Our day started relatively early after hosting dinner for 20 the night before. With the house cleaned up and the car packed for our trip we headed off to Kingston Mills for the beginning of our adventure.

We actually woke up much earlier than expected with a violent thunderstorm. Glad to have that out of its system before we started!

We were able to park our car at a campground just north of the 401. Our second car is with my brother David in Smith’s Falls where he’ll retrieve us whether we make it all the way to Ottawa, or other parts unknown!

The first couple of days of our trip were forecast to be rainy with chance of a thunderstorm. Not the way you want to start a trip, but we weren’t given a choice. As Dan says, there’s nothing such thing as bad weather, just bad clothing!

Our objective for the day was Upper Brewers Locks. A beautiful spot (with fabulous Canada Parks otentik which were booked!). This would make our day 1 paddle about 18km.

The wind, what little there was, was at our back, and the promised rain did not arrive! We made it to Lower Brewers locks in just over 2 hours. We portaged around the locks and then stopped for our lunch. Lovely grounds around each of the locks with full washroom facilities…yea!

Notice above one of the oldest rotating bridges in Canada! All manually operated by the locks attendants.

Back on the water we only had about 4 km to go to get to our destination. Once there, we felt fresh enough to continue, as we were worried that day 2 might see the rain! With favourable winds and weather we paddled on to Brass Point Bridge where we decided to camp at a campground on the east shore. ( the Knapps Campground looked a little overcrowded for our liking!)

Dan and I stopped at the Rideau Summerland campground and searched for the owner, who wasn’t going to be returning until 5:30. By 6, with no owner in sight, we decided to take matters into our own hands and set up on a spot. A lovely view, and lovely clean campground, our tidy setup worked perfectly, and we rewarded ourselves with a swim at the end of our long hot and humid journey.

We had our dinner near the main building and met several of the permanent residents as they came to check us out! Quite welcoming actually!

Well around 9, the mosquitoes decided to pay us a visit and so we headed back to our tent and settled in for an early night!