Gorged!

Adventure abounds. . . I’m writing this entry in word to protect myself from the travesty that is the ‘select all’ function when it jumps up and bites you in the ass. So my parents bought my mom a new TDI Golf, which is awesome. They decided to give me the old Golf, which I didn’t want at first, but I gave in. So the first order of business was to get a roof rack for that beast, which we did. The second order of business was to put my boat on it, which I did. The third order of business was to put our 16’ 4” boat in our living room, where we thought it would easily fit, and it barely fits. But it looks awesome in our house. Of course the fourth order (I’m starting to lose track) of business was to take that bitch for a spin! So running on some tenuous rumours and a weaker memory of a scouting run I did last year, Pipes and I headed to Elora to check out the gorge. My scouting run consisted of looking off the bridge and going “Yep, that’s the gorge”. “Water looks low. . .” So off we headed to the Elora mill restaurant and found some free parking across the river from it. We got looks from hikers and so forth as we portaged through town and down to the river, past the waterfall. Then we had our picture taken a few times as we warmed up in the washout of said waterfall. The Elora Mill restaurant has a balcony high above the river in that spot. So after working the bugs out and some optimistic comments about our paddling and the hot sunny weather we were having, Pipes and I gave ‘er. We laughed all the way. It felt good to be back in a boat, with someone who knew what they were doing, no less. Derek rocked the bow while I worked the stern. It was fun to get out and scout, as we had no maps. We had to be extra anal about the whole thing cause the sun was going down in our faces, and many times all we saw was a drop in altitude as the river wound elusively around a corner away from us. The rapids were great. CII to CII tech, with the tech coming from the fact that there were some inconveniently placed boulders, and then there’s always the river washing against the canyon wall as it takes a turn. We kept looking around in disbelief that we were in a gorge, 15 minutes from Guelph no less! Very odd feeling. The stretch was only about 3 K, but it took us a few hours as we played in eddies and practiced our ferries and turns. I am pretty happy with my boat, as it lends itself to tilting which means you can make some pretty rad looking peel-ins and outs of eddies with it. We bounced down, enjoying the fall colours and sunshine, but after awhile the sun set in the gorge. We picked up the pace as it got chillier, and it seemed like 2 turns later, there was the low level bridge we’d heard so much about, the sign that it was time to take out. So there we were in the middle of the Elora Conservation area, going “How the F do we get out of here?”. I brought my phone, which apparently had been fake plugged in for the last month or so, since I found out it was actually about to die. . . I walked 30 ft to get reception, and when I finally got 2 bars, enough to call Elora Cab for the $6 cab ride up to my car, the phone did die. BALLS. So I ran a K and a bit up to the front gate, called from there. It was pretty painless to get a ride up, and I feel like the turnaround was under 20 minutes. I drove in without a word (didn’t want to get charged by the park) and found Pipes. After loading up and getting out we were home fairly quickly. Successful scouting run! We will be doing that again. We were lucky with the water though, it was up due to rain, so I don’t know how long that will last! The next day I got out with my neighbour Jocelyn on the Speed river for a paddling lesson (river, I know, but still flatwater). Jocelyn picked it up and is very proud, hence her new nickname, changed from J-bone to J-stroke. It was nice to get out again, and once she had it down I let her paddle me all the way back to where we started as I put my feet up in the front and took pictures of whatever struck my fancy. Good afternoon. So yeah, now that I got that out of the way, it’s back to the grind. Believe me, I got stuff to do, I just don’t like to talk about it.