Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Charleston Lake getaway

Checking out Mud Bay

This was our last camping trip for the summer holidays. Short but sweet. Weather was great and we even had a surprise guest stay with us on the first night.

Amber is her name and she is damn cute. She's an 8 week old cross between a Golden Retriever and a Golden Lab. This little creature is a chick magnet... ok ok, truth be told it was a people magnet as nobody seemed to be able to resist stopping for a chat and chance to pet the puppy.

Amazingly she slept right through the night without one single peep. Not surprising since the girls ran her ragged all afternoon and wore her out.

Amber

Needless to say we were all very sad to see her leave the next day but somebody (need I say who?) had to get back and cut the grass.

Since the trip was only a short 3 nights we decided to leave the canoe at home and do some hiking for a change. Sunday we hiked the short Quiddity Trail to the lookout and Saturday we hiked part of the 10km Tallow Bay Trail.

Here are some of the sites and creatures spotted along the trail.

The camouflaged butterfly.
Butterfly camouflaged Butterfly un-camouflaged
Green tree frog
Green frog
Group shot on top of Quiddity Trail lookout Bullfrog

I often see these unique white berries along the trails. This time I decided to look them up on the Internet and see what they were all about. White Baneberry or "Doll's Eyes" is the name of them and apparently they are extremely poisonous - 5 or 6 will make you seriously ill, more could cause cardiac arrest and death. SGD, that's good to know.

Doll's Eyes
White Baneberry aka Doll's Eyes

We spent a fair bit of time searching our usual hiding spots for snakes. To the dismay of some (but not necessarily all) we came up empty handed.

Crossing the boardwalk at Slim Bay.
Crossing Slim Bay
Spider eats dragonfly Dragonfly rescue

Sunset on the beach... actually we missed sunset but the afterglow was still worth a photo or two.

Charleston Lake sunset

On the last day when we were heading out of the park when we (again) bumped into our old friends the Tardioli's and their three boys. We quickly changed our plans and headed back down to the beach for a couple more hours so we could chat and watch the kids knock each other in the head with pool noodles. Good times.

Also of note, we bumped into my friend and fellow curler Lessie (aka Mike). He was soaking up some rays with his 28 friends and family. Quite the gathering.

No comments: