Thursday

It is Thursday evening, just around 6pm and we are about to start northwards again. The plan is to get Peter, Sylvia, Sabine and me in the minivan and pick up Tim and Simon at the Toronto airport. But things turned out very differently.... Totally differently!

The minivan had some problems with losing cooling liquid during the last week, most of the time there wasn't any left. A leak in a hose was what I thought, the radiator itself was watertight. Nonetheless - if I we are to go on a 1000 km trip I want to have something like that fixed first. And so the story starts. It had just began to rain and so I had to lay down in the puddle of water and cooling liquid to have a look underneath the car. At first I can't see anything, but as I start the engine the disaster reveals. The water pump is producing some grinding sounds like an messed up bearing and for confirmation water is pouring out of the engine block like out of a tap. Now it is hard to say what to do: cancel the trip, postpone it or try to repair the car myself. I don't want to give up that easily, so I decide to buy a water pump at Canadian Tire. They have a great choice, maybe a bit too much varieties.

Meanwhile Sabine and Peter arrive at the airport in Toronto, Simon is supposed to arrive at 9:30pm and Tim promised to show up the same time. At this very time Sabine phones me to tell me that Simons flight was cancelled and that it is not yet sure which planes he is going come with. At least Tim shows up and so they decide to wait for another hour. Then it is said to be clear, who of the 25 passengers is going to get a seat in the next plane, where only 10 seats are free.

At this time it stops raining, now it is pouring rain. For one hour I at least try to get to the water pump to then notice that the jerk behind the counter sold the wrong pump to me, I forgot to double-check. Too late now to get it exchanged. A bit frustrated I give up and plan to bring the car to a garage the next day. But that means that the two canoes that are mounted on top of the van have to be removed again. Simon arrives with next plane and gets picked up by Sabine and Peter who were circling around the airport for the last hours. Tremendously high parking fees make it less expensive to drive around rather than to use the lot.

Friday

First thing next morning I bring the car to the garage. I am being helped immediately, but it will take about five hours and cost $550. At least I feel backed up in my decision. To repair the damage half of the engine has to be removed first to get hold of the water pump, for which work I wouldn't have had neither the tools nor the time nor I felt like it. For my way back to the Columbia Lake Townhouses I am well prepared, I am equipped with my bike and rain gear. However - after few meters my boots are soaking wet and the flat tire shortly after doesn't help to cheer me up.

In return it is kind of relaxing to have breakfast with Simon and Sabine, muesli buns, butter, jam and Nutella.

At 4pm I get a call saying that the car is ready. After I hitchhiked to the garage and I have the van back in front of my door the rain stops. In return a tremendous wind is blowing, making it difficult to mount the canoes on the car again. However, it is 5:30pm and we are ready to take off.

After five hours of drive and another 5 kilometers of gravel road we reach the parking lot at Johnnie Lake Access Point, where another group of the Outers club has placed another canoe for us. In bright moon light and icy cold we pitch up the tents and allowing our self a some beers.

After we played some hacki sack to get warm again we get in our sleeping bags. The night is too nice - a starry sky and a bright moon - to stay in the tent and so I decide to use my bivy sack.

Saturday

The Saturday morning welcomes us icy, but with sunshine. Hungrily we prepare oatmeal with apples and bananas. A hot chocolate is something we don't want to miss, too.

We break camp and load the canoes, the nice weather spurs us to get onto the water soon. Departing from the dam that separates Johnnie Lake and West Mahzenazing we head southwest.

This part belongs to Carlyle Lake, which first couple of hundred meters remind us of a reed landscape rather than a lake.

We make our way through the swampy spots, we pass beaver lodges and steep rocks.

After we made this passageway the lake widens. The typical landscape for Killarney Provincial Park - huge rocks out of white quartzite with streaks of pink granite, evergreens lining the shore and the deep blue green water of the lakes - amazes us for another time.

In glittering sunlight, which adds on a touch of unreality to the anyhow fascinating nature, we make good headway without getting exhausted. After about 5 kilometers we turn northwards to get into a bay. At one point we just have to climb up a small step in rock to have a scenic view across the Terry Lake.

Only few paddle strokes away we get to the portage which connects Carlyle and Kakakise Lake across a 940 meter long trail. We don't want to lose too much time on the portage an so we agree on carrying everything at once, It's not an easy undertaking, since on a paddle tour no one really pays attention to the weight of the baggage and takes along the one or other thing additionally. So the 25 kg of the canoe sum up to about the same amount of weight of the equipment.

After two or three breaks we finally reach the other end of the portage, only to find out that after 200 meters of paddling another portage awaits us, this time about 1.5 kilometers long.

Somehow we master this section, too. As we reach Norway Lake we have our lunch break. One could really call it Brotzeit (which is German for "bread time"), because Sabine and I bought some rich German bread, Greyzer cheese from Switzerland and some Polish smoked sausages on the Farmers Market in St. Jacobs. A special nut mix is our desert.

After one hour of laziness we get up again and start to explore Norway Lake.

The first thing that comes to us is the much richer blue green color, reminding us of a fjord, what presumably led to its name. On a small island we sight some tents and as we approach we find out that we just found the other Outers club group - much earlier than expected. This group's plan was it to get to Killarney Lake the first day, hike the second day and loop back to the car the third day.

Unfortunately nobody is in the camp and so we, too, have a break. We have to talk to Derek, another Outers club executive, to arrange, if Sylvia may join them on their way back on Sunday while the rest of our group wants to add the Monday. However, we paddle to the opposite shore to start to hike on of those amazing huge quartzite blocks.

The view we get after a steep climb from the top of the rock is breathtaking.

The color of the water is more impressive from here and we are already high enough to overlook the surrounding hills and the extensive landscape of Killarney Park. When it is not hazy one can even have a view on Georgian Bay from up here.

As we get back to the canoes we can already make out, that the others are not back from their hiking tour. We finally meet them on the portage which will lead us to Killarney Lake. They tell us that they don't want to complete the loop as planned but go back the same way they came here. We agree to meet at 5pm on Sunday at the starting point of our tour.

We don't let us put of our plan by the stories of the other who have already passed the portage twice and so we go on in the last rays of sunlight. We leave the portage only few meters later to put our canoes back to water in a very small stream. To remain dry-footed (at least some of us succeed, isn't it, Peter?) we built up bridges with our canoes, manoeuvre baggage and crew over the boats.

After some tries and in diminishing light we finally succeed to reach a point where we can paddle again. Therefore we sometimes have to push the canoes like the Gondoliers in Venice, a look that makes us laugh until we cry ;-)

At some point we make better headway again following the zigzag of the brook. As we are almost at the end of the narrow section between Norway and Killarney Lake we look back. In this very moment the moon rises just above the valley. Huge and yellowish-red coloured in the atmosphere it will accompany us this evening, light our way and make it possible for us to go on some more hours.

These few hours, during which we sometimes talk lively, sometimes fall silent, make the trip an unforgettable experience.

Late in the night we reach our campsite we aimed for (# 21 on Lake Killarney). Quickly the tents are pitched up and a fire is lit. The enormous wind, which intended to give us a hard time to get here, makes us putting up a tarp as a shield, not least to prevent the fire from burning down too fast. After some time water is boiling with which we - at this point of time starving and tired - are going to boil the pasta. With that we have a vegetable-tomato sauce. And it wouldn't be a feast without the wine and the brownies Sabine made. We have dinner for over an hour following we sit around the fire and warm us with hot chocolate. We are all pretty tired and so everyone disappears into the tents or the bivy sack ;-)

Sunday

We get up considerable early , but the fire we kindle again invites us to stay a bit longer. We finally break camp at 10:30am and reach the next portage half an hour later. Another one and a half kilometer that bring us back to the southwest end of Kakakise Lake. This time we spent the time to go twice as there are some steep sections to be defeated.

The way across the Kakakise Lake is marked by the strong icy headwind. After an hour of paddling we come back to the first (904 m long) portage of our tour which leads us back to Carlyle Lake. At the remote end of the portage we have our lunch break, where we finish the good stuff from Farmers Market, crowned by a lot of chocolate cookies. Suddenly the others show up and join us.

We talk for some time then we go on together. The rest of the way is the same we came here on Saturday, this time under a cloudy sky which isn't able to bother us.

Shortly before we reach the dam again we (or at least some of us) can watch several beavers crossing the lake behind us.

At 4:30pm we get back to the parking lot and the car and agree on heading back to Waterloo as well. We all are pretty much tired, just know we recognize how exhausting the portages were in fact. For our way back we may put our canoes on Derek's trailer and so we drive back heading south to Waterloo shortly after. Our plan to stop at another park on our way for cooking is being cancelled as we pass a Pizza Hut. We can't resist and so we order a big and a medium pizza for the four guys of us. But - unfortunately ;-) - the big pizzas are sold out and so we get three medium pizza in total for the same price. We don't have the slightest problem to finish those, even I am stuffed afterwards ;-)).

Late in the night we reach Waterloo, warmed up by the rest of the wine and totally satisfied.