Hike Haliburton Festival

I meant to post about this event last week, before the actual festival, but there were some computer issues.  Sorry about that.

Hike Haliburton is a weekend full of guided, educational hikes through out all of Haliburton County.  It was tons of fun, even though the weather wasn't great, and we only got to do a few hikes.  There was something for everyone on the schedule, everything from learning about mineral deposits, to ghosts, to sled dogs.

The hikes have a registration system, which was a little complicated when I tried to do the online one, but calling was easy.

We kept the kids out of school so we could get to the Can You Dig It? hike in Tory Hill since it's all about minerals and the kids could find samples to take home.  We got there a few minutes late thanks to construction on main street in Haliburton, and when we got to the meeting place, there was nobody there.  Not sure if they just didn't wait, or if there was no one registered except us so the guide didn't come. (we called that morning, so maybe he didn't get informed there were people coming?) Anyway, that was disappointing for the kids but we made it up to them by going to Jake's BBQ Shack in Gooderham, then hit the Ghost Walk hike in Haliburton.

I grew up in Haliburton and was happy to learn so much about the history of the town.  The tour guides were interesting, good speakers and shared lots of interesting highlights from the town's past.  Not all of it was about ghosts, but still very interesting.  I thought the kids would be bored, but they weren't and when we quizzed them afterwards to see if they'd actually paid attention, it was clear they had.

The next day, we went on the Sciensational Snakes hike and wow, so much fun.  Weather was crappy, but the kids are now set on getting pet snakes, and are spending lots of time researching everything they need to know to take care of them.  The guide for this hike had lots of captive bread snakes that the kids got to hold, and I don't think a single child there was afraid to get their hands on them, even the fairly large fox snake.

Next year, I'm hoping to take in more of the hikes.  There were some really interesting ones that we just couldn't get to including one where you ride horseback for part of the way.  How fun would that be?  Or a canoe trip?  There were celebrity hikers, including Kevin Callan, but we didn't see any of them.  Hopefully I'll manage to get the info up early so if anyone is interested in attending next year, they won't miss it.