{"id":251958,"date":"2022-05-15T12:48:39","date_gmt":"2022-05-15T12:48:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/?p=251958"},"modified":"2022-05-15T12:48:39","modified_gmt":"2022-05-15T12:48:39","slug":"a-kayak-trip-up-grindstone-creek","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/2022\/05\/15\/a-kayak-trip-up-grindstone-creek\/","title":{"rendered":"A kayak trip up Grindstone Creek"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

I often bring my kayak with me when we go to different places, because there’s almost always a lake or river or creek worth paddling around, and it’s a great way to see different aspects of the places we visit. Last year when we came in the spring, I paddled around a huge wetland called Cootes’ Paradise<\/a> and saw a ton of turtles and hawks and other wildlife. So this past weekend, when we went to our daughter and son-in-law’s place in Ancaster, Ontario \u2014 which is just outside Hamilton \u2014 I looked for a different place nearby where I could take the kayak and see some wildlife and natural scenery. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Hamilton has historically been a pretty industrial city, with a number of giant steel mills that belch smoke as you drive by. But they have tried to make things a little nicer in different ways, and one of those ways is Bayfront Park, which is a lovely park right by the bay (obviously). So I checked out a few sites and one talked about paddling<\/a> from Bayfront across the bay to a creek called Grindstone Creek, which winds its way past the Botanical Gardens and through a wetland area.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I dropped the kayak into the water at the boat launch, and then paddled out of the protected inlet on that side of the park. Once I got out into the open part of the bay, I could see that it was quite windy \u2014 not huge waves, but some whitecaps here and there. So paddling across to the creek entrance by following the shore wasn’t really a great option, since that would mean the waves hitting me broadside.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So I wound up essentially tacking, the way a sailboat would \u2014 paddling at a 35-degree angle or so into the wind. Once I got about halfway across, I turned and paddled down-wind at about the same angle until I hit the mouth of the creek, when the wind died completely. From there it was a calm and peaceful paddle up the creek, through some marshlands, where the city had obviously been trying to create more wetland by setting up low berms \u2014 which I soon noticed were made out of old Christmas trees, which seemed like a fairly brilliant idea.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I paddled for about half an hour or so, as the creek twisted and turned through the marsh. I saw lots of ducks and Canada geese, and a red-tailed hawk, and a bald eagle \u2014 and right near the end of the trip out, I saw a beautiful pair of white swans. I think they must have had a nest nearby, because the male seemed quite antsy and started advancing towards me menacingly. So I spoke softly to him and backed the kayak up and headed back the way I came.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

As it turned out, I had to do the same thing on the way back across the bay \u2014 tacking upwind at an angle and then turning to go downwind. All in all it was a great day, and I really enjoyed exploring the creek and the wetlands. It probably took me about two and a half hours all told, and I would estimate it was about 15 kilometres or so round-trip (it would have been less if it hadn’t been so windy though).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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I often bring my kayak with me when we go to different places, because there’s almost always a lake or river or creek worth paddling around, and it’s a great way to see different aspects of the places we visit. Last year when we came in the spring, I paddled around a huge wetland called … <\/p>\n

Continue reading “A kayak trip up Grindstone Creek”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crsspst_to_mathewingramblogwordpresscom":false,"mf2_syndication":[],"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-251958","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251958","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=251958"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/251958\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=251958"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=251958"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mathewingram.com\/work\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=251958"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}