It Started with Cows. Day 3 - 7 August 2014

After meeting at 8:00 to get an early start to the day before it became too hot, Rolla and I drove in our cars out to the intersection at Moodie & the 417 to drop one car off and then we would go together in another car to our start point, south along the Rideau Trail. As we took the Moodie exit off the highway there was a traffic jam. At 8:15 on a Saturday morning. Huh? We waited on the off ramp for 15 minutes making little progress. I had thought maybe there was construction or an accident. But as we inched along, it looked like there was some event and all of Ottawa and Gatineau were going to park in a field at this intersection. We cut our losses, turned south on Moodie, met up on the side of the road and planned our new route. Cause we are dynamic, problem-solving public servants and that's how we roll.

We left Rolla's car at an NCC parking lot and realised that we would be starting somewhere on a rural country road with no parking, so I promised to myself not be too shy to ask a farmer if we could park on their property. Good luck had it that right where we wanted to park at the back of a dairy farm, there were some people standing around at the front, so I drove up and explained that we were hiking the Rideau Trail and asked if we could park along their access at the back of the farm. They were kind enough to oblige, so we parked and started on our way.

It's the first time I've ever started a hike at a barn.

Rolla with the cows. Moo.

The trail was actually on the shoulder of the road for quite some time, but it was a very quiet road and we saw only one vehicle and about five road bikers. And quite a few cows.

Zuzka with more cows. They looked like happy cows. Moo.

We continued along the road and came upon this unique mail box / address post combination. The property was not only a farm but also had a welding shop. The sign post made me think of something my Dad would make. He always made lots of metal stuff for us when my brother and I were kids including a raised outdoor fire pit that actually looked like an alien spaceship landing craft. It was awesome!

Dad, this one's for you!

The RT then (thankfully) left the road and went along a tractor track on the edge of a corn field.

Alongside some corn. Check out the red triangle trail marker on the tree at the left.

The respite from the road was short-lived though and the trail went back to a very busy road this time. There was a new subdivision off the road, so there was lots of traffic. Not really the nicest place to walk along.

Walking along a busy road.

The final section of the trail for the day went into the Stony Swamp area of the Greenbelt. I was so happy to be in the forest and on proper trail until I realised that there were mosquitoes. Lots of them! We had intended to do a longer route but because we did a last minute re-route our hike was a lot shorter than planned so we finished our walk for the day part way through the Stony Swamp trails.

We had to resort to long sleeves in the forest because of the mozzies. Next time I'll remember the insect repellant!

Next time we'll the do the section of trail from Stony Swamp north to Moodie Dr 7 & the 417 that we had originally intended to do. We're really not being very strict about adhering to the Ottawa to Kingston direction of hiking or doing it in sequence but I'm not very bothered. In the end we'll walk the entire trail regardless of what order we do it in or whether we walk it north to south, or south to north.  Just a few days in and we're already having some good adventures and getting to see some parts of Eastern Ontario that I wouldn't have otherwise seen. The section of trail we walked today wasn't very well used and we didn't see any other hikers at all!

Statistics:
Start point - 17D
End point - 18C
Daily Distance - 9 km
Total Distance - 26.8 km