Whiny Trails

A week alone with four-year-old J opened up the possibility of a quick overnight camping trip. So we loaded up the car and headed to the nearby Gatineau Hills for a classic early camping experience.

Pros:

Thirty minutes from home. Cheap. Plenty of empty campsites. Lots of water sources and toilet blocks. Two lakeside beaches nearby.  J immediately makes a new friend from the neighbouring campsite (see above, with glow sticks). This completely solves the issue of keeping her entertained.

Cons:

Noise. Late in the evening a pick-up truck of lads pulls in. The boys buy half a dozen bags of firewood and promptly set three ablaze in their firepit, plastic bags and all, and proceed to party loudly until the early hours. Peace reigns briefly until the baby next door wakes for his 6:30 am feed. J sleeps through it all. Still, one night sufficient for mama bear who recovers somewhat after two cups coffee.

The whistling kettle from my own family’s camping trips ca. 1975. Still works great.

Overall the trip is tough to rate. Somewhere between 2 and 3 smiley faces. I’d like to take away a star for the noise issue but I’ll add one for one-on-one time with J and the pleasure of meeting some really nice people.

Rating:  ☺☺☺

Are ages four and six too young to go to sleep-away camp? Well yes… and no.

Our local girl guide chapter offers a Mummy and Me camp for their youngest members. And mum can bring along a younger sibling for a nominal fee. So we gave it a try.

Camp Woolsey in Ottawa’s west end has been in business for over 70 years. It’s a basic camp, but it has all the ingredients of a geniune Canadian summer: flag raising, bunkbeds, canoes, crafts, songs, and campfires.

Kids loved it. Highlights included s’mores, archery, painting one another with clay from the riverbed, energetic leadership from the counsellors, and late nights to bed. A wonderful introduction to summer camp.

The lowlights? Poison ivy. They warned there was lots of it. The kids were spared thank goodness but Kim reckons she ended up with the urushiol on her shoe, then sat cross-legged and got some on the backs of her legs. Itchy go scratchy.

Rating:  ☺☺☺☺(- 1 for poison ivy)