When you get a weekend with beautiful weather and Ontario Parks opens their parks for day use it’s time to plan a paddling adventure! So with a little planning we decided to go to Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park and paddle a couple of lakes with another family – while making sure we still stayed save and kept our distance of course!
We prepped most of our gear the night before, but we still had to get up early to load the car and head north to Long Lake access point. Once there, we met Johnny, Kelly and Hiker and before long we were paddling down Long Lake towards the portage into Buzzard. Our plan was to find a campsite on Buzzard and have a picnic lunch and maybe even go swimming. It is spring in Ontario, so there were lots of bugs as we headed across the portage, but luckily while paddling they seemed to keep their distance. Once on Buzzard we picked one of the sites that has Easterly exposure to ensure the sun would warm us up after a possible swim.
Once we arrived at the site it didn’t take long for Johnny to dive in and swim. Well, with someone in the water that fast my competitive nature kicked in and I got ready to go as well. Let me tell you, it’s a good thing that this site had a good slope into the water for shallow diving as I probably would not have gone in otherwise. The water was crisp to say the least! However, it was nice as the bugs didn’t really bother us in the water.
There were lots of laughs and it felt like a normal situation again to be chatting with other adults as we have not had much opportunity in the past few months to do this. After many hours of chilling on the shores of this campsite we headed back to the car.
I know I was a happy lady being able to get outside and paddle and I hope there are more gatherings like this soon. I really miss my outdoor community!! Thank you Johnny, Kelly and Hiker for coming along, we all really enjoyed the company.
I know how you feel about having conversation with other people again….I miss that. It was great just being able to do it with all the family around on Sunday. I notice in the pic that Hayden’s arms and legs look so much longer. Have you measured him lately? Anyway, have a wonderful summer with lots of outdoor fun <3