Saturday, August 18, 2007

Camping Extravaganza

I'm a little late in posting, but here goes.

Last week we got back from camping in Prince Edward County with Rowan, Sarah and Nigel. Plenty of fun to go around, definitely a successful 'trial run'. There's more camping in our future.

Madeleine and I felt that going camping with friends who also have a young child would be a good idea. We ended up doing one group activity/trip per day instead of the three or four destinations Madeleine and I hit each day when we went without kid in tow.

Sleeping in the tent was a nice experience, though Rebecca did usually take an hour or more to get settled, and woke up in the middle of the night a few times.

The campground was definitely far from rustic. It was a commercial campground that catered to families tenting/trailering/RVing. The bathroom facilities were good, and we had water and hydro at our campsite, though we didn't make use of electricity that I noticed. The campground is mainly grass with trees every few campsites for shade. It wasn't crowded at all, and Rebecca spent a good amount of time wandering around exploring with parents shadowing behind a ways.

Here's a shot of mom and toddler in matching beach attire to give you an idea what it looked like:


We went down on Tuesday, stopping for a bite in Picton. We set up camp in the afternoon, and took it easy. There was a little rain that night, but wisely Nigel suggested setting up a tarp over our tents, so we were quite comfortable and dry.

Wednesday Madeleine, Rebecca and I headed out in our awesome Marshall-tandem-trailer-train to go to the County Cider Company. Madeleine and I had been there on our trip down to Prince Edward County last year and enjoyed their wares. I *thought* it was a 10k bike ride, but had dramatically misread the map. It was actually 23, and it was right around 30 degrees, and late morning by the time we left. Needless to say, we were kind of baked by the time we got there. Instead of sampling various ciders Madeleine and I pooped out in the shade, guzzled water, and grabbed one bottle of delicious ice cider for sharing by the campfire later. We turned around and rode a couple kilometers to a marina to have a picnic lunch which was quite decadent.


We got back to the campsite mid afternoon and Nigel and Sarah took Rowan off for a visit with Nigel's grandmother in Whitby. We hung out at the campsite and popped into Picton for dinner by car.

Thursday was a little cooler, but still in the mid to high twenties, so we headed down to Sandbanks Provincial Park to get some sun sand and surf in. Well, the breeze was onshore, so there were absolutely no waves. That being said, we enjoyed another picnic in the sand, relaxing in the sun (and later shade) and Rebecca and Rowan had great fun splashing in the water.

(That's Rebecca in the Chariot, and Madeleine in the Canada chair on the right)

Nigel and I got in the canoe to go annoy the fish by dropping lures in the water near them. They didn't get frustrated enough to bite any of the worms drifting annoyingly past their little fish faces though.

We had a nice campfire Thursday night, with more marshmallows and some ice cider to share.

Friday we were heading home. Nigel and I went for another canoe dip, around peak fishing time. 11am. Erm. Maybe not. Nigel *said* he had poked me in the face repeatedly at 6am. The fact that Rebecca had me up at 3am may have had something to do with me sleeping in. Unsurprisingly, no fish bit that morning either.

We packed up, headed into Picton for lunch, then home, quite exhausted.

All in all, a wonderful camping trip.

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