The weather today was fantastic for the middle of October — warm and sunny, hardly any wind, about 24 degrees Celsius or so — so I decided I had to get out for one last kayak ride before putting them away for the season. There’s a river about 10 minutes from our house, the Mississaugua, that flows down from Kawartha Highlands provincial park into Lower Buckhorn Lake (not to be confused with Mississauga, which is a suburb of Toronto). The river is not long, but since it goes through a park it is quiet and there are tons of birds and deer, and some great hiking trails.
The put-in I chose is not the easiest, but I was determined: I pulled my car over to the side of the road near a bridge and just threw the kayak in a swampy spot by some large rocks and off I went (luckily it’s a molded plastic kayak so I don’t care whether it gets scratched or not). I paddled up the river to the first small rapid, and then turned around and paddled back down the river again and under bridge, then followed its path out to where it joined Lower Buckhorn.
Somewhere deep down, even as I’m enjoying paddling in a T-shirt and shorts at the end of October, I know that this weather is not right. But it is what it is, so I figure I might as well take advantage of it while I can!
