I decided to give mom a break and take the kids camping for
one night, July 1st. This was
a holiday Monday, so I figured a lot of people would be ditching their
campsites to head back to work. So when
I pulled up to the Rolley
Lake
Right! A couple of
facility operators were directing traffic, and cars were parked all the way
down the entrance road. Apparently the
crowds had come out in force for a hot Canada Day, and the day use was spilling
out pretty much back onto Bell
Road . I
asked about the campsites, and she said they hadn’t even had a chance to look
there yet. After making about three
quarters of a loop around the campground, I found an empty spot and parked our
rental Corolla at the entrance daring anyone else to try and take it.
My two bigger kids (5 year old boy, 4 year old girl) were
happy to run around the woods and find creepy-crawlies while I set up the
tent. My six month old boy supervised
the construction. We settled into a nice
gravel pad carved straight out of a second growth forest. The place was nicely treed, with lots of
distance between adjacent campsites.
I was a little bit shocked while researching Rolley Lake
After everyone had a snack and drink, we headed back down
the road to the lake. There is a trail
that is a much nicer walk, but I had the youngest in a stroller so we stuck to
the road. Later I found out the trail
can be done with a stroller, though it's not ideal.
The beach was pleasant enough, with lots of families there
celebrating Canada Day. This was definitely
a family park – no cliques of teenagers or flocks of gangster wannabes trying
to look like their not trying to impress each other. Being 20 miles out of town on a Monday and
not on a bus route probably keeps that crowd to a minimum. Young kids abounded.
The kids loved playing in the water. The lake was reasonably warm – I expect it
will get quite warm by mid-August. It
was a bit brown looking, but fine. There
is a roped-off swimming area at the beach. It’s fairly small and crowded; lots of people were taking their inflatables or canoes out beyond the
ropes,
After the lake it was time to get a campfire going to roast
some hot dogs. Unfortunately there was
none readily available for sale, and the park operators didn’t come around until
much later. Fortunately a neighbourly
camper was very generous and gave us enough wood to make dinner and roast some
marshmallows later in the evening. My
fire-starting skills are out of practice, it took me a good 15 minutes to get
the fire burning solidly.
The campground was pleasantly quiet. One camper nearby ran a generator for an
hour, but beyond that there was no noise to speak of. I don’t know how it would have been during
the weekend, but by Monday night any rowdies and drinkers that may have been
there were cleared out.
My daughter needed to go pee in the middle of the
night. As we came out of the tent, I got
an excited “Daddy, the stars!” It must
not have been too exciting, as when she was done I asked if she wanted to look
at the stars some more with me, and got a very polite “No thank you,” as she
walked back to bed.
We didn’t get to see the falls, though from what I’ve seen
in pictures they’re nothing extraordinary.
We entirely missed the playground, despite driving by it at least
twice. Both kids took the fishing program in the morning, and had a lot of fun with it. No fish were caught, but my daughter did manage to hook my finger pretty good. Fortunately they were barbless. After turning the rods in, it was time to head back home.
The good:
- Large, well treed campsites
-
Lots of space between campsites
-
Lake was warm
-
Fishing program was fun and had terrific staff
-
Stroller friendly
-
Family crowd
-
No powerboats on the lake
The bad
-
lack of firewood
-
Lack of toilet paper - it was gone by early evening. I brought my own roll, fortunately, but forgot it in the outhouse and it didn't take long for that to disappear either
-
Road signage could be better, we missed a few turns on the way there
The indifferent
-
semi-rocky beach, muddy waters
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