One provincial park on the way north last Tuesday, one more on the way south a two days later: Pinery and Sauble Falls, respectively.

Pinery Provincial Park hugs the shore of Lake Huron far south of the Bruce Peninsula and includes wooded areas with trails and a wide beach.

Park literature says the woodlands are an oak savanna, the largest remaining patch in Ontario. Still mostly green when we passed thorough, with touches of fall.

The woodland trails pass by the Old Ausable Channel. Still and punctuated by lily pads and green algae.

The Ausable River once ran here, and then on into Lake Huron, but irrigation and other civil engineering projects, back when this part of Canada was being developed for agriculture, changed the course of the river, isolating this stretch. As its recreational value became apparent by the time the park was created in the 1950s, further engineering adjustments were made to ensure it doesn’t dry up all together.

The beach was easy to reach and nearly (but not quite) empty. That’s October for you, but if you asked me, that’s a good time to visit a beach.

Ah.

Soon we notice ladybugs everywhere on the beach.

As insect hordes go, that’s a pretty agreeable one. Still, I’ve been on a lot of beaches and never encountered that. Though not cold, it wasn’t exactly warm, and the bugs barely moved, preferring to cluster together. Later, at the visitor center, I mentioned the bug horde (not using that word) to one of the workers, who had never heard of such a thing either. So maybe it’s just a freak at Pinery, not the beginning of a movement of coccinellidae famed among entomologists, or something.

Much further north, in fact at the southern edge of the Bruce Peninsula, is Sauble Falls Provincial Park.

It wasn’t busy, mostly occupied by a few retiree fishermen looking for a catch in the Sauble River below the falls. The trails in the park are short, mostly providing views of the low falls.

Once upon a time, the river supported a lumber mill, and a small town grew around it. Only small traces of any of that remain, such as part of a concrete raceway.

I expected a little more color on the Bruce Peninsula, but we were a little ahead of peak. At Sauble Falls, peak was closer.

You’d think that fall colors would get old. We see it every year. But it never does.