Mud Lake

A friend and colleague of Chris' who retired from Nortel (of his own accord!) last November has taken to walking near his house every day after breakfast, and the trail he likes to follow is the one that goes around the Britannia Conservation Area, popularly known as Mud Lake.

This morning John invited Chris and me to join him and, despite the fact that it was raining, we met for the walk at half past nine, setting off under tall, straight pines among the deciduous trees, finding many spring flowers and flowering shrubs sprinkled with raindrops, stagnant beaver swamps, glades, then wild rock gardens on outcrops of slate by the riverside with a view of the still very full Ottawa River where there are partly drowned islands and dangerous rapids. Crossing landscaped parkland around the water purification plant, we rejoined the path, seeing radiation fog steaming from the pond, a massive, bloated snapping turtle's carcass (not very nice) draped over a log, bees, yellow pond lilies, frogs, a few herons and yellow warblers of some kind. A chickadee perched on John's hand though he had no food to offer. It took us about an hour in all to complete our circuit of Mud Lake and we felt we'd made a very worthwhile discovery by exploring it, although seeing the police team on the bank near the rapids trying to locate the drowned bodies of a young couple accidentally swept down them last weekend wasn't so pleasant.

Afterwards we drove to nearby Westboro to Viva Loca, an environmentally friendly coffee and gift shop near the Mountain Equipment Co-op.

It seems rather a pity Chris isn't going to stay retired like John or we could look forward to doing this more often! Coming out of Viva Loca, by the way, we spotted the picture of an ex-Nortel friend of Chris and John, Miguel, on the front page of the Ottawa Citizen's Business News. I met Miguel as well recently when we all met for lunch in a pub. Click here to read the article, but I warn you, it makes depressing reading.