Rissers Beach Provincial Park

With all the rain early this week, walking on most of the trails was apt to be gushy. Instead I decided to head to the beach and doing some walking there.

Risser’s Beach Provincial Park is less than a 30 minute drive away. I have driven by it several times. I often could see people walking along the boardwalk at the edge of the park.

I parked across the street and headed over to the beach. As I went to enter the pathway for my walk, I noticed a little waterfall in the rocks. If it were warmer outside I might have walked down closer to it to get some more pictures.

The sand pathway was just beside the ocean. It reminded me of walking on a trail along the ocean in Half Moon Bay California with my friend Lori. It was eerily similar except here you could walk onto the beach, in California the beach was below with a 50 foot cliff keeping you off of it.

Eventually, the path brought me to the boardwalk – the same boardwalk that I have seen several times from the road.

Once I stepped out onto the boardwalk I felt the wind. The breeze was definitely cool, hovering at around the freezing mark. That did not stop me from continuing my walk, nor did it stop the several others who were out walking their dogs along the trails and on the beach.

I turned to look back at the highway and saw this tree as if it were posing just for my photo.

The boardwalk went through the woods a little way and then the trees cleared, and when I looked back I could see the bay.

I could see that the boardwalk was approaching the ocean.

The boardwalk ended with stairs down to the beach. Clearly there had recently been some weather as the seaweed came right up to the bottom of the stairs.

At one point I noticed a collection of what looked like very large clams (about the size of a baseball). I walked over and checked and they were still alive. I wondered if I could harvest them – thinking they would make a nice dinner. Having no idea what the law was, I left them be. I have since looked up the regulations, and in this zone (zone 4) I could have collected up to 150 per day. Next time I’m out hiking on the beach I’ll bring along a bag just in case I come across some more. Technically, they aren’t clams, rather they are qhahogs.

At one point I saw what looked like small bright yellow vegetation. The colour was rather extreme given the grayness of the day.

Upon closer look, these bits of “vegetation” were actually the frayed ends of some synthetic rope. It seemed to cover a large part of the beach. I reached down to pull to see if it lifted up, but it didn’t. Whatever is buried it is quite solidly there.

When I returned to the beach where I first entered the pathway, I continued down the roadway looking at the various campsites. I found myself imaging camping this summer. My first thought was to try and book something for Victoria Day long weekend in May, however, it appears the park doesn’t open for camping until mid-June. The season starts a little later down here than it does in Ontario.