(sun)day tripper

The next stop in our continuing series of "local adventures" is Petroglyph Provincial Park!  First a little background as to how we ended up here: on our way home from the Yukon, I had commented to Nish and AnCe that we should explore our backyard (i.e. Ontario) like we explore everywhere else.  With little convincing, Nish opened up her Lonely Planet Canada and began a list of places we should do day trips to see.  And so we found ourselves cruising up the 115 to get to the Peterborough area.


The Petroglyphs are the oldest in Canada and are some of the oldest in North America.  They depict various "spirits" and humans and are now protected from the eroding effects of the elements by a pretty cool glass enclosure.  It must have so exciting for the guy how found this site first, trying to figure out if it was sacred or just some 10th-century graffiti.  As it was stands, it was awesome.  There are, of course, no pictures of the glyphs themselves, as the Natives do consider it holy ground and therefore request that pictures are not taken.  As a mere visitor to their ancestral home, I dutifully abide.

But it was only 1330... what to do next?  So we found a hiking trail that looped around Minnow "Lake" and, after only one almost rolled ankle, we were off.  It took about two hours to finish and there was lots of roots, mushrooms and Canadian Shields rocks.  We left the Park in search of new adventures in Warsaw, ON.

Specifically, the Warsaw Caves.  Clearly, we were not dressed for spelunking, but we did walk on some neat cave roofs, crossing many a "hollow" rock and hearing underground streams that we couldn't see.  One family, about ten metres ahead of us just casually dropped into a hole in the ground (seriously , it was only about three square feet) and were it not for their echoing voices, I would not have believed any human beings could have slipped in through such a small crack.  On our way out of Warsaw, we had a great surreal moment where we has a horse-and-buggy pass us on the street while a Ford Mustang growled in our rear-view.  Our cameras just weren't fast enough.  Pity.

Finally: Peterborough and the National Historic Site of the Peterborough Lift Lock.  As I contemplated this structure, I had the following thoughts:
1) engineers are truly mad geniuses;

2) they just pay attention to details in architecture any more;
3) how is one of the largest lift locks in the world in Peterborough!?
Anyway, it was an amazing thing to behold.
Dinner in down-town Peterborough at Karma's Cafe, and it was delicious - if you're ever in the area, go there.

Drive home and park exactly 13 hours after I had left this morning, thinking that these weekend adventures are one of the best ideas I've ever had.