Overnight Camping on Flowerpot Island in Tobermory: An Exhilarating Back Country Journey

What's up guys? Big road trip adventure for this video. Today guys, I'm heading up to Tobermory, Ontario. We're not exploring, we're not doing abandoned places. Today guys, we're going to go and we're going to spend the weekend on Flowerpot Island. If you don't know what Flowerpot Island is, it's an island up in Tobermory in Bruce Peninsula of Ontario, Canada. And you can go there and you can take a ferry boat over there as a tourist and spend the day. But they also have six campsites available, which are very hard to get. And guess who managed to get one? This guy. So we're going to spend the weekend, but first we got to go to Bruce Peninsula National Park. We're going to spend the night there. We're going to go see the Grotto, which is one of the most beautiful cave rock formations in the province. I'm going to go check that out. And then in the morning, I'm going to take you guys through the process required to get your permits, to get your tickets, take the ferry, go over to Flowerpot Island, and we're going to spend the weekend. We're going to check it out guys. Flowerpot Island all weekend. You, me, and whoever else is staying. So cue the music, cue the intro. See you guys there. Portions of this video were lit using the new ThruNite Archer Pro version 2 flashlight. A high performing, but small everyday carry flashlight with a beam as bright as almost 1000 lumens, weighing only 65 grams. The 950 lumens beam shines as far as 187 meters or 613 feet. See the link in my video description and get yourself this high performing flashlight that takes up no room at all for just $24.99. Good morning guys. Pretty good night last night. Set up in my car, my hotel Kia. Took me a while to fall asleep. I was going to get up a lot earlier, shoot the sunrise, but it's really hazy and cloudy. A lot of haze from the forest fires still, so I wouldn't have had a sunrise unfortunately. So I got to sleep in a little bit. So now we're going to go to the grotto. We're going to check it out. We're going to take some pictures, explore it around a little bit, and then make our way back. It's about a 20 minute walk from the campground I'm at to the grotto, so let's go check out the grotto guys. What's up guys? So we are in one of the caves. I'm not in the main grotto yet. I don't know if I can get in there safely at this point, but anyways I'll show you guys what I'm inside right now. So out there, there's the bay right there, and every once in a while you get a big blast of water that hits and comes on inside. And then there's this big cave here that's been carved over many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many, many years. So I'm just taking some pictures in here because it's a pretty cool space. Then I'm going to head out and see if I can get into the big main grotto. Hopefully I can. I'm alone so I don't want to take too many risks, okay? So here we go guys. Let's keep going. Okay guys, so where we are now is this is like a stony rock beach kind of place where in nicer weather you can come and go swimming. My wife and I actually came here swimming a couple years ago. It's really, really refreshing because the water is so green. I'll show you here. I believe when we were here the water was probably a bit higher and the waves were not so crashy, but it's a great place to come and swim. So the grotto is just up there somewhere, but then you'll pass this beach on the way in and you can come down here in nicer weather and go in for a dip. Pretty nice guys. Before you can head to Flowerpot Island you have to visit the Parks Canada Visitor Centre to obtain your permits. From there you'll head to your ferry office to get your tickets and show them your camping permit. All of this must be booked and taken care of online prior to the day you arrive. The ferry ride to Flowerpot Island takes roughly 30 to 45 minutes and along the way the glass bottom boat will take you over several of the shipwrecks found in the water. Once you arrive on the island and disembark the campsites are to the left just past the public bathrooms. Okay guys we're off the boat on the island. Now we're gonna go to the campsite which are really as soon as you get off the boat you go to the left. I'll show you. So this here is site number six in there and I'm number two up here. So just a quick short little jaunt hopefully. Pretty rocky but that's okay because it's not very long to get there. I think the sites are pretty close together. So okay we're almost there guys here's site three and I can see my site just up ahead. Let's go. So it looks like there's a there's a bathroom right there and then a bit of a lookout right here. That's cool and then here's site two guys. Here we go this is me. I got a picnic table. I got a thing to put my tent on and got a nice view. That's good. Okay guys let's get set up. Stay here for two days. Okay guys so I got my camping site all set up. I got my tent going here. I'll just turn the camera around and show you guys what we got here. What I did so there's my platform with my tent. I put a black tarp on top for some extra shade. Also in case it rains they'll let the water run off the back so my tent doesn't stay all wet. On the left hand side there I got a I brought a towel because as you can see behind me there's water. I'm on an island so I can go swimming if I want. And then on the right hand side I've got a a food box so I can safely secure my food and not have to worry about the animals getting it. I can also put my spare gear inside there. And so what I'm doing right now guys is I'm going to eat. So what I have here is my camp fuel, my camp stove, boiling water. I'm boiling 500 milliliters of water and I'm gonna have myself some noodles and beef. I've had this for quite a while. My favorite dish is the spaghetti. This is my all-time favorite camping dish but I'm going to save that for later. I also brought myself some oatmeal and let's see I got coffee. A couple different types of coffee. I got some eggs for breakfast. All kinds of stuff. I got my mug here. I brought two small canisters. These ones have not been used yet. I've got this one that I've already used so we're going to get that one going. So it's going to take about 15 minutes to cook the food that I'm eating and it's probably going to take about 10 minutes for the water to boil. So I'm starving but I'm not eating for like another half an hour. So I'm going to sit. I'm going to chill and then after I eat we're going to go do a little bit of a tour of the island and I'll show you guys what's going on on Flowerpot Island. Okay so here's the thing right now. So I'm at site number two which is the second farthest site and the problem is that if you look right behind me there's that little outlook thing right there. Well every person or people or group that walks by this site has to go stand there and go and get all excited. Now site number one to my left is not that much farther but I feel like site number one would be better if you're able to pick your choice of site. Site one would be better because you're farther away from that. So that's what I think that's what I had to say about that. Okay let's see if lunch is ready. It's been 15 minutes. I'm eating noodles and beef. Okay. A delicious and hearty mix of noodles and beef and a stroganoff style mushroom sauce. Okay. I just spilled some so that's not good. All right let's uh I'm gonna have to clean that somehow. Pour it in my bowl here guys. I have a bowl. See. All right so I'm gonna break this up a little bit. The good thing about this bowl is I can eat some of this and then I can put my lid on it and then have some more later. So as you saw the noodles just came out in a big hunk. So I'm gonna break those up a little bit then I'm gonna let it sit for a while. Let's just have another bite. Okay guys so last time we we spoke I was eating my lunch. Well after I ate my lunch I had a huge nap right behind me here in my tent. Now I'm rested and excited ready to go. It is uh six o'clock. I think the last tour boat uh comes either 6 or 6 30. So we're gonna go to the boat dock and we're gonna see if there's still people here because pretty soon we'll have the island to ourselves. I also want to see how many people are camping here tonight because site number uh one over there is empty. There's nobody there so I'm curious to see if I'm by myself tonight or how many people I'll be hanging out with. So let's go for a walk. I'm gonna check out the boat dock and then we're gonna walk around the island guys. Show you guys what's up. Let's go. Okay we got neighbors at site three. All right so there's one group right here. Just a small group because it's just one small tent like mine. Okay well I see a tent over on site. I guess that would be uh so on site one, site two. This is site three. There's somebody at site four. I can see you can see the green tent just going through there. You can see green tent. So we got me two other groups. Okay and there's a group at this site here number six. I didn't see if there's anybody at five. So so far I see three other groups that are here tonight. Okay so this here is the other bathroom. So there's a smaller bathroom over by where I'm camping and this is a bigger bathroom. Okay but there's no running water though. All right and here we got a map of the two of the trails. So here's where we are right there and then my site is right over here by that bathroom. So there's a trail that continues on from where I'm camping down to there and then there's the green trail that goes up around the flower pots and then there's a black trail that goes through here. I almost want to do the entire perimeter of the island tomorrow. We'll see. Yeah so there's one more tour boat to come to get rid of these people here so we can have the rest of the night to ourselves guys. Okay kind of excited to have the island to myself tonight guys because man the tourist people were loud today. So the sun's gonna set on the other side of the island. Which means the sun's gonna rise this way so I'll get a good sunrise tomorrow hopefully. All right we're going to go down and see the smaller of the two flower pots. Okay I think the small one's down here. forming of others over here. So this where I'm standing right now used to be filled in with rock and so if you look straight ahead if you can see hold on a second so if you look straight ahead you can see what would what will be the base eventually of other flower pots but given the fact that the water levels are not as high as they used to be these will probably never become flower pots but if you look here there you go let me just zoom back out here there we go so yeah this is the smaller of the two look off in the distance that's the bigger one let me go over there in a all the way to the other flower pot we don't have to go back in on the uh on the trails let's do that okay guys so one of the stupider things that I like to do sometimes is leave my camera all alone while I take off and do other things while there's also other people here so knowing that there's only a few people on the island and I've got it kind of tucked away I feel like I'm okay here so what I've done is I've got my camera set up and I've got a small Furnite Archer Pro version 2 flashlight right here and I have it on what's called firefly mode which is a very very subtle light so that when I come back to see it I'll be able to see the camera where it is and if somebody comes this way when it's they'll see the light there so I'm going to shoot a time-lapse sequence of day to night hopefully of the Milky Way coming over the sky so we're going to leave that for four hours and I'm going to come back a little bit later and check on it so let's go check out the rest of the island while this happens so how about we head down to the beach and we'll take a look at the flower pot the large one from down below ah there it is right there that's nice eh just saying hi guys pretty impressive eh oh look at that that's pretty cool it's a nice little cove right here the water looks so fresh and so clear I'm definitely I don't care how cold it is but I'm definitely going in the water at some point this weekend it's going to be cold but it's going to be so refreshing too see look at that look at how nice and clear the water is holy cow yeah I think tomorrow I'm going to just try and walk the entire perimeter of the island as much as I can I don't know if you actually can or not that's what I want to do tomorrow guys I'm here all day tomorrow and tomorrow night and then I leave on Sunday today's Friday if you're wondering there's the top of the big flower pot right there guys all right I gotta tell you guys I am loving it here all by myself I know there's other people here but without all the other tourists and stuff it's so nice to just have the island to yourself highly recommend this guys let's keep walking all right so let's see where we're at versus where we started guys okay so uh I am camping right here and we started right here where I started filming and we have now walked all the way up small flower pot large flower pot and now I've gone all the way through here and now we're up here at the light station so we're going to go up there and then we're going to be able to see the sun setting all right let's go check it out guys so years ago guys when there was a this house right here was the home of the uh the lighthouse keeper or whatever they called them and the lighthouse was you can't see it right now but the lighthouse was over there beyond the trees that was their boat house this was the lighthouse keeper's house and this would have been like their assistance house like the helpers right there this is probably a helicopter pad for when people hurt themselves and stuff yeah so after they closed down the lighthouse and they were no longer needed anymore they said that these were actually left abandoned and they were all run down and then a group of volunteers came by and they redid them and made them look all nice and painted them and this one here is a museum now and that's it guys that's what's going on here okay that's why there's these buildings here not a bad place to live hey you ask me wow so it's 7 p.m right now sun doesn't set till 9 so there's still two hours before the sun sets so i actually have time to walk around a bit more and then maybe come back and see the sunset from here i don't want to sit here for two hours guys that's a long time to be sitting here you know what's up guys so it's uh it's about midnight right now and uh i mentioned earlier in the video that i'm using this new flashlight that i got sent it's the ThruNite Archer Pro version 2 and so right now i'm wearing it on my hat because it's got a clip on it so you can clip it on your hat or your hard hat your helmet or whatever so i've been using this all weekend and i wear it on my hat when i'm setting up my camera settings and i put it on what's called firefly mode and that's like a really really light mode so you don't get that really really bright blinding light while you're doing stuff so if i'm doing stuff in the dark i just put this flashlight on firefly mode on the brim of my hat like i have it right now and then i can set my camera settings i can change lenses and i have basically both of my hands free to do whatever i want just like right now i'm carrying stuff in my right hand and i'm carrying my camera in my left hand so both my hands are free because i got the camera both my hands are free because i have the flashlight on the brim of my hat so right now i have it on the on the turbo mode which is the highest brightest mode so i can see it's really dark so super cool flashlight and uh so they sent me this to try so if you guys like the way it sounds you like the way it looks pick one up for yourselves there's a link in the video description to pick you guys up the ThruNite Archer Pro version 2 it's really small but super powerful and i'll have some more information about the flashlight in the video description so trying to get back to my camera shooting the time lapse right now of the Milky Way so uh see you guys back here in a bit after a late night of shooting time lapse videos and taking photos i retired back to my campsite for the night and a quiet peaceful undisturbed sleep in the morning the first tour boat arrives at around 9 30 a.m and it drops off or picks up tourists all day long today my goal will be to find a part on the island where there are no people around okay guys so i'm on my trip around the island and where i'm at currently there's a lot of no going on here i don't want all of the people this is why i'm going on off parts of the island where most people my beard is getting very gray this is why i go to parts of the island where people don't go because i don't want to be around people guys all right so i'll show you where we're gonna go we're gonna go way back there past all the people see that back there okay all right away from these people okay so i'm over here now guys people are all over there guys we're still here and i'm in the middle of the island right now well not in the middle of it but so i showed you guys last night the lighthouse the house is over there so i'll show you guys where we're at so there is there's the light the not it's not actually a lighthouse it's a light tower and so that's where the buildings are so i made myself made my way around there and now i've hiked across these rocks here on this rocky beach and then i'm gonna make my way around that way and i know for sure that way there's nothing like there's no touristy stuff that way i don't know how much i can get around but i'm just gonna keep going and see what we can find so let's take a quick break i'm gonna drink some water cool off a bit then we're gonna keep going see you guys over there so yeah so i've been hanging out here for about an hour and a bit by myself made my way i mean i don't know i hiked up where some pretty big rocks to get where i am i can't get all the way around the island i'm kind of bummed about that but it's pretty it's pretty tough to do i'm sure it can be done but i'd have to do it wearing pants and more appropriate uh clothes because there's poison ivy probably some ticks and as you can see i'm just wearing shorts and a tank top today so i'm not really appropriately dressed to go digging around and hiking deep into the woods here so anyways i just been hanging out here i'll turn the camera around make a little wider here so just been hanging out on these rocks sunbathing drinking water having some food nice blue crystal clear water it's way too cold to go in i've tried twice to go in the water and it's like jumping into a bucket of ice water it's so cold so yeah but anyways i hang out here a bit longer and then go back to the island back back into the island and hang out a bit more so show you guys a little bit more of the island later i'm gonna chill out on saturday night the last ferry left at 7 30 p.m which i was not prepared for as i thought i would be alone by six o'clock p.m so here i am shooting a time-lapse sequence while the island is still full of people i made my way to the lighthouse area and finally at 7 30 p.m i was alone to enjoy the summer breeze of the lake tobermory lies flowerpot island this island is one of canada's most fascinating natural attractions flowerpot island is famous for its natural sea stacks also known as the flowerpots flowerpot island offers adventurers an opportunity to explore caves hiking trails a historic light station and a variety of rare plants flowerpot island is the only island in the fathom 5 national marine park with campsites and hiking trails the island is only accessible by boat and there are two tour companies in tobermory that offer ferries to the island if you're lucky enough to book one of the six campsites available you're able to enjoy the peace and quiet of having the whole island to yourself once the last tour boat leaves after enjoying a quiet saturday night with only four other people on the island i decided to get up early pack my things and take one of the first ferries off the island my trip was not scheduled to leave until 1 30 but since no one else is leaving the island that early in the morning there was plenty of room for them to accommodate me the trip back to tobermory is direct with no stops and you're just able to sit and enjoy the ride i personally will not do this trip again as i found the island to be far too busy during the day and it was not the experience i was hoping for while the nights were calm and peaceful there are no other trails or accessible parts of the island to escape to during the day with all that said i did really enjoy the experience the sights and the scenery and the landscape of flowerpot island thank you to parks canada and bruce anchor tours for the hospitality