An Afternoon at the Falls

Today we met up with some friends, a fellow homeschooling family, for a picnic at McGowan Falls. The falls are named for a miller who used the water power from the Saugeen River in the early times of the town of Durham. It's a pretty place to picnic, with a roped off swimming area above the dam at the falls, a little playground and sand area, plenty of trails to walk on and the falls to play in.

With it being the first week of really hot weather we've had so far, the water was a very welcome diversion! We weren't the only ones there during the lunch hour - area teens are on exams and are pretty much done school for the year so there were many who also came to cool off in the river. Other than the jumping from the footbridge into the water which my kids saw as 'neat' and gave me visions of future heart failure, all was good.

The kids were happy to swim, wade to and explore a small island in the river, make their way across the lower river to a small cave and play in the falls for hours. We were all tired by the time we headed home!

Ahhhh, Tuesday

Tuesday morning we did a combined chemistry and physics lesson since there is overlap between the two texts on the subject of matter. We painted our styrofoam balls and left them to dry while we took off for a few hours to McGowan Falls.

Adrian hadn't been there before so we packed a picnic lunch, brought Panda along, too. Andrew got into swim gear before we left so that he could catch fish in the river. He managed to catch several of them in buckets. Nicholas even caught one with his cupped hands! That one must have been dying though because it spent a lot of time fluttering near the surface of the water in the bucket.

After lunch we took a walk along one of the trails. It looks like the rain we had from Hurricane Ivan a couple of weeks ago washed out parts of the trail and the Conservation Authority has been working to fix it up again. The walk was nice, lots of wildflowers out in the bushes and there are beautiful tall cedars lining portions of the trail. Panda was a bit of a pain, wanting to run ahead with the boys. She also loved the water and took every opportunity to be in it. So much for a nice clean-smelling dog!

Adrian and I look kind of angry in the photo that Nicholas took for us. That wasn't the case...the sun was so bright it was hard to see without squinting. My eyes were watering because I had just taken off my sunglasses!

There are lots of places for the kids to climb up and down rocks near the river's edge right by the upper falls. We walked nearly to the lower falls - we could see it and it wasn't that far away, but by then we were hot and tired and ready to head for home.

A Trip to the Falls

Well, it may not be Niagara Falls, but McGowan Falls in Durham was a lovely place for a picnic. My friend, J, and I took the kids one afternoon and though it was threatening rain we had a great time. The kids enjoyed swimming, catching frogs, playing at the park and exploring the little island in the middle of the river. Matthew was especially adept at crossing a log bridge to the island. Most of the others just waded across. I have to confess to being a little nervous crossing the bridge over the dam - you could see the rushing water right underneath you! It was a bit dizzying if you stared for too long. We'd like to borrow a GPS and come back sometime because I found this place on Geocaching.com along with some others nearby. I've promised the kids we can come back soon. They would like to check out the trails along the river.