Wellesley Island camping trip

This year was our first time camping on Wellesley Island. The park is located on a large island in the St. Lawrence Seaway just off the Hill Island border crossing - conveniently located between Ottawa and our friends in Bowmanville.

We arrived to find our site located in a grass field well away from the river but also far enough away from the monster sized motorhomes with their patio lanterns and noisy air condition units. While a nice open field is great for soccer and frisbee it is not the best for setting up rain tarps. Luckily the McMullans were only a day behind us with their large dining tent but in hindsight we had nothing but sunshine for our entire stay.

We swam, we paddled (while the McMullans motored in their new "canoe"), we fished, we bbq'd, and we kept ourselves hydrated. We faired well with only one incident where Steve managed to hook his thumb after releasing a wee rock bass. Unfortunately the hook was buried deep and they opted to call the day short so they could boat back to the park and cross back over into Canada to go to the hospital. The fear of racking up a US medical bill is enough for any Canadian to make the slightly less-feared US-CAN (and then CAN-US) border crossing. Some hours, some freezing, and some stitches later, Steve and Rhonda rejoined our group for the late night fire.

Here are some pics of our week's adventures... oh, and as for the pic at the top? Well that has gone viral on Tumblr - no idea how it made it to Tumblr in the first place but such is this crazy Internet thing. For those of you interested, here is the background on the photo. We had just headed out for the day when we stopped to check out a view of the St. Lawrence. The spot also seemed to be a good time for a group photo for the annual McMullan-vanTol calendar so I set up my camera on the hood of the Jeep. I took a moment to level it out and after a couple of test shots I hit the timer and ran back to the group. As per usual there is always one in the group (or all) that opt to make a funny face or close their eyes so I quickly reviewed the shot only to find that somebody had lifted their leg and and and well the rest is history now. And no, for the record Rhonda had no clue what her husband Steve was doing when she kicked up her leg. That's what makes it priceless. Cheers folks.

Mad Cabin camp out

Realizing that we had a free night coming up in our schedule we quickly scrambled to make a booking at the infamous Mad Cabin. This is by far our favourite little riverside getaway on the Madawaska River owned and operated by our friends the Neills.

Friday around supper, we loaded up the van (with enough gear to stay a week) and then zipped out to Kanata to pick up Maddie who had been spending the last few days at Grandma and Grandpa's luxury spa and retreat. Finally we were off to Burnstown... well, technically not "Burnstown proper", more like country-living Burnstown. A subtle difference often overlooked by non-Burnstownies.



We arrived around 6pm to warm greetings (though Charlie's were a little wet) and monster hugs before making our way down the hill to the river cabin. Funny sometimes how life's everyday luxuries - hydro, flush toilets, clean underwear - are often the very things you leave behind when trying to rejuvenate the soul with Mother Nature.



Saturday's breakfast of fresh bread, scrambled eggs, and sausage was gobbled up in no time. The rest of the day was spent relaxing on one of the enormous tire tubes or paddling in the handcrafted canoe.





Good times and yet another trip ending in heartfelt promises to visit more often - promises we too often let slip as time chews away at our lives.

Sunsets and snakepits at Achray

After a couple of weeks back at the office it was time for our annual camping trip to Achray in Algonquin Park.

The kids were especially excited as they remember this getaway to be a snake catcher's dream. Together they caught nearly 50 snakes (some were caught more than once). Surprisingly this year there were more water snakes caught than garters. The largest one by far was a monster northern water snake measuring about 4 1/2 feet long.



Most of our week was spent paddling, fishing, catching snakes, and dodging rain storms. For the most part our weather was great - sunny and low 20's. We did have one downpour on the first night that flooded out some of our fellow campers but we were high and dry in our tent trailer. Suckas!

A hike and a paddle

This past weekend started off with a solo hike through a far west corner of Gatineau Park. The sun was out and the weather was plenty warm reaching 27°C. Luckily the hike brought me to a nice little lake where I could strip down and take a dip and then kick back with a pint of Grolsch. I can't think of a better way to bring in the fall season.





Sunday we took off to Murphy's Point Provincial Park to get some paddling in.



It was another great weather day. We canoed around the Big Rideau dogging speed boats and bobbing over waves before settling on one of the interior campsites for some wiener roasting.



And of course there was some swimming followed by the traditional snake and frog hunt. Making memories...