Kayaking

There is another blog post that I was going to do that leads into this one, but oh well, at the moment I'm more gung ho about doing this one, and since I haven't been very productive in the blogging department, you have to take what you get!

This week we were away at Wyndson Cottage in Oliver BC.  And we had taken kayaks.....I've always wanted to kayak.....at least in my head.  I've only done it once before, many years ago, and loved it.  Anyway, we ended up with a couple of kayaks.

The first full day in Oliver we kayaked around Tuc-el-nuit lake, which is the little lake right on the edge of town.  We take the dogs there to swim, you've seen pictures of them there.  So we took the dogs for a swim first, and checked out the lake conditions.  A bit breezy, but not bad.  Took the dogs back to the house and went back to kayak.  Oops, the wind had picked up some more.  Plus, there were other people there now, and we had to get ourselves into the kayaks and paddle across the wind, and try not to make fools of ourselves.  Thankfully, all went well (our little practice run down at the dog dyke at home had ended with Larry being soaking wet). Then we turned into the wind and it was a tough slog against it until we got to the relative calmness at the other end. Coming back down the other side was much easier, and of course the wind had dropped somewhat.

Anyway, that paddle wasn't quite the idyllic trip I was picturing.  Larry made a suggestion for a second outing, I was a bit apprehensive at first about the location, but am so glad that we took the plunge.  We turned off the pavement and bounced and bucked our way up a gravel road.  Actually it was rocks poking up, channels where water had run through, sand, potholes, we were going no more than 10 km per hour. The kind of road I imaged David and his land rover bunch going out on.  After a lot of uphill we finally made to a beautiful little lake nestled in the tops of the hills. It is called either Burnell or Sawmill lake.

There was just the gentlest of breezes rippling some of the lake.  The only other people there were a couple and young child camped on the other side.  The got into their canoe not long after we arrived and went for a paddle around.

The water was really shallow in spots and so clear.  It creeped me out a bit at first, but I got used to it and found the thick mossy weed on the bottom, fascinating.  Holes in it, like cave entrances for turtles (saw quite a few of those) or fish, of which we saw none.

It's all open range land up there, but the cattle are fenced off from the lake, except in this one spot.  That black blob in the middle is a few head resting in the shade.

Damselflies were everywhere

Some people hope to kayak with whales and dolphins, and it sounds wonderful, but in reality I'd probably be terrified (of the whales at least).  I was more than thrilled with the damselflies and turtles!

It turned out to the the perfect kayaking adventure of my imagination.

I thought the drive back down would be faster, but no, we had to crawl down like we crawled up.

The bonus was the wildlife!  This mother bear and two cubs bolted the instant we appeared.  Then mum stood on her hind legs and looked back at us, and she is just turned to go again in this shot.  Wasn't much time to get a decent picture.

And a bit further down on a side track, a doe was munching on some leaves.

It was wonderful little trip, I'll be thinking fondly about it for a long time.