We've been planning a Victoria Day canoe trip for weeks, and when the weather forecast for our intended trip turned to rain for Saturday and Sunday (when we planned to return), I kept packing. When a frost warning was added to the rain, I kept packing. When the 70 km/hr winds were added to the forecast - and later a possible thunderstorm, I turned into a princess. It's been a tough week with bedtimes after 2 a.m. Even though I have the gear for it, and even though it's always nice to be out in nature, I just didn't look forward to spending hours in a tent with two wet 70 lb dogs while the trees outside threatened to blow down on us. 'Bent was surprisingly easy to convince...
Since today was the day with the best weather forecast, we decided to paddle the Nottawasaga River north of Alliston. It's only 40 minutes away, but somehow we've never paddled it except for ESAR 2007. It's actually quite nice!
We thought of it as a big farm country river in a deep, forested valley with minimal current - and we were correct, except for the current part. It quickly became clear that we'd better not go too far before turning around, since we estimated that it would take 3 times as long to go upstream.
The best place for a dog in our canoe is in the bow ahead of me. But we have two big dogs, so one of them sits ahead of the stern paddler at the widest part of the canoe, shifting her significant weight from one side of the boat to another to follow new smells and keep us on our toes. This was Bulletdog's turn in the middle.
And here was Thunderdog's shift. You can tell that she is the more experienced canoeist because she uses a PFD.
Some people don't know that trees have spring colours as well as autumn colours.
We stopped for lunch on one of the many beaches. The dogs had a fantastic time! (This trip was more for them than us.)
We went for a short hike, and there were beautiful ferns everywhere.
One of the highlights was paddling under a railway bridge while a double-decker train went over. Thunderdog, who ironically is afraid of thunder, was not pleased about that.
When the time came to turn around, it took a little more than twice the time to paddle back upstream. I wished that I had my GPS to settle the debate between 'Bent and me as to whether we were going faster against the stronger current in deeper water or in shallower, slower water close to the shore where we couldn't dig our paddles in properly. When we hit some Class 1 water near where we started, we were paddling as hard as we could, but making little progress. We finally pulled out about 50 meters short of where we started rather than fight the last little bit. Fun afternoon! And the pooches were totally worn out by the time we got back to the van. Yahoo - it's a bit like having energetic toddlers in the house; it's great when we can tire them out.