Monday, August 31...first full day

Aunty B hadn't arrived yet - she had to write an exam on Sunday night (ACK! Thanks to the strike at York U.) - she was due in the evening so we amused ourselves for the day.....

Starting with the inaugural boat ride. After a rather steep learning curve for B on the intricacies of the outboard motor (in his defence, he was given conflicting information from our lovely hosts) we were out for a tour of the river....
Yup -- we had a heap load of fun....learning that loons are much bigger than we thought...
...found lots of little coves and inlets that were to become the future fishing hot-spots.
But mostly we just enjoyed the views and the wind in our hair....


With views like this - how could we not?
In the afternoon we decided to venture out to the nearby French River Provincial Park to do a spot of hiking. After much confusion and wrong directions -Grandma had to practically beat the information out of two nice ladies at a roadside restaurant (the official visitor center was closed and looked like it had been for about fifty years) - we found it. There was one trail that looked short enough to fit our schedule...a trail out to Recollet Falls...a little blip in the smoothness of the river which evidently gave the early Voyageurs a spot of trouble....

But first -- the quite fabulous, if not extremely terrifying -- snowmobile bridge. Grandma took the pics as I was fighting the urge to lie down and sob...it bears a close resemblance to a bridge in a recurring nightmare of mine...I did very well at not transforming into a babbling idiot in front of the children...
Nice view...in retrospect...
The highway across the river...

On to the Falls....a rather boggy trail - we had to do much avoiding of mud and muck and had our first experience with the very shallow root systems of the trees in the area....despite the mud and wetness, there were NO mosquitoes! Which is good, because I am loathe to douse the kids in pesticides and decided to tempt fate and come unprepared...
Lots of photo-ops to add to our Fungus Collection....

Regrettably - I had a camera incident halfway through the hike - lesson learned - don't buy the cheapie batteries...and Grandma had forgotten her camera so there are no pics of the Falls -- it was actually more of a chute (having Niagara as our frame of reference for waterfalls) but very beautiful, nonetheless...

And you can't just pop out to the corner store for batteries around these parts - mostly because there are no corner stores -- so that's the lot for today.