Don’t look if you hate snakes!
Yesterday the weathermen were promising no rain so we decided to travel to one of the not so far away provincial parks. We chose Petroglyphs Provincial Park near Peterborough as we had never been before. The main part of the park is based around some aboriginal rock carvings found at the site.
When we arrived we first went to the Visitors Centre where you can see the history of the site and the meanings of some of the animals, birds, mineral etc to the aboriginals of the area. After visiting here we then went to see the actual petroglyphs. They are housed in a huge greenhouse type building specially constructed to protect the carvings from the elements which have been gradually destroying them over the years.
Inside the building is a concrete walkway around a large ground level rock face with hundreds of carvings of turtles, people, animals etc. The meanings of some are displayed around the edge, but apparently many are not known. Unfrtunately because of spiritual beliefs you are not allowed to take photos, so I cannot share the experience with you. But this picture is from one of the local travel sites.
After experiencing this we then took one of the trails in the park. this park is unusual in that it closes at 5.30pm and no camping, boating etc is allowed, so you have to be sure you can compete your trails before the park closes. We chose to take the Nanabush Trail which is 5.5 km in length and classed as moderate.
The trail goes through woodland and then over a boardwalk over some marshy areas. This is where we saw a snake. This is a Northern Water Snake apparently.
We watched it for quite some time and then it just toppled into the water and disappeared and we carried on our way. The trail eventually takes you round Minnow lake, a small lake, but very pretty.
It then meanders back into woodland. Once thing we noticed was that we didn’t see any other wildlife at all, other than the snake, but we did see lots of fungi.
On the way back we once again went across the boardwalk and saw the snake, this time in the water. After a few minutes we realized there were actually two of them.
You can see its markings here.
A good day out!
