Day 9 – The day the sun arrived. Mummy is still not 100% but she is fighting it. We decided to take a short 20min trip to Doncaster Park to see the river and attack a couple of trails.
Today (weather wise) was absolutely the best day so far, it’s probably 24° and it’s hot with a cool breeze. It looks and feels like a different place when it’s hot here, it reminded us of the trip to Atlanta.
The man on the desk asked us where are you from? London, England. Oh, I know, The Clash and can I ask you a question. Does it rain for 8 months of the year? Well…kinda. So it’s like the song it’s raining men, but replace men with all the time. Yes…
We moved on and took a look at the trail maps, Daddy had researched and knew there is a special trail (Number 9) which is 369m UP and 1.1km LONG and provides a 360 view across the park.
The park is also on the site of an old hydroelectric dam, built using wooden pipes, that was demolished in the 1970s.
We decided to start with the short trail 4 and then if we (Mummy) felt up for it, to try and hit 9 before it gets too hot.
Before we got going we saw a red squirrel in the tree who wasn’t bothered about our presence in the slightest.
Daddy asked him to pose for a photo please.
The trail was an interesting a mix of tree roots, rocks and a calm little river. The boys enjoyed jumping on the large stones and doing spin jumps.
Another thing that was ever present today were the flies and we mean, lots of flies. If you are moving it’s fine, but as soon as you stop, a swarm of ten or twenty are around you. Nate crafted a fly swatting stick to get rid of them. It’s when they decide to go under your sunglasses and into your eyes, or in your mouth that they have crossed a line.
So we decided to hike the 396m to the top view, good idea / bad idea? It was tough, but we kept thinking about the quote “Everyone wants the view, but nobody wants the climb”. The boys did really well, they pushed on and we got this view.
We met two hikers at the top who spoke broken English and told us how beautiful this park was and that we should visit Val-Davide (add that to the list) they even managed to get a half decent photo of the team.
This was in between fly swatting and eating apples. We headed back round the loop and decided to attack trail 2 that runs alongside the river.
The river started out like this
And morphed as we climbed higher and higher into a powerful river.
The trail is not very accessible as it’s lots of giant rocks and boulders, then jumping over muddy sections onto more rocks. The boys had a field day pretending to play Ninjago on the rocks.
The river splits and gets more powerful as you climb, we saw a few fisherman and a few other people, but it was mainly just us.
Power.
Even more power.
Couldn’t help myself.
The beautiful family.
Also this one.
Much better than Centre Parcs rapids.
We ended with a couples shoot, courtesy of Nathaniel. You can’t see the beads of sweat pouring from Daddy’s head, but all he was thinking was, just don’t drop the phone in the river Nate!
The boys enjoyed the rock hopping and getting some great photos. Unfortunately, Mummy wasn’t feeling that great towards the end so we called it a day.
The boys.
We got back and decided it was such a nice day that a BBQ had to be conducted. The boys went in search of meat while Mummy rested up. Elliott saw a dog wearing light blue sunglasses.
The boys were happy too, giant burgers with halloumi cheese.
The sun was starting to set and the boys were chilling. Mummy came out with “let’s take the pedalo out” Elliott wasn’t interested but Nate was straight in there.
They ended up getting amazing photos.
We decided that as tomorrow is going to be very nice again, we need to seize the opportunity and head to Montreal. We can hit the tourist spots in the sunshine. Another day of memories made.
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