Tuesday, 8 August – to Munising, UP, MI

Early start today, we’re on the road just after 9am!  We decided against taking the shorter unpaved HWY 58 west to Grand Marais along the top of the peninsula, instead we backtracked to take HWY 28 straight west to Munising, MI which is a tourist town boasting five lighthouses and 16 waterfalls and the Hiawatha National Forest.  We will do the scenic HWY 58 when we leave here to go back east, that portion is all paved.  I drove some of the way today but handed back to the Captain before we got the little tourist town of Munising,

We parked up on some spare grass, no RV parking laid on and bought tickets for the 3pm sailing of the Pictured Rocks Tour.  That gives us time to wander through the town of Munising and for Kim to have a pasty for which the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is well renowned.

World Famous Muldoons Pasties

Photo - beef pasty before it was smothered with the supplied gravy

The two camp grounds in this area are apparently full but there is a Casino at Christmas (wanted to go here just for the name) just another couple of miles on, which allows dry camping in their carpark should it be necessary.

In the end we try the Munising Tourist Park Campground again - at noon they had nothing free but said to check back.  We called in after the tour around 6 ish and we are welcome to stay in one of their overflow sites for the night.   We have 30 amp power and water, if our hose would reach, and pretty good WIFI, the first we have come across for many days, or even weeks,so we will be making the most of it.

Anyway back to the tour, it was amazing.  We lucked out with great seats, front row on the upper deck even though we were well down the waiting queue, and the weather is perfect. The tour is 2.5 hours long, covering 32 miles and gave us close up and personal viewing of towering, multi-coloured sandstone cliffs and waterfalls.  The Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore hugs Lake Superior for about 40 miles, some of the cliffs are 200 feet high and they can only be seen from the water.  There are three lovely gold sandy beaches and only a similar number of roads into the area but heaps of hiking trails.  Several of the rock formations have apt names, Miners Castle, Painted Caves, Caves of all Colours, Rainbow Cave, Indian Head, Battleship Rock etc. Streaks on the cliffs occur when groundwater oozes out of cracks. The dripping water contains iron, manganese, copper, and other minerals that leave behind a colourful stain as water trickles down the cliff face.  The tour was good value for money and it’s always nice to be out on the water, even more so when it’s a warm sunny day!

Grand Portal

Painted Caves

We have a happy group of campers in tents or tiny campers sharing the overflow area.  Bobbi from the tiny caravan next door is playing the violin.  She serenaded the Mr Whippy man who was riding a big tricycle with a bin full of icecreams on the back. 

American Campground Mr Whippy