Day trip: Kawartha Highlands - Wolf to Crab Lake - September 16, 2014

Tuesday, the kids had to be at school early so Chris and I got an early start, hoping we'd get to actually have a more relaxing paddle.  It turned out we got home ten minutes after the bus, and the kids had freaked out a little, but they were fine.

We'd originally planned to paddle down Long lake to Loucks, then to Cox and check out Secret Lake.  Chris decided it was too far (and it would have been) so we then decided on Wolf to Crab.  We'd done this before to do a geocache when the kids were little, and didn't remember much beyond them complaining they were bored in the canoe.  Then we thought maybe we'd paddle around Silent Lake since we have a season's pass for Ontario Parks, but then changed our minds back to Wolf...then thought we could try Anstruther to Copper...so we got to the Anstruther access and the wind was crazy.   No way were we going to paddle that lake in heavy wind again, so we headed back to Wolf.

The paddle was against the wind, but the waves were nowhere near as bad as on Anstruther.  It took us nearly an hour to get to the end of the lake where the portage is...of course we stopped and checked out one of the campsites on Wolf first, and decided it was a nice site, other than the fact there are a fair few cottages on the lake.

The portage to Crab is pretty easy.  Only 140m and mostly flat.  There's rocks and roots to watch for, but nothing too difficult.

We had the wind at our back as we looked for a spot to stop and eat lunch, deciding to go into one of the bays to get a bit of shelter from the wind so our water would boil faster for tea.  I'd planned to make soup, but we realized we didn't have time.  I didn't even get to take any pictures.

While we were eating, we kept hearing what sounded like heavy footsteps in bushes behind us.  It turned out to be acorns falling on a log, but after hearing about two bear attacks in Haliburton in about 2 weeks, I was a little on edge.

We had to paddle hard to get back home, and naturally, once we got back on to Wolf, the wind had stopped gusting so much so we didn't get much help from Mother Nature.   We would have made it home on time, except every car we got behind was going at least 10 under the limit!  With no passing opportunities, we had to wait for them to turn off onto other roads...then we'd get up to speed, and within a minute, come up behind someone else going 70.  It was really frustrating.  Still, a nice day out in the canoe.