got a good look. It was so exciting from a safe distance.

Second, we got to camp at one of our favourite campsites. Tucked in near a trout lake, we’ve stayed at this site before and it’s beautiful and quiet and everything I want in a campsite. Since trout are closed there was no fishing to be done, but it’s the perfect spot to relax and enjoy a couple of days.

The dogs stretched their legs while we set up camp in the fading daylight. They soon tired enough to head to the side tent for a snooze, while Darrell started on BLTs for dinner (nicely toasted in our Coleman oven) and I worked on writing up my notes for the day.

Despite a forecast calling for a rainy day, we got lucky and experienced no rain after driving through Parry Sound. The night was chilly, peaceful, and oh so perfect. Only the hoots of an owl and the occasional howl from a wolf broke the quiet.

I woke to the sound of the fan closing up as the rain sensor triggered around 2am. Though I’d worried about being cold, the side tent and trailer ended up being quite warm once we’d been inside long enough to heat things up. 

When we decided on a teardrop trailer, we thought the dogs would sleep inside with us. Turns out they prefer to stretch out in the side tent only occasionally jumping into the trailer. Once Erza is hungry in the morning, she jumps in on top of us to demand breakfast. She did that a little after 6am on this morning and was soon followed by Panda.

While getting ready for our own breakfast later that morning, we were surprised to see a truck drive by. We usually just see ATVs when we see anyone else in this area. When Erza kept barking we noticed that the truck had a dog running behind it that stopped to check out our truck.

Breakfast was breakfast burritos that I had made ahead of time and frozen. We’d put them in our Chilly Moose fridge before and warmed them up in the Coleman oven. For a first try, it turned out well. I’d followed a recipe I found online and I’ll tweak it a bit for next time, going much lighter on the sausage and including some bacon. Some onions would be a good addition as well.

We’d had a great start to the morning, even with the rain, then disaster struck.

I felt a rip go through my back on a bathroom visit and could barely move after that. Anyone who has dealt with lower back pain and sciatic pain will know exactly what I’m talking about. No longer able to stand straight, I struggled my way back to my chair and collapsed.

By mid-morning the rain finally let up a bit and the sun came out. Darrell took advantage of the break and went down to the lake. I hobbled around camp and tried to get some pictures. The dogs ran back and forth between us.

We had a nice day just relaxing. I read a book on my phone. Darrell cut firewood and stacked it. The dogs slept or followed us around. Darrell even got the drone out and spent some time flying it. We ended up with sunshine for the most part. A little rain here and there, and the wind picked up in the afternoon.

At 5pm we started talking about how much the temp had dropped and Darrell asked how cold it was supposed to get. Since we have no cell reception in the area,I pulled a forecast on our Garmin GPS and saw a lot of rain with temps falling to 2 feeling -3. There was even a chance of snow the following day. We realized we had a choice to make. Most of our gear had dried out during the day. Did we want a cold night without our heater and wet gear to pack up?

Shockingly, Darrell was the one to say let’s pack up. In 45 minutes we had everything away and were heading out.

Of course, there’s a downside to driving at night in such an area. Especially in October. Moose.

We had left South River and were coming into Sundridge on the highway when a moose ran out in front of us. They’re so dark that it’s nearly impossible to see them until they’re in your headlights. Darrell slammed on the brakes and the massive animal made it to the shoulder while the dogs and us regrouped. I’m glad our trailer isn’t heavy! After that incident you can bet we kept a lookout for moose and stayed at a conservative speed.

It was late when we arrived home and I could barely move thanks to my back. Our first trip of our vacation had been cut short, but it was a great one nonetheless. Now we had a couple of days to rest my back, hopefully visit with family for Thanksgiving, and come up with a destination for the last couple days of vacation. Somewhere with fish.