Two stops on one Saturday in December. Eleven kilometres of trail around a kettle lake first, then a German Christmas market that has been running since 1996 and costs nothing to walk into.
One Saturday, two stops, and no parking to find at either of them.
Coming soon
We are running this one. The seats are not loaded into the booking system yet, so there is nothing to click. Leave your email and you will hear the moment it opens, which is usually before it goes anywhere else.
Leaving Toronto in the meantime
Cancel 14 or more days before you go and you get 90% back.
Choose your own adventure: we drop you off, and the bus picks you up in the same spot.
A short, flat walk on even ground, at your own pace.
A conservation area north of Paris, then downtown Kitchener. About twenty five minutes between them.
We pick you up
The exact spot and the departure time are still being confirmed for this date.
A nine hectare kettle lake, which means a block of ice left behind by a glacier melted and filled the hole it made. Carolinian forest runs all the way round it, and eleven kilometres of marked nature trail run through the hardwood bush in five loops, all of it flat and signed. In early December that is a quiet forest with almost nobody in it, and whether there is snow on the ground is a coin toss at that point in the month. The conservation area is open year round.
Good to know:
Kitchener's German Christmas market, running since 1996 and in its thirtieth year. For the anniversary the city stretched it from a single long weekend to two, and we come on the first Saturday of them. Free to enter, for everyone, all day. It is indoors and out at the same time: a main tent and the City Hall Rotunda for the shopping you do sitting down, wooden vendor huts and a skating rink outside for the shopping you do in a coat. The drop off is the Duke Street entrance at the back of City Hall, which puts you inside it rather than across the square.
Good to know:
We drop you back
The bus returns to the same place it left from, so you go home the way you came.
This is our estimated return time, not a guarantee. Traffic can change it and some trips do run late, so please leave yourself some room afterwards rather than booking something tight against it.
A forest walk and a market, on the same December day.
Pinehurst Lake charges a day use fee to everybody who drives in. Your Parkbus fare covers it, the same as park and conservation area admission is covered on every trip we run.
Admission to the Christkindl Market is free for every age, every day it is open. So the whole day costs you the fare and whatever you decide to eat.
The morning is a forest trail in December and the afternoon is a market you can duck indoors from. Dress for the morning: warm layers, a proper coat, hat and gloves, and boots that do not mind mud, because the first week of December in southern Ontario is as likely to be wet ground as snow.
There is no shop at Pinehurst Lake. Bring your own water, a snack and a thermos if you want one, because the next chance to buy anything is the market.
Pick a fare below. It comes straight from the booking system.
Placeholder dates · the real ones come from our booking system
We're Canada's outdoor bus service. Since 2010 we've taken more than 300,000 people to parks, trails and days out without a car.
A conservation area and a city market are an awkward pair to do in a day by car. They are twenty five minutes apart and we drive between them.
The conservation area charges a day use fee and your fare covers it. The Christkindl Market is free to everyone. Your money goes on food.
Kitchener has run this since 1996. For the anniversary the city has stretched it from one long weekend to two and expects more than a hundred thousand people.
Seventy thousand people came last year in four days. Parking near City Hall that afternoon is somebody else's problem, not yours.
★★★★★ 4.6/5.0 on Google
“This is the 1st time I used Parkbus but it won’t be the last.”Brenda H. · Google
Took a day trip to Algonquin Park with Parkbus. They pick up on Asquith Ave. in the Bloor/Yonge area and have a quick break stop at the Onroute Barrie. All stops enable guests ample time to explore the destination. This is a highly a good idea trip for those that appreciate spending time in nature minus distractions.OnAir48444 · Tripadvisor · Oct 2025
Booked in minutes, had an unreal day in Algonquin, and was home by dinner.Cameron · Happy Parkbus customer
Cancel more than 14 days before departure and you get a 90% refund, with 10% withheld for payment processing. Inside 14 days refunds are not available, except for a medical emergency in the 48 hours before departure, which needs a signed doctor’s note within 14 days of the missed trip and returns 50%. Tickets are transferable: you can change the passenger name up to 48 hours before departure.
If Parkbus cancels a trip, you get a full refund. We decide no later than 48 hours before departure and only on confirmed conditions: the park closed or the park authority asking us to stand down, an evacuation order or alert, an area restriction order, the highway closed, or the trip judged unsafe to run. A forecast is not one of those things, and trips run rain or shine.
We handle the logistics. You handle the adventure.
Not quite the right fit? These all leave from the same spot downtown.
