This past week a few of my friends & I headed up to Valens Conservation Area for a little camping trip for a girls getaway ( we stayed Monday-Wednesday night). We figured it would be something different to do and fun to just hang out with each other for a few days. After we had loaded up the van, & did the groceries we were on our way to Valens! We arrived at Valens a little early ( 15-20 minutes before check-in time) so expected to be told no we couldn't come in and we would have to wait. But since no one was on our site the previous day it was okay, We checked in with the nice lady at the gate & she confirmed we were all over 16 ( which my friend thought she said 60!), and gave us a card for my dad to use to get back in when he came back to pick us up a few days later. We got through the gate and started the drive up to our campsite, since none of us had been there recently it took awhile to find the dogwood area which was of course all the way at the back of Valens ( leave it to my friends to choose the farthest site ;) ), we set up everything and my dad left us and the camping trip finally began! We had a little snack then headed for the beach & firewood for dinner etc later on. We passed the camp store on our way and had a look around from the outside, couldn't find any hours and it wasn't open. So we continued to the beach and hung round the beach for a bit before walking to the gate to ask where to get fire wood. We found firewood and bought a bag and dragged it, yes dragged it back to the beach... wood is HEAVY! We spent some more time at the beach before continuing back to our campsite with the wood.
After what felt like hours walking back with this wood we got back in time to start a fire before it was pure darkness, cooked up some dinner & did the normal camping stuff like roasting marshmallows and making sure the fires out ( which it rained Monday night so that helped us) and then off to bed.
Tuesday morning came & like usual I was the only one awake so I went for a little morning walk around the area. The area was basically empty. I guess no one camps much during the week and its not really "camping season" yet. I'm pretty sure from our site to the bathrooms which is about a 3-5 minute walk there were 2 other sites with people on them. I saw the Valens truck that always drives around and checks things out come by and got a nice good morning from the driver, I thought to myself geez that was nice! After a nice half hour walk I headed back to the camp site to start a fire for breakfast & a few more people were actually awake now. We had breakfast and got ready for the day and headed to the beach to cool off as it was getting warm out. We arrived at the beach and were told the beach was closed because they had used pesticide to try and clean up some of the seaweed.
We were kind of ticked off because we had just walked close to half an hour to turn around and walk back because we couldn't go in the water OR on the sand. But we soon admitted that the seaweed was bad and that it was a good time for them to do it since the campground was basically empty. A few of the girls from our group went to go buy more firewood and were surprized when the lady said your camp site 208 right? We will have the truck deliver your wood for you. We were so relieved since it was a pain carrying the wood the day before! The next test in my mind was whether or not they would just drop the wood at the post for our site by the road or "bring it in". We went back to our site and saw they had actually taken the wood right to the fire pit for us ( Thank-you so much!). We sat and played some card games for a bit, chopped up some of the wood they had brought,went to the bridge then went to the lookout to watch the sunset before heading back for a campfire.
Truthfully at first I didn't really see the point of us walking to the lookout but gave in and decided to go, I'm glad I went because it was a beautiful view, and we got some nice pictures of both the view and of just us girls.
After the lookout we came back to have a fire and make some s'mores
Wednesday came and we repeated our daily morning routines and a few of us ventured to the showers, most of us were questioning if we really needed a shower because we didn't really like the idea of the showers, who's been in them, how dirty the showers maybe etc( yep definitely not used to camping!) We were happy to see they didn't look to bad and we only had to shoo away a few flying bugs. After lunch time we ventured back to the beach and were so glad to hear the beach was now reopened. We jumped in and had a swim, unfortunately it wasn't as warm out as it had been the previous day & the seaweed was kinda slimy so many of us quickly got cold/ turned off and had to wrap ourselves up to get warm. We went back to our site to pack up our stuff and clean up our garbage till my dad came to pick us up. While we finished cleaning up we thought "what the heck do we do with this bag of garbage do we really need to take it back with us?" Luckily we were informed that there's a garbage drop off up near the gate.
As we left we chatted about the trip and how much we enjoyed Valens, the bathrooms & showers were bearable, unfortunately camp store closest to our site was closed but it wasn't a huge deal, the bag of wood was heavy & awkward to carry from the gate to our site but luckily on the second trip for wood they delivered it!Yes day 2 we missed out on swimming due to the pesticide but it was the best time for them to get it done. We had tons of fun at Valens & I wouldn't say no to going back sometime!
Thoughts/opinions are my own, I was not payed to write Valens a "good review" nor do I believe in lying about what I think of a service/product. Reviews should be truthful!
