Today is our three month anniversary for this trip already – we left
NZ on 9 May.
On our way by 10am, heading east on the scenic (and paved)
HWY 58, it was a pretty drive but most of the side roads to the waterfalls and
lighthouses we saw yesterday are unpaved, not really suited to us. Glad we did the boat tour yesterday!
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| HWY 58, purple wild flowers growing alongside the road |
Not far from Grand Marais we arrive at the Log Slide, the spur road is paved albeit narrow and lined closely with trees sporting low hanging
branches, more dessert pin striping!
Hopefully the plastic vent covers are still intact. A family of deer scooted across in front of
us and hid in the trees.
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| Spur road to the Log Slide, you can just see a deer going bush at the bend |
So loggers used to slide logs down this 500 foot ‘sand hill’
into Lake Superior, 300 feet of it is vertical.
People do go all the way down the log slide but it is a long way to
climb back up again, at least an hour so not for the faint hearted. The warnings read “rescue is difficult and may
be delayed due to the distance from the local ambulance service or Lake
Superior weather conditions”. We could see the Au Sable Lighthouse from a
little way down the log slide.
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| 500 feet high Log Slide |
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| Au Sable Lighthouse in distance |
Northern Michigan obviously gets good winters, the Munising
Bay freezes solid with about 3 feet of ice during winter. But the tourism still flourishes with winter
sports, snowmobiling and cross country skiing etc.
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| Must be very pretty in winter and lots of fun! |
We arrived at Woodland Park to the peal of musical church
bells, it was right on 12 noon. We score
the last site available, this is a no reservation campground, first in best
site and all that. Site 57 is right at
the western end and next to us there are stairs down to the lake. We have 50 amp, water and even cable TV. The free WIFI signal is poor at this end of
the campground but we have good cell coverage.
After a bite to eat we take a walk into town three blocks
away. Grand Marais is a sturdy harbour
town, their words, not mine, supported in the past by fishing and lumbering. It got it’s name in the 1600’s from French explorers,
missionaries and traders. In this context ‘Marais’ translates
to “harbour of refuge”. It’s very quaint
town. We find the ice cream shop and
support local commerce by choosing a single waffle cone each, except it was
huge, at least 2.5 scoops and I have to say my Caramel Carabou with the wide
ribbons of caramel winding throughout the scoop was absolutely delish! Kim’s Berry Combo was equally enjoyed
apparently. We also went into the hardware shop and bought some spare bulbs.
We stop in at the Old Post Office Museum which was interesting, but the Pickle
Barrel Museum wasn’t open. This structure was
built as a two story summer holiday home for some famous dude - William
Donahey, a cartoonist. Neither was the
Gitche Gumee Museum open.
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| Quaint old buildings |
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| Gitche Gumee Museum |
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| Pickle Barrel Museum and the tavern which was earmarked for dinner tonight |
We walk back the long way through the camp, this is the
beach from Woodland Park camp ground.
We were going back into town for dinner but come 6pm the
thunder storm came through with warnings of flash floods and generally very bad weather. It cleared not long after 7pm
but we had already eaten by then. Another time - I am in credit!
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