Having become seasoned RV campers after staying at our first park and dealing with all the fun stuff, such as dumping the toilet and the waste water with a broken waste pipe and dirty dish water (and probably worse) flying all over the poor man that had offered to help us; we decided to step it up a gear and really camp! So we drove 20 miles to next door campsite Charleston Lake National Park via Gas top up shop, oil leak shop, supermarket and LCBO (our favourite shop! The only chain of stores you can buy alcohol from in Ontario!) and eventually arrived around 7pm noting the ‘stop for snakes
and turtles’ sign on the way in! The campsite is huge but the lake is huger! The dragonflies danced around us, posing for pictures on the lake front. The water was crystal clear and with our Toff-style gadgetry we checked whether it was suitable for drinking (as it suggested it was…we’re not into drinking puddles or anything!) and sure enough it was better quality than the bottled water we had! We spent the night putting our feet up with a bottle of wine and a crazy but lovely concoction of whatever was in the cupboard for tea. We have absolutely no signal on the phones or on the web so will have to walk in search of signal tomorrow as we have an interview with BBC Manchester radio at 6am on Friday! We set off on a 2mile walk to the highest point in Leeds area armed with a picnic, deet armbands, bottles of water and laptops (to check the signal at the highest point) at 11 am and returned covered head to toe in mosquito bites…I even had one on my eyelid! Alex however had not been bitten once! Deet armbands clearly are not the biscuit!

No joy with the signal so we decided to walk to the gate house to ask there. Another 4 mile round trip and still no signal. We decided that we will just get up super early and drive to the main road. That night we met a couple from Ottowa, Madeliene and Omar and sat by the camp fire with them and had a bottle of wine and a few Steam Whistlers while asking them all about the best places to go and telling them about our strange adventure. They had recently married in their local park at sunset and explained to us that in Canada you can get married anywhere aslong as you have 2 witnesses and an inaugorator. We got to throwing some ideas around and mentioned Heart Island and Madeleine suggested having a wedding in a canoe! The canoe is symbolic of Canadian culture and we think this is a great idea! We said our goodbyes that night and they invited us to spend Canada day with them in Ottowa on the 1st July.

Our early start the next morning was a nightmare!

We woke up, drove around trying to get a signal, finally found one, unfortunately just too late! We rescheduled the interview and set off to our next stop…Ganaonoque…the boat stop for Heart Island. So, this is the really embarrassing bit so I’ll say it really quickly!  HeartislandisactuallyintheUSsowecannothaveaCanadianweddingthere! Rather silly mistake on our part but at least we have an idea in the bag for the US!

Tails between our legs we decided to find a nice park to stay at for the weekend and found Pleasure Bay RV park near Mallorytown. Perfectly kept lawns, fish that followed you around the pond and the biggest, shiniest, newest RVs you have ever seen in your life! We were put at the back in a field of our own and settled in. The lake was beautiful and so peaceful until the droves of children arrived! The park had on a Halloween fancy dress competition so there were Mickey Mouses, Frogs, princesses and witches everywhere and on the night there was a Halloween hay ride! 3 tractors pulling trailers crammed full of people (including us) were driven around the spooky dark park to screams and wails from speakers at the front. There were people in masks, huge inflatable cauldrens, jigsaw made an appearance as did an 8 year old girl dresed as a bride chained to a cross being loomed over by a boy weilding an axe! All in the name of fun of course!

The next morning was the water fight hay ride which was great to watch…from a distance! They showed no mercy even though we had cameras! Overall a great weekend and a much needed break for us.

Back on the road today to Montreal to find us a wedding!

See what happens next in our wedding travel adventure!