There is a outdoor pool/minigolf/gokarting place near here called the Earl Haig Family Fun Park. It's got this one thing called the Lazy River, which his basically a long, meandering pool with a bit of a current in it. The idea is that you appropriate some sort of floatation device and then drift...
Got the worst sunburn of my life doing that...
Anyway, Bean and I decided at some point that we were going to do something similar, only with the real river. The Grand River. It's not especially deep by us - in fact, if it gets over five feet then there's something to be said - but it is rather wide. Lot of history bound up in that river too, but I won't get into it.
So, Bean and I hit up Walmart. We got cheap air mattresses, of the sort that go in a pool, I got a hat, and then, yesterday, we hit the river.
We also almost hit a bridge abutment, but more about that later.
We took along a waterproof disposable camera. There's still three pictures left on the damn thing, and both of us are broke, so we likely won't get it developed any time soon. Took me back, though...it's been a long time since I've had to actually suppress my picture-taking instincts and keep track of the number of pictures I've used. Digital photography has spoiled me.
We went up river a bit to a good spot to get into the water, blew up our air mattresses (this took a while, but we've got lungs of steel), and then proceeded to proove to a couple of very small children that their elders don't necessarily know better by marching into the river with inflatables and then climbing on and drifting away.
It was awesome. The river wasn't too cold, the air mattresses held, I could scull easily enough with my hands to keep myself steady, and - best of all, it was relaxing. Saw a turtle on a rock, a Blue Heron standing there and being all noble, geese, ducks...
Current picked up as we got closer to the Lorne Bridge, but we expected that. We tried to aim for the middle of the bridge, but the current had other ideas, and it very quickly became apparent that a) it was quite shallow here and b) faster than we thought it was and then - c) there was no way to avoid the massive, concrete bridge abutment that didn't involve jumping off the air mattresses and digging in our heels.
So we did that, and lived to tell the tale. Laughed ourselves silly because it was better than freaking out, and then we got up, fought against the current to smoother waters, got back on the air mattresses, and continued on our way.
...and then got stuck when the water got especially shallow, so we took a detour. We were still really nervous about the next bridge (there are three in quick succession, the second two left over from the days of the rail ways and the canal that no longer is. These second two are the bridges we make a go of speed walking over when we work out.) so we went around it.
Our detour took us past the second bridge and a little away from it. We found somewhere to get back down to the water's edge and then spent a good twenty minutes climbing through high grasses, fallen trees, branches, bits of plant, and uneaven ground to actually get close to the waters edge.
Mercifully, we didn't pop our air mattresses on errant twigs.
The trip went much more smoothly from here on. The water was deeper, and calmer and we were able to avoid the family of Canada Geese before we went under the third bridge. Went past another bridge (this one's the Brant Southern Access Route, or Useless Pain In The Ass Highway That Connects New Development Land With The Rest Of The World), and...it was nice. Quiet. Saw more Herons, more geese, untold numbers of dragonflies...heard song birds etc.
Athena kept insisting that we'd get out at the next bridge, except that there isn't a 'next bridge' for a very long way. Eventually, we paddled our way over to the side of the river and got out.
Of course, we had to pick the one spot where we couldn't see the path we were aiming at. We had passed what had used to be the Gilkison Flats (I think), were I can remember there being people picnicking and bbqing and stuff, but (after the tail end of Hurricane Andrew made the river flood in 1992) became less public park and more reclaimed forest with a bike path through it.
I directly encountered a stining nettle plant. This did not amuse me. We also got govered with bugs and had to fight our way to the path by trying not to step in a fridgid, smelly run-off stream that reeked of poo. But we got back to the path in the end. Dried off on the way back home. Got looked at because we were soaking wet and carrying flaming pink, clear, pool air mattresses, and I was wearing a giant bucket hat, but we weren't given to caring because it was awesome.
Everyone should give it a go!
So...moral of the story: avoid bridge abutments. Next time, we're going to get in on the other side of the Lorne Bridge. >:)
