Thursday 11 September 2008

Gatineau and lakes

After the late night at the light show on Sunday the boys finally gave us a bit of a lie in on Monday morning, but having put off packing 'till the morning I ended up being up before Peter, Joseph and even Luke!

We were heading into the wilderness, over the river and back into Quebec heading north-west to a campsite at Lac Phillipe in the Gatineau Park. The journey was fairly short and straightforward and we booked into an almost deserted campsite before lunch. We chose a nice shaded spot on our vast pitch to keep the tent cool and had the tent up in no time. We took our packed lunch down to the lakeside and the boys enjoyed a quick swim in the lake (pictured below). Luke started us off by going in fully clothed, I followed up fully unclothed (I did mention that it was deserted) before Nicola went back for everyone's bathers.

Day 2 was not so good, the weather had broken on the first night and it rained on and off most of the day. We fitted in a drive and a few short walks, but it was the sort of day made for reading and doing Peter's school lessons. The rain finally stopped in the evening, but overnight the temperature plunged into single figures leaving us huddling together in one room of the tent to keep warm. Wednesday morning remained cold, with the shady spot picked to keep the sun off suddenly seeming a bad idea. A pancake breakfast and cup of tea lifted spirits a little before we headed down to find the playpark bathed in warm sunshine.

After breaking camp and checking the weather forecast (6 degrees C overnight) we have decided to alter our route and miss out camping further north in Algonquin park. Instead we headed down towards Lake Ontario (passing several hundred other lakes en route). The journey took most of the afternoon (partly due to a 25km stretch of "unpaved" road north of Gatineau). We have found a small motel in Belleville (between Kingston and Toronto) which has a great view over the Bay of Quinte (which is almost part of lake Ontario). Tomorrow we head west and will get our first glimpse of Lake Ontario, our first "Great Lake". Camping may have to wait a few day unless the warm weather returns.

Facebook photos are here, enjoy.

Dave

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

Hi glad to see you are all having a great time. Its a bit of a drive and in another country and another lake, to a place at the other end of lake Erie caled Kelly's Island, our friends Son was a life gaurd there for two summers and he said it was a great place.Are the leaves turning now that it is getting colder? Take care