Little Cove, and the reservation nobody expects

Read this before you drive out

Little Cove sits at the end of Little Cove Road, on the Georgian Bay side between Tobermory and the Grotto. The access rules are narrower than most visitors expect and they are the single reason a trip here goes wrong.

• A parking reservation is required from May 15 to September 15, in 4 hour bookings at $20, and you can only book 14 days ahead. It books through the municipal parking system rather than Parks Canada, but you also have to show a valid Parks Canada pass on top of the parking, and you can buy a day-use pass while you book. This is separate from anything you booked for the Grotto.
• Roadside parking on Little Cove Road is enforced by the municipality, not by the park, which means a ticket rather than a warning. There is no version of this where you leave the car on the verge and get away with it.
• Outside that window there is no reservation, which makes late September and October the easy time to come. The day use area then closes for winter and Little Cove Road is not plowed past the private properties.
• Nothing is sold here. Bring water, and take everything back out with you.

The walk in

It is about 300 m from the car to the water on a paved path, which makes this one of the easiest shorelines to reach anywhere up here. It is smooth enough for a stroller, though the cobble at the bottom is not. The catch is that it is quite steep the whole way. Going down is quick and children generally run it. Coming back up is the part to think about before you load yourself up, and a paddleboard under one arm turns 300 m into a decent piece of work.

The path brings you out onto cobble, which is what most of this shore is. Water shoes are the difference between wading in comfortably and picking your way.

Head right along the beach and the cobble eventually gives way to the flat limestone shelf that people remember the place for. Left is private property within a few steps. There is a house at that end with its own stretch of cobble, so keep off it.

The shelf to the right is a fossil bed

The flat rock is packed with coral and shells wound into swirls you can trace with a finger. This was a shallow tropical sea more than 400 million years ago and the evidence is sitting there in the open. It looks plain when it is dry, and the patterns come up the moment a wave goes over it.

Photograph as much as you like, and leave the rock where it is. This is a national park.

What to actually do here

Swim, if you are brave. This is Georgian Bay and it is cold well into July. It is also some of the clearest water on the peninsula, so the first 30 seconds of regret pass quickly.

Paddle. The cove is sheltered enough for a paddleboard or a kayak on a calm morning, and looking down while you float over that bottom is the best version of the place.

Bring lunch and a book. We had the whole beach to ourselves for a picnic one afternoon in late May, nobody else in sight and a gull working the shoreline for crumbs. That is a late May thing rather than a July thing, and it is the argument for coming before the water is warm enough to swim in.

Walk a stretch of the coast, and turn around. The white blazes run along the shore from here and the first hour of it is some of the best walking on the peninsula. Go as far as suits you and come back the same way. The day hikes guide puts this coast in context with the others.

What this is not is a back door to the Grotto. People do suggest it online. Parks Canada is blunt that there is no safe access to the Grotto from Little Cove, and that the return hike can run over 12 hours across some of the most difficult and technical ground on the entire Bruce Trail. That is a serious backcountry day, not a way around a reservation. If the Grotto is what you want, book the slot and read the parking guide first.

When to come

• Late September and October. No reservation, water still holding some of the summer and the color coming into the trees behind the beach.
• Early morning in July and August, for flat water and a bottom you can see all of.
• Evenings, when the light gets low across the water and the last booking slots are running out.
• Not when the bay is up. The cove is open to Georgian Bay and it goes from mirror to chop faster than it looks like it should.