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Occupying the southernmost tip of Canada's mainland and on the same latitude as Rome and Barcelona, Point Pelee National Park (daily: April to mid-Oct 6am-9.30pm; mid-Oct to March 7am-6.30pm; $3.25; no camping) fills the southern half of a twenty-kilometre sandspit. The park boasts a variety of habitats unequalled in Canada, including marshlands and open fields, but most remarkably it is one of the few places where the ancient deciduous forest of eastern North America has survived: one-third of its area is covered by jungle-like forest, packed with a staggering variety of trees, from hackberry, red cedar, black walnut and blue ash to vine-covered sassafras. The park's mild climate and its mix of vegetation attract thousands of birds on their spring and autumn migrations, and in the latter season - in September - the sandspit also funnels thousands of southward-moving monarch butterflies across the park, their orange and black wings a splash of colour against the greens and browns of the undergrowth. From the park entrance , it's a three-kilometre drive down behind the shore to the start of the Marsh Boardwalk nature trail, where there's a restaurant and also bike and canoe rental during the summer. It's a further 4km to the visitor centre (daily 10am-5pm, later in summer; tel 519/322-5700), at the beginning of the Tilden's Wood Trail and the Woodland Trail. From April to October, propane-powered "trains" shuttle the last 3km from the visitor centre to the start of the short footpath leading to the tip of the peninsula. However, the tip itself is merely a slender wedge of coarse brown sand that can't help but seem a tad anticlimactic - unless, that is, a storm has piled the beach with driftwood.
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