Muskoka Waterfall Tour

    This weekend Josh had a bunch of recording and music stuff lined up, so I took the girls to hang out at my mom's. We had been talking about doing a tour of some Muskoka parks and waterfalls for a while, so we decided today was as good as any to do that. We had such a great day just driving around Muskoka and being outdoors. I'm feeling high on summer right now. <3 And this song that my mom had introduced to the girls, The Fox - by Nickel Creek, was the song of the day. We listened to it many times. The girls love it.

     First stop was Muskoka Falls, just south of Bracebridge. The falls, although mostly under the bridge, were impressive and quite loud, and there was a quiet little beach there that was nice, too.

     Our second stop was High Falls. The girls were getting hungry, so we had a snack, but this one was not all that preschooler friendly, so Rachel in particular did not really enjoy herself. She didn't want to wear her lifejacket, but the rocks were slippery and dropped off quickly, so I wasn't willing to compromise on that. Laura slipped when she was climbing (on the dry rocks) and gave herself a nice bruise on her thigh, but eventually got sure-footed enough to enjoy herself. I think we should have maybe waited until they were a little older to try that one. After that we went for lunch. I told mom I wanted to go somewhere I hadn't been before, so she took us into Bracebridge to the Riverside Inn. It was a dated old dining room, but the food was decent. Everyone felt better after we had eaten.

    Third up, we stopped on the side of the road to view the Bracebridge Falls. Laura didn't get out of the car, and it was just a quick stop.

      Our fourth stop was Wilson's Falls, which are supposedly the nicest in Muskoka. We had a bit of a hard time finding the way into the falls, and never actually got up really close to the biggest part, but we still had fun. There was a smaller portion at the top of the falls that we paddled around in a little, and then we climbed down to the river below and the girls swam there. We should have had their life jackets with us again so they could have gone a little deeper into the river; there wasn't a lot of shallow water for them to play in there. They still really liked it, though. Mom said she would want to go back and tube down the river, which I think would be fun. :)

     We then drove over to Bala, and the girls fell asleep on the way (they were tired from staying up late at Grandma's the night before). The fifth falls we saw were the Bala Falls. I had accidentally driven to Bala earlier this summer and I swore I had seen a beach there, so we went looking for it after the falls. The girls were looking forward to being able to swim and not have to worry about slipping on rocks or getting caught in the current. Alas, there was no beach there, but a friendly man who owned a kayak and canoe rental place offered us use of his boat launch for them to get wet.

     Our last falls of the day was Big Chute. The falls there were, again, under a bridge, so you couldn't see a lot of them, and we had arrived after the marine railway had closed for the day. We walked to the bottom of the it, and also up to the observation deck to view the whole thing. Grandma was adamant that we needed to come back again during operating hours so the girls could see it in action.
We stopped for dinner on the way home at a rest stop on the 400 extension. It was a really nice day, and I'm glad we got around to doing it.