Emily Provincial Park, ON.
Emily is in the heart of the Kawartha Lakes region, some 30 minutes west of Peterborough, close to Omemee. The park has four large campgrounds and is at the southern end of Pigeon Lake.
Click here for the official website.
General Stuff
Emily has four campsites, all large, heavily wooded and all quite busy. The sites are mostly level and reasonably large, given how many sites there are in total. The Comfort Stations are not as new as in other parks but are, as usual, clean and very usable. All but one of the camping loops are a little way from the fine, sandy river beach, but there is plenty of parking by the beach if you don't want to walk. There are a some modern boat docks and a slipway for park users use and there are some older, floating docks that are used for people to fish from. This park is an ideal base from which to explore the Kawartha Lakes region.
Opinion
The camping loops in the big Circles campground really are loops within a big circle. It was a pain to have to round the one-way system to find our loop each time but, that said, the loops were quite private and once on your site it was all quite private. It was a fair walk to the riverside beach and not a route that was really designed for pedestrians as again, you ended up following big loopy roads. Mind you, once at the beach and boat launch, it was really nice; very sandy with a shallow area of the water roped off for kids to play in. The park has a store and watercraft hire outlet but they were also some distance from the Circles campground. My one complaint was that there was only one Comfort Station for the entire Circles Campground; it's not that I had to line up or anything, but the block was tired and perpetually in a messy state; and it wasn't for want of cleaning as it was hit twice daily by the cleaning contractors. We used this park as a base to visit the Kawartha Lakes system and didn't spend a lot of time actually in the park. Last visited July 2013.
Click here for the official website.
General Stuff
Emily has four campsites, all large, heavily wooded and all quite busy. The sites are mostly level and reasonably large, given how many sites there are in total. The Comfort Stations are not as new as in other parks but are, as usual, clean and very usable. All but one of the camping loops are a little way from the fine, sandy river beach, but there is plenty of parking by the beach if you don't want to walk. There are a some modern boat docks and a slipway for park users use and there are some older, floating docks that are used for people to fish from. This park is an ideal base from which to explore the Kawartha Lakes region.
Opinion
The camping loops in the big Circles campground really are loops within a big circle. It was a pain to have to round the one-way system to find our loop each time but, that said, the loops were quite private and once on your site it was all quite private. It was a fair walk to the riverside beach and not a route that was really designed for pedestrians as again, you ended up following big loopy roads. Mind you, once at the beach and boat launch, it was really nice; very sandy with a shallow area of the water roped off for kids to play in. The park has a store and watercraft hire outlet but they were also some distance from the Circles campground. My one complaint was that there was only one Comfort Station for the entire Circles Campground; it's not that I had to line up or anything, but the block was tired and perpetually in a messy state; and it wasn't for want of cleaning as it was hit twice daily by the cleaning contractors. We used this park as a base to visit the Kawartha Lakes system and didn't spend a lot of time actually in the park. Last visited July 2013.
