Oastler Lake Provincial Park

Second year in a row going!

Unfortunately, several washrooms out of order. Not a huge deal but the comfort station that WAS left open wasn't routinely cleaned! We saw a cleaning cart stop by the closed washrooms across from our campsite every morning, but they didn't clean the only open washroom station which resulted in it being disgusting! For two days there was the same piles of toilet paper on the floors and poo on the seats. Once it was clean it was fine. Other than that, I absolutely love this park and cant wait to return for a third year, next year!

Great provincial park, beanch was nice! Wood there was 20$ a bag! Unreal!
Store and registration was under construction seems like a strange time to do it.

Nice park, good water. Can rent canoes right there. The sites are decent, and it was quite busy so if quiet camping is your vibe i would suggest the walk-in sites. The reason I'm giving it only 3 stars is because the train really is annoying aha. I thought I could handle it but both nights were plagued with constant wakeups due to the train horn. And there are raccoons, which can be bothersome.

Felt as if I was camping on the road. Train honking all night. I don't recommend this park for camping.

Inside roadways where in very poor conditions, large potholes, the edges of the roadways were washed away. The bathrooms and comfort stations were very old and rundown.
Yes the park is next to the main roadway and there is a rail road close by so you do here the train daily.
Campsite was nice, good space, but ours and many others where not graded, and had deep washed out long ruts, which makes it hard to set up a small camper or tents.
Wish they had part of the large beach for a dog area VS a small section by the dock on a different part of the lake.
To gain beach access you have to park across the ways and walk your stuff over.
The only shower has no parking anywhere, so again it’s not conducive to anyone who has mobility issues.
Lake is very clean and great for swimming, great for canoes, kayaks, and paddle boards.

Besides the loud train and loud neighbors who stay later in the night where you can't sleep it pretty good.

Choo Choo!

A train runs next to the park on the hour. Ridiculously loud and they like to honk several times as they pass.

It's a small park with 200+ sites, and they are built such that most sites have a gorgeous view of the lake or are built on the perimeter of the lake. If not for the train I would have given this place a 4 star. The water is great.

There were no flies on the weekend of June 14th or Aug 22nd. Huge plus. On the negative side, the place was infested with gazillion caterpillars on the June 14th weekend. It was, quite literally, raining caterpillars. Aug 22nd weekend though the caterpillars have vanished.

Another con is that the toilets seem nasty at any time of the day. Either people have forgotten how to flush and/or pee hygenically or the flush are not strong enough. Please fix.

Requires some upkeep and there is some highway and railway noise. But otherwise a very nice park with many waterfront sites. Would recommend the walk-in sites.

Travelled a great distance for our 1st camping/glamping trip.

Pretty location, nice camp sites, good facilities. However the entire experience was ruined by the blaring train sounds throughout the day and night.

Possible failure for not checking on our part but totally ruined any outdoor/remote experience that was to be had.

Great park but constant freight trains that use their horns frequently. Not a good place for light sleepers.

Nice Park but no trails and there is a train that goes by quite often all night long. Some people may not like the train.

Washroom was dirty and showers were rarely cleaned. Basic park and nothing special. Small park. Nothing to do much.

These campgrounds were great! Super family friendly and the facilities were kept so clean! Didn’t even notice the train from our site either!

Just got back from a week camping here! We had beautiful weather, it was the perfect getaway. I’ve been camping here since I was a kid, now I’m a grandma. It will always hold a special place in my heart.

Beautiful sites! Not a big park, and any hiking is off site. But at least half of the sites are on or near water. If you are so.eone who likes to stay on your site this is the best one I've ever had. #118.

Absolutely gorgeous park. Decently sized sites. Beach is clean and not a lot of people. “Why 2 stars? ” you may ask – TRAINS. Honking at all hours of the day. VERY LOUD. Some people say you get used to it, no…no you do not. When the train is whaling its horn at 4am, you will see what I am talking about. How loud you may ask. Take a truck horn and multiply it by x10.

This site we got 113 was NOT what o was expecting. This one along with the ones next to it aren't nice unless you wanna be 3 feet apart from your neighbors. And lack of trees or privacy. But the Lake is amazing. Kids loved the deepness of the water and swimming off many locations. Small walkable campground. Washrooms weren't cleaned enough but ok. Train is hard to get used to but kids thought it was cool to see. We may return but it's for the lake use only and definitely never camp at lot 113.

Friendly and helpful staff and a great selection of camp sites. If you want to be near the water, check out sites 119,126 and 145. Amazing views of the lake. We are in 152 and are close to a beach, boat launch, tap water, flush toilets and showers with hot water. Nice view of the lake. The only small downside (we were ok with it) is you can hear a train and train "whistle" every 3 hours or so. On the up side, if you forgot something or are craving Tim Hortons, 7 minute drive gets you to all amenities.

Hadn't been here for almost 25 years and was not disappointed. The scenery, landscape and natural beauty is to be greatly appreciated. We did tent camping and our site was vast, private enough and access to water and outhouses was well laid out. Understandably the firewood is expensive, and I would suggest packing a hatchet to cut logs smaller/slimmer for easier burning.

Beautiful setting on this 50-acre park with lots of Muskoka Parry Sound diversity with hills, rocks, and sand beach. The only downfall is frequent trains but after a few days we were used to it.

Nice park. Site in beach area is great to walk back and forth from the beach. Beach is sandy and swim area is large and roped off. Washrooms are clean. Enjoyed the sound of the train. Didn't love the view and sound of the road from the beach but it's hard to change that! Staff are diligent about campers playing music too loud. Appreciated that.

Beautiful park with large sites for tent camping. Conveniently close to Parry Sound in the event that you need to run into town. Amenities similar in quality/cleanliness to most Ontario parks. Not a ton of hiking to be had but a good variety of water activities are available. The noise of the trains, which does happen 24/7, didn't bother us but would likely bother some so definitely something to think about if you are considering this park.

The park is good. The sites are all pretty good. Of course some sites are better than others. Eventually after the 15th train going by blowing the horn you barely notice it. I kinda noticed them the first day/night. Alcohol helped me ignore it the 2nd night!

Staff is great and friendly. Facilities as as good as expected for and old park.

The train ruins the experience. It is loud and throughout the night. Campground is very small and not many places for biking or hiking. They do have friendly and helpful staff and clean premises and nice hot showers. The beach area is very small but private.

Great place to spend a lazy weekend with friends and family. Stayed at the Grand Tappattoo resort, beautiful location, wonderful service and great staff. Planning second visit in Fall 2022. Highly recommended.

Pretty park but not much to do as a day visitor. Was listed in the Ontario parks passport but really nor much to see or so. Only a campground.

Nice park. Not sure why original gate house closed. No handicapped parking near beach area. No parking near shower. Very small place.

Short distance from Perry Sound, nice view and facilities, you can bike, kayaking there. There are some beautiful camp spots (premium sites) you can set tant overviewing the lake.

Such a beautiful park. Good for fishing. Connoe rental on site.its small still enjoyable.washrooms were disgusting. I dont mind old school washrooms. But least clean the spider webs in there. Surprisingly washrooms do have sensitizers in it. But no cleaniness.

A very nice place to camp! It has a beautiful clean fresh water beach, where it is great for kids to play in the sand and great for all to swim in! The water temperature is often comfortably warmer than nearby Georgian Bay!

Quite a beautiful park overall. Water is clean and the trees were marvellous, especially now in Fall. That’s why I’m not just giving it 1 star. However, we had an extremely bad experience dealing with the canoe rentals, and the rest of this review is explaining why. We were charged 60 dollars as a late fee. Normally yes, we understand that we must pay a penalty for it, however due to several circumstances, we believe this is unfair in our particular circumstance. I hope Ontario parks improves their process and policies, but I don’t have high hopes.

1. No verbal warning was given about being late, nor the fees associated with it. We were only told about it after coming back. Never shown nor told what happens when you’re late. Compare this to private canoe rentals, who make it very clear what happens after you’re late and explicitly communicate that verbally.
2. We were not allowed to take our the canoe for 4 hours, because there wasn’t enough time for a 4 hour session. However, we are allowed to go for 2 hours, and any time after that gets charged 30 dollars per half hour. That makes no sense whatsoever. Just let us take a 4 hour session and only use it for 3 hours then.
3. Inconsistent rule enforcement within different parks: In pinery and silent lake and plenty of other parks, we would pay for the extra time taken if we’re were late based on the session time. This is the first time in literally 10 years that we’ve been charged like this. There shouldn’t be different policies in different parks. When we talked to the warden, he said that there are different park sections within Ontario parks, who each enforce this separately. This makes absolutely no sense, and visitors should not be on the receiving end of bad management practices.
4. Spirit of the law doesn’t apply here: the reason you have late fees is to discourage people from renting out canoes longer than the session time, to allow other people to rent it afterwards. Since there was only an hour left after we should’ve returned it, there’s no way for someone else to rent it (min time to rent is 2 hours). We confirmed this with the staff. We’ve also retuned it before the park closed. The equipment is in good shape. That means that literally no one was affected by us being late, which makes the very high late fees a result of an overbearing and clumsy policy.
5. General notes about improvements to Ontario parks: A) you should have a formal complaint process. When we wanted to escalate this, no staff member knew what to do. There isn’t a clear process for handling complaints. The staff spent quite a bit of time going back and forth trying to figure out what to do when we said we want to escalate this complaint to the higher ups. B) a staff member told us we were lucky to pay 60 dollars and that we should be happy with it, because when we requested to file a complaint, it ran past 4pm, which meant that they could’ve just left and taken our deposit because the park was now closed. This was a threat, and it was extremely rude and unprofessional. I’ve worked in summer camps and dealing with customers a few minutes past closing is part of the job. Threatening to unlawfully take their deposit money should not be tolerated.

What can I say…I love this place! Just returned from 4 nights camping with my wife and had a fantastic time! Wide variety of campsites, from walk in tenting to large RV’s…. Ours was #425, very shaded but slight slope front to back. Very nice beach, great sunsets, fishing, kayak/canoe rentals. Parry Sound, 10 mins away, has lots to do, including 30000 Island cruises. If hikings your thing (no trails in the park), your camping permit gets you into nearby Killbear and Grundy.

It's a great place for younger kids and dog. The dog beach is perfect, the beach is clean. Campsite is a little small, no privacy. There's Blue Jays And chipmunks everywhere by the Beach campground. Would definitely go back again.

Great place washrooms needs to be up dated big time not sure why they have beach sand dump on camping sites.make a mess after it rains

Relaxed friendly calm day use area. It was free the last week for summer to use the day area which was a nice surprise.canoes paddleboards and kayaks were right on the beach to rent for 2 or 4 hours.brand new equipment band life jackets. 20 per boat for 2 hours. We will be back next year to try the camping which looked amazing.

Oastler Park. Many pros/cons. I stayed at campsite #001 on beachside campground. Everything was close, the beach which was spectacular was literally a 1 minute walk, wood and ice was around the bend. Privacy was great, our campsite had a little pathway to the washrooms. The comfort station was maybe 3 a minute walk up hill the other one was closed. As shown in pictures our campsite had a hill kinda limited our space but we made it work! Figured it's good to know if you're staying here. Was still able to fit 2 tents, 1 screen tent and 2 vehicles on site and had alot of room leftover for other activities. Park has boat launch, pet area to swim and 3 beaches spots. Oastler Park does not have a playground for kids. So keep that in mind and bring extra toy's to keep kids entertained! Oastler Park also does not have trails on site. The closest trail was 15 minute walk to (Cargill Dr) and the trail was nothing too exciting typical city trail. The electrical outlet was deep in the woods, make sure you bring 50ft extension cable to reach the site. Closest town is Parry Sound. This Park also has a train near bye comes through at periodic times, but when it comes through at 3am if your a light sleeper your most likely waking up from it. It's kinda annoying, but not the parks fault. Overall, Oastler Park has great beach spots. Great privacy between sites.

Beautiful area, but very crowded, and not much privacy. Besides the main comfort station, the outhouses and bathrooms are filthy. The train runs closely, often and quiet loud.

We stayed in the "radio free area, " with wardens walking through quite regularly during the day, but late in to the night, campers were partying with radios on and wardens were nowhere to be found.

Overall a great experience. The train does come by once in a while which may wake you up. Otherwise, it's very quiet here.

Nice beach, great tenting campsites. The trailer campsites near the beach are very tight and have almost no privacy. No trails in the park and not much else to do apart from the beach and lake.

The train noise was definitely note worthy, but more than that it was the lack of privacy between sites. Also, found it to be one of the smaller sites we had ever camped on and all dirt, no grass. They definitely have used up every square inch.
Plus side, washrooms and showers decently clean. Beach area is ok. Other campers not overly loud at night (we are here with kids). The biggest plus is the staff, incredibly friendly and helpful.

Nice park, doggy beach, sites clean and well spaced. Only negative was frequent trains but guess you have to expect that being close to main rail yard.

The place had a lot of campers but the area was clean, and quieted down in the evening. Many camping spots are bordered by trees, so very private. Locations for radio-free camping are available. Nice beach. Great for kids. Washrooms were very clean.

Extremely unclean and confusing park. Sites were very uneven and extremely rocky/had a lot of tree routes. Along with the train in the distance. I would not stay here again. I know its not the parks fault but there were also local boats floating by blaring music at 1am.

Went for the day. Beach was ok. Seems like it would be ok to paddle there. Will not be back due to an unpleasant experience a rude individual.

It's beautiful park for camping, surrounded by water. The radio free camp sites are walk in only. They are great though. No car means more quiet.
The only catch for this park is you can hear the train at night. It might annoy some.

Well maintained facilities, ask for canoe/kayak rental early as they are in limited qty. Waterfront sites are amazing if you can find one!

Train.at least 3 times during a night you can hear train. Do not stay there if you have a kid under 2. And lots lots lots of caterpillars everywhere. Fall down to your shoes or chair or shoulders. Also ticks.lots of them. Check your tent before packing you can find at least 3 or 5 ticks. My family had a tick bite becareful. Even ticks in the beach. I found over 5 ticks inside sand while make sand castle with my kids. Beware train.it is louder than you think.

If it wasn't for being beside a train track and the trains blowing their horn at all hours of the night I would have given this place five stars. Great staff, nice lake, nice setup. If you can sleep through the train horn then by all means, great place but for those like us who can't, then maybe another site might be better.

My camp site was right on the water.
Just outside of Parry Sound. Hopefully you like trains because you'll hear them all night long.

Beautiful Provincal park. Washrooms where clean and easy to access. The dog beach is on the small size but it did the trick. Be prepared to hear a train almost ever hour. It was loud when I was on my site 423. The camp site was clean on arrival and was a good size with good privacy. However the tree coverage was a lot and I found myself wanting the sun. Also note that there are no hiking trails on site. There are showers and flush toilets. The regular beach is very nice and clean. You can rent canoes, kayaks, paddle boats and sup boards. Overall good time.

Close to railway, close to HW, low privacy, washrooms dirty
Beach very small and only for children
No trails
Not fish at all
Got parking ticket from municipal security
Try no more visit that place

It’s a little park, pretty much all campsite, no trails for a little walk, however the lake itself is quit nice, the water is really clear. On the end point is the radio free camp zoom which is nice but not privacy campsites, when you walks in make you feels like a tents village. Seems one of the site contains 6 party ppl, got high until very late night with random shouting, yelling and loud talking which make the radio free zoom like a joke. Won’t go back for sure!

Great views of the like however the spots are not private. There are people around you. And the train. Ye sit goes through every 3 hours however we were in the no radio zone and it didn't bother us

The proximity to Parry Sound is amazing, and the lake (we went to the dog beach) was nice to swim in. We were pretty rained out so it's hard to give a good rating on most of the park, but the amenities were decent enough and the staff very friendly.

The trains, however, were exceptional. All through the day and night you will occasionally hear the rumble and *feel* the horns. If you're looking to get into nature, or a nice sleep, that will pull you right out of it. But if you really like loud trains then 10/10!

The really loud train blaring it's horn every 15 seconds for the minute long pass-by at all hours of the night and day multiple times was enough for me to leave after 20 hours. I tried but the night was brutal for me. I should have read the reviews before booking. Otherwise it's a great place.

Had great time at Oastler Lake PP and except the train noise, loved everything about this place!

Ostler lake is a beautiful quiet campsite. People are super friendly. The sun shiney of the lake at night is awesome. I've camp there for 2 years love it both times. This will be my third year coming. I can't wait.

I spent many summertime camping weeks here as a child. Great swimming and many fun times had here

It was a great 4-day getaway. Only downside was the sound of the trains passing by but we quickly got over it. This camp ground might not be great for families with small children due to the loud train sounds in the middle of the night and early morning.

Washrooms need better attention. I do not think they visit daily (at least not when I was there). I had to walk a little further to use the main washrooms as the outhouses were completely flooded.

Good park, clean facilities, but small. The train is close as well. If it's all that's available go ahead and book but if there are spots available at Arrowhead or Killbear go there.

A great campground, with muskoka cottage setup but with camp costs. There is a train line nearby, however the sound didnt bother us. If you are a light sleeper you might not like this place. Amazing locations for swimming and hiking around the campground

Small park. If you don't like freight trains frequently passing by, close very noisy. Soothing to hear the air horn.

Very sloppy ground, washroom was terrible, no hot water, had to shower with freezing cold water. And the noise of the train at night can wake up the dead people.

Amazing place. Camp grounds are bigger and cleaner.kayak and canoe rental is a big plus. Yes, trains pass by making noise but that did not really bother us. Over all really nice site.

Shower are not good at all, all I ask for is a hot shower while camping especially when camping in early October these showers refused to get warm and would send a 10 sec shot of scalding water every 10 min, 10/10 would not return. Ps. I waited 30 min hopi g shower would get warm eventually and still no hot water

A smaller Provincial Park. There are no designated trails at this park but a walk through it is just as nice. Situated on beautiful Oastler Lake that has Pike and Bass. The complaints of trains near this park is not as bad as city noise or yelling people. The train did not bother us at all. 10 minutes from Parry Sound.

I've been there twice in the past 2 years and every time it has been a blast! It's a good way to relax, have campfires, swim, canoe, kayak, it goes on!

Depending on the site you have this can be a great camping experience! Very nice park with great swimming for the little ones. A lot of sites with lake views.

This place was AWESOME! It was nice to home the whole park. I found the site we want in 2020 and booked it. This place is SO cool! Yes the train goes by, but unless you're a sissy, you don't even notice

Not a bad park but the train passes by every hour seems like and its loud. You can see the train pass by from the park

We raised our children at this park and sadly this will probably be our last visit to the park. The washrooms were often closed for more than 24 hours at a times with times where maintenance wasn't even aware of the closure. The beach was a disaster and we only had to go there after renting a PREMIUM site (122) that a 4-5 foot water snake inhabited. (We were unaware of the snake or it's nest or we would never have rented this site. My family is very afraid of snakes). More people were swimming at the dog beach than the regular beach.

No trials for hiking. Their website warns us about the train track but we underestimated how disturbing it could get. The nights that we were there, trains blew horn almost every hour - throughout the night. If you are a diffcult sleeper, avoid this park.