Just over five minutes away from our house is
Dow's Lake. It's not really a natural "lake" but the widest spot on the Rideau canal, which runs through Ottawa.
Fun fact: it was created in the 19th century when a dam was constructed along the north shore. Even more fun: in the spring and summer there are boat rentals available, including paddle boats, standup paddle boards and kayaks. Now if you're an innocent tourist you're probably going to gravitate towards the paddle boats. Don't be fooled! Paddle boats are clumsy, almost oafish vehicles that are very hard to steer. Worse, I find the wind is often at your back when you take your boat out. That means the trip back to the rental shop is against the wind that takes twice as long as the ride out.
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| Anchors away! |
Go for the kayaks! These sleek vehicles allow you to glide across the water without much effort at all. That's what we took out this past weekend. The weather was perfect for a boat ride and surprisingly, there wasn't any line to rent them so we were able to get on the water pretty quickly. The safety instructions definitely didn't slow us down: "have you ridden a kayak before? Yes? Here's your paddle".
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| Lots of scruffy hair on the water these days! |
Even with a kayak it was a bit tough to get our boats back within the one hour time slot but Margot was in a great mood and sang songs from
The Greatest Showman to boost our spirits and give us energy. We made it back with minutes to spare.
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