20th – 24th July: Days 103 – 107
The journey from Marquette to Munising was fairly short, but still managed to include a trip to Walmart. (We may need an intervention…) Munising is also on the south shore of Lake Superior and is a bone fide tourist trap. It’s raison d’être is as the jump-off for accessing ‘Pictured Rocks’, a portion of the lake shore which are rocky cliffs with lots of different coloured layers, eroded into some interesting formations. There are lots of companies doing sightseeing boat trips and kayak hire. We had 3 full days here, and had booked a kayak trip for the middle day. Our camp was a ‘family campsite’ with a pool and our site was near enough the pool that we could easily hear the happy sounds of children voices shrieking ‘Marco. Polo’ for hours on end. The children’s cycle tracks conveniently doubled up as the roads around the campsite, and some of those little humans must have rolled past hundreds of times. Shrieking. Fun times.
Our kayak trip needed a early start and we had to be at the office at 8.15 am, about 1 hour earlier than our usual current waking up time. The trip was a bit bigger than we would have liked, with 36 people in total, but the outfit was very efficient and we all had waivers signed, spray skirts and life jackets in hand, safety demo done and aboard and underway by 9.00am. It was sunny and calm, but but after the 1 hour boat trip to the Rocks, it was sunny and quite choppy. Our captain and crew decided it was too messy to do our planned route in the kayaks, so we back-tracked a bit to calmer waters. We were all loaded into our tandem vessels and set off in 3 groups, each with a guide. We had nearly 2 hours of paddling, up close to the face of the Rocks. There were some great features, beautiful colours, and we didn’t fall out once (Literally or figuratively).
The next day we braved some rain to do a couple of hikes up to waterfalls. We managed to get the truck absolutely filthy, and ended the day at the car wash.
We had 4 campfires in 4 evenings in Munising. I think I may be starting to suffer from smoke inhalation.
24th – 26th July: Days 107 – 109
Our next leg was a drive from Munising to Tahquamenon State Park, home of the Tahquamenon Falls. The water of the river is stained brown by the tannic acid from Hemlock plants and in some places looked just like flowing molten chocolate.. The single Upper Fall is the second most voluminous vertical waterfall east of the Mississippi after only Niagara Falls. Factoid.
It is 4 miles up-river of the cascades of the Lower Falls, which is where our campsite was. We just had 2 nights here, with a plan to do a big hike on our full day. The Upper and Lower Falls are both major tourist attractions, and most people will drive to each. There is a well trodden 4 mile hiking trail between the falls along the river and there is a shuttle that means you can opt to only do it one way. We decided to do a circuit walk which would take us along a 6 mile loop on a much more primitive trail up to the Upper Falls, then bring us back to the Lower Falls on the popular trail. We had been warned that it might be muddy in patches as there had been 10cm of rain 2 days previously. Undeterred, we packed picnic, bug spray, water and Werthers Originals and set off. Despite the first 6 miles of trails being quite off the beaten track, they were well signposted. The muddy patches were more like small bogs/ponds and the mosquitos were the size of pigeons, but it was beautiful and peaceful, hot and sunny. We managed to jump/skirt most of the wet patches, and the 40% DEET kept the majority of the bugs away. We popped out of the wilderness into the carpark of the Upper Falls and our solitude was no more. The place was heaving. We dodged the crowds, oooh-ed and aaah-ed at the Falls, and set off down the river track back towards home again. The Lower Falls were less dramatic, but very pretty. It was a great day: 10.5 miles walked, tired legs, but feet intact and a warm fuzzy feeling of achievement. (Best appreciated after a shower with the first cold beer). We sat out around the fire again, packed up as much as we could before bed as we knew rain was on the way again, and slept like logs.
26th – 28th July: Days 109 – 111
Yup. Rained overnight, and was still raining in the morning during pack-up, which is a rapid and well practiced affair by now. We only had another short hop to our next stop: Sault Sainte Marie. The main attraction at Sault (pronounced ‘Soo’, for some reason to do with the English mis-pronouncing the original French name) are its epic locks.
These can accomodate the 1000ft freighters, and manage the 21ft drop of the St Marys River between the waters of Lakes Superior and Huron. Ingeniously the spillways power hydroelectric plants on both sides of the river, which provide all the power for the locks, with plenty to spare for the town too. The locks are right in town, and the massive freighters come through, dwarfing the waterfront and providing quite a captivating slow motion spectacle. Our campsite was right on the water, about a mile down river so had great views of the approaching and departing ships, and looked right across the river at Canada. The rain stopped at lunchtime and the day turned into glorious sunny one. We headed to town for dinner on our first evening here. There was a regular summertime performance by a local steel drum band in the park, which was excellent, and after watching for 15 minutes we found a restaurant with a roof top terrace. Our waitress amused us, and herself, by practicing her English accent, and we had a perfect view of the locks and a passing freighter during our meal. The next day we mooched around, watched a few more ships coming through, spent some time in the Locks Visitor Centre and had savoury crepes for lunch. Just a little bit French.
Another factoid: Sault is the 3rd oldest city in the USA, having been established by French missionaries in 1668. The knowledge cup runneth over…
28th – 31st July: Days 111 – 114
We left Sault and headed to our final Upper Peninsula destination, St Ignace. Again, not a long trip, perhaps 1.5 hours driving. We have been on the UP for 5 weeks now, and are moving so slowly that we have almost ground to a halt.
St Ignace sits at the northern end of the Mackinac Bridge, which spans the Mackinac straits, the 5 mile stretch of water that separates the UP from the Lower Michigan Peninsula, and Lake Huron from Lake Michigan. The bridge is very long, and is, wait for it, the ‘longest suspension bridge between anchorages’ in the world. But before we get to the bridge, the other main attraction of St Ignace is that it is the gateway to Mackinac Island. In another strange quirk of pronunciation, Mackinac is pronounced Mackinaw. Something to do with the French/English thang again.
We had 3 nights here in a campsite called ‘Tiki’. Felt a bit like home. A trip to the island is a must, and we did this the next day, which was a perfect hot sunny cloudless day with a light breeze and low humidity. There are several boat companies that regularly make the 25 minute trip across to the island. It was an important outpost for the US army for many years and has a well preserved fort, but its more recent history is as a popular summer holiday destination for the monied in the late 19th C. As cars became popular and the island was in danger of losing its tranquillity, the powers-that-be made a big decision in 1898 and banned motorised vehicles from the island. This edict remains in place and transport on the 8 mile circumference island is only by foot, pedal or hoof, with 300 horses providing carriage rides.
The jewel in the island’s crown is the Grand Hotel. Built in 1887, it is enormous and boasts a 660ft long french porch, which, you guessed it, is the longest in the world. The chief industries on the island are selling fudge to tourists, and renting bicycles to tourists. The place is bonkers! Bazillions of people on bikes doing the circuit of the flat lakeshore road. Some of these people even had some spacial awareness and a grasp of the basic road rules.
We had a fantastic day: brunch at an old fashioned diner, did a couple laps and a few crosses on the internal island tracks, visited the old fort, bought home-made lemonade from 2 cute little girls on the roadside, had an hour lying in the sun, and got quite adept at horse poop slalom. (Even the horse pooper-scooper wagon is horse drawn.) The island is a very special place, with a real sense of history and some amazing old homes. It is interesting that even without the scourge of the combustion engine, humans all want to be going somewhere, in large numbers
After catching the boat back to St Ignace we had dinner in town then watched the weekly summertime fireworks display. Quite impressive. Our cycle home was exciting as we had no lights for the bikes. Luckily we could stick to pavements, so it wasn’t as dangerous as it felt.
The next day we eventually mustered ourselves at about midday and after brunch headed back into town on the bikes. We mooched around, bought some bike lights, sussed out a dinner spot and visited the teeny tiny lighthouse at the end of the very short breakwater. Later, after cycling back into town with our camp chairs on our backs, we had (a mediocre) dinner and then as darkness fell, we watched the weekly open air movie in the park. (The animated movie ‘Sing’). Our ride home was less scary given the improved illumination factor.
The next day we drove over the Mighty Mackinaw Bridge, and were sad to leave the wilds of the UP. It, and it’s people are quite like NZ, and the Kiwis. I think that is why we have enjoyed it so much. Michigan is a state of 2 halves, and now we head back into relative civilisation of the Lower Peninsula, or the ‘Mitten’, as it is affectionately known. Perhaps the Wifi will be better…