Road Trip Trenton to Marmora – Bay of Quinte
Trenton
Marmora
55
km
0h48
drive
All seasons
season
The Itinerary
The Bay of Quinte is a long, sharply angled arm of Lake Ontario that separates Prince Edward County from the mainland, and it has a national reputation among anglers for walleye. This short trip runs from the bay at Trenton north into the southern edge of the Canadian Shield, where the farmland gives out and the granite and lakes of the Hastings Highlands begin. It is barely an hour of driving, which makes it an easy half-day loop out of Belleville or Trenton.
Trenton sits at the mouth of the Trent River and marks the southern end of the Trent-Severn Waterway, the 386 km canal system that runs all the way to Georgian Bay. Highway 33 follows the bay shore, and Highway 14 climbs north through Stirling toward Marmora. Stirling is worth the stop for the Stirling Festival Theatre, a small-town playhouse in a restored 1927 hall that programmes musicals and comedies through the summer.
Marmora's draw is the abandoned Marmora Mine, an open pit iron mine worked into the 1970s and now flooded to form a lake ringed by vertical rock walls roughly 270 m from rim to bottom. A lookout gives the view down into it, and the site has been proposed as a pumped-storage hydroelectric project. Crowe Lake, just north of the village, is the local swimming and canoeing water. Autumn is the season to do this drive, when the hardwood on the Shield edge turns and the bay fishing is at its best.
Trenton sits at the mouth of the Trent River and marks the southern end of the Trent-Severn Waterway, the 386 km canal system that runs all the way to Georgian Bay. Highway 33 follows the bay shore, and Highway 14 climbs north through Stirling toward Marmora. Stirling is worth the stop for the Stirling Festival Theatre, a small-town playhouse in a restored 1927 hall that programmes musicals and comedies through the summer.
Marmora's draw is the abandoned Marmora Mine, an open pit iron mine worked into the 1970s and now flooded to form a lake ringed by vertical rock walls roughly 270 m from rim to bottom. A lookout gives the view down into it, and the site has been proposed as a pumped-storage hydroelectric project. Crowe Lake, just north of the village, is the local swimming and canoeing water. Autumn is the season to do this drive, when the hardwood on the Shield edge turns and the bay fishing is at its best.
Points of Interest
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Marmora MineAbandoned mine holding a lake ringed by 270 m cliffs, seen from the lookout.
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Crowe LakePopular lake for fishing and canoeing.
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Bay of QuinteWalleye fishing, cruises and beach.
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Stirling Festival TheatreCountry playhouse known for its musicals.
Protected areas along the route
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Area D
General Use Area
🌿
Brighton Provincial Wildlife Area
NAME_ENG Brighton Provincial Wildlife Area
Provincial Wildlife Area
🌿
Peterborough District Crown Lands
General Use Area
🌿
NORTH BEACH PROVINCIAL PARK (RECREATIONAL CLASS)
Provincial Park
🌿
PRESQU'ILE PROVINCIAL PARK (NATURAL ENVIRONMENT CLASS)
Provincial Park
🌿
PRESQU'ILE ISLANDS WILDERNESS AREA
Wilderness Area
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Area C
General Use Area
🌿
Area F
General Use Area
🌿
FERRIS PROVINCIAL PARK (RECREATIONAL CLASS)
Provincial Park
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Ferris Provincial Park Addition
Recommended Provincial Park
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QUACKENBUSH PROVINCIAL PARK (CULTURAL HERITAGE CLASS)
Provincial Park
🌿
Copeway Lake
Enhanced Management Area
Take this route offline
Cell coverage thins out fast once you leave Trenton. Export the map as a geo-referenced PDF before you go and open it in BorealMaps — your GPS position shows on the map with no signal at all.
Try PDF Export How geo-referenced PDF maps workPractical info
- Departure Trenton
- Destination Marmora
- Distance 55 km
- Duration 0h48
- Category Short (< 100 km)
- Best season All seasons
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