The Great Outdoors - Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park Trip

I don't think that we could have asked for a better Victoria Day long weekend for any activities. The weather was in the high 20s/low 30s the whole weekend. The skies were perfectly blue, almost cloudless. It wasn't until late on Monday evening that it clouded over and we got a little rain. 

I'm also pretty sure that Tim picked the best place ever for the two of us to go camping. He booked a site on Cold Lake in Kawartha Highlands Provincial Park, only an hour north of Peterborough. 

The view of Cold Lake from our campsite

The parking lot for canoe access is at the Catchacoma Narrows - you go north through Buckhorn on Highway 36 and then turn right going north on Highway 507. At Beaver Lake Road, take a right and stay on this road until you see a little parking lot down and to the right - it's just before the bridge. If you've gone over the bridge, turn back. You can see the canoe launch point just south of the bridge on the west shore. Parking here is pretty adequate - it can probably fit fifteen vehicles. 

Tim packing . . . and packing . . . and more packing . . . stuff into the canoe

This water body is the Catchacoma Narrows. You want to head south from here and then east into Gold Lake. Hug the shoreline south and you'll make it into the park itself and into Cold Lake. 

On our way to the campsite!

Comforting myself through the endless paddle with the thought of rippling arm muscles . . . or at least of losing the little jiggly part near the front of my armpit.

This is an absolutely beautiful paddle. Up until Cold Lake these are cottage lakes. You'll pass by lots of friendly cottagers sitting on their docks, usually having a drink or listening to music. There are also lots of boats, so be prepared for a few wakes. It took us about an hour of fairly easy paddling to reach our campsite on Cold Lake. I think there are six campsites on this lake and they all looked absolutely beautiful. These campsites are reservation only, so make sure you go online to register. The wardens did come around on Sunday to check our paperwork, so have that on you as well. 

I loved our campsite!

Since we went up on Saturday, we took that first day pretty easy. Although I put on sunscreen once we got to the site, the paddle out did bad things to my translucently pale Dutch skin. I am SO sunburned. This campsite gets a lot of sun. It's on a decently sized island, so you can head back into the trees, but that's where all the mosquitoes are. We set up camp, did a bit of light (unsuccessful) fishing, played Connect 4, read on the rocks, went swimming (Tim did . . . I dipped my toes and then quickly retreated), made dinner. It was incredibly relaxing and we both couldn't help continually exclaiming over how perfect it was. I would have loved to be a fly on the wall: "It's so beautiful out here!" Ten minute pause. "This is the best camping site!" Ten minute pause. "Can you believe how beautiful it is out here?" 

LOVE!

The hammock may have required special manoeuvering to get both of us in, but it was pretty cozy once we figured it out!

 Tim trying his luck at the campsite. We could see tonnes of fish, mostly rock bass, but no bites.

Hammock love!

Reading by the fire!

We went to bed as soon as the sun went down on Saturday night, and then were up early Sunday to enjoy the full day. And it really was a full day!! We went swimming first thing in the morning and Tim laughed like a crazy person once I finally mustered up the courage to jump in. I came up gasping and spluttering - the water was lung-clenchingly cold!! We made breakfast and relaxed for a bit before packing up a lunch to take to Cox Lake. Tim was excited to take me on my first real portage (apparently beaver dams and fallen logs do not count). If you paddle to the southeastern tip of Cold Lake, you'll find the portage trail to Cox Lake. I do not recommend you do this with an 80 lb canoe. I felt so bad for Tim lugging that monster up the trail, through the woods, and then back down into the lake! It was only 1km, but it was super buggy. He laughed at me and said that there are much worse portages than that, but I don't want to picture them!

The lake was so still in the morning that you could see the infinitesimally slow movement of the pollen. 

Even getting this much of my body to accept the freezing cold was hard!

Out of bed and into the hammock!

*gasp* Drinking and canoeing? Shock!

Cox Lake is another beautiful little lake with a few campsites on it. We ran into a couple who were fishing and they said they had caught a nice sized lake trout right close to shore. We hadn't brought any of our fishing equipment with us to Cox, so we just paddled to a nice unoccupied campsite. Tim went swimming, we played Scrabble Slam (like all Scrabble-related games, Tim murdered me), had a beautiful lunch, read Explore magazine, then headed back. We managed the portage better the second time, but I still felt horrible for Tim having to carry that canoe. We remembered to gather a bunch of firewood along the portage trail, so when we got back Tim had to wash the canoe out. We both napped after that for a while.

I like his form.

Camping lunch of champions - crostini, brie, maple ice jelly, and Guinness for Tim!

Ugh. Portaging.

Tim washing out the canoe? Tim using the canoe as a bath tub? Tim just sinking?

Sunday evening Tim really wanted to get out fishing, so we headed back to the south end of Cold Lake, only we went west this time into Cloudy Lake. Matt had told Tim that this was absolutely the best fishing around. Cloudy Lake is pretty small and has a very interesting approach. You go through this beautiful marsh and then over - literally - ten beaver dams. They're all small dams, but really . . . It was a bit ridiculous. It's a good thing I'm not scared of snakes, either, because when I was getting out of the canoe onto one of the dams I almost stepped on the biggest water snake we saw all weekend. It was as big around as my wrist and was probably three or four feet long. Thank goodness for Canada and our lack of poisonous snakes! Once we were into Cloudy, though, it was fabulous. The fishing was wonderful. I got two bass before my line hopelessly snarled (I *told* Tim I needed to respool my rod!) and I gave up in favour of taking pictures of every minute movement of Tim's. There is also a bunch of video that I'll have to go through. Tim wasn't having quite the luck that I was until I made him use the lure he had given me. It was this little floaty frog with a big double lip on the front to make it jerk back and forth as if injured as you reeled it in. We had a great time watching bass strike that from below! I loved watching how intent Tim was while he fished - he usually isn't big into focusing on one thing at a time. 

Entering the marsh to get to Cloudy Lake

The winding trail of beaver dams

Finally past the last beaver dam!

Tim finding the perfect fishing spot.

Tim's first catch, which required on shore retrieval.

Tim's first in the water catch!

How I won the first Stephenson-Rollwagen fishing derby!

After I caught that fish, Tim got really serious and stopped talking. Tim? Competitive? No!

Tim's largest catch - love the enthusiasm!

The sun was already below the tree tops when we started to head back, but we managed to make it through the beaver dams with only a little snapping at one another. Once we were back in open water I let Tim fish while I very slowly (more laziness than consideration, really) paddled us back into Cold Lake. It was almost 9:00 pm by that point, so we made dinner and then sat around the fire. I had my only real freakout moment of the trip while trying to stuff the chicken - so many mosquitoes!! Dinner was wonderful and then we just sat around the fire until REALLY late. I was tired and not planning on that, but Tim and I both seemed to be loving just sitting around with the rum, talking and singing. Oddly, I can remember the most lyrics from Randy Travis' 'Deeper Than the Holler', while Tim's best recollected song is Tenacious D's 'F*** Her Gently'. Brutal . . . 

My fire! First try, with a BROKEN match. So proud of myself. 

The next morning we were up early as well. Another early morning swim for Tim, then breakfast. A lot of lazing around camp before we packed up and headed back to the car. I found the paddle back a LOT harder than the paddle in, probably because I was a little dehydrated, a little hungover, and a bit sore from all the physical activity. When we got back to the launch area, it seemed like everything that could go wrong did! I was so nauseous from motion sickness, Tim swore that we had left his phone at the campsite, and the battery in the Element was completely dead. Luckily a really nice couple from Toronto were just pulling in to check out the access point for future trips and they gave us a boost. I'm actually really glad we met them - they are avid campers and canoeists and Tim had a great discussion with them about campsites they had been to. They even recommended we check out their camping club, the Wilderness Adventurers of Ontario. We also found Tim's cell phone in the bottom of my bag when we got back to my place, so everything worked out just fine!

Last morning at the campsite!

Probably my best camping trip ever!