Gwen's cottage at Skootamatta Lake. Its about an hour from Belleville in the middle of nowhere, then a good 20 minutes of dirt roads (about 4 hours from Toronto). Six of us went up, in 3 cars -- Gwen and I, Kevin, Tara and Kevin's friends Matt and Nicky (and their dog Chuck!). Gwen and I arrived there around 1am friday night, and couldn't find the cottage. There were only handmade signs telling us where to go, and of course we got lost. We went to the 'meeting area', a little motel where the dirt roads start to wait. Around 2am Kevin drives up just as we were settling in the car for the night and took us to the cottage.

The lake is crystal clear with loads of small fish, and there are two cottages on the lot. There is 'big camp', a fully winterized cottage with plumbling and the works, and 'little camp', where we stayed that only had electricity. Little camp is pictured below. Matt and Nicky slept in their Van, the one they used to travel across Canada. Gwen's uncle Jim came up sunday and opened up big camp, and we had plumbing! We stayed in little camp though.

lots of things were done over the weekend. Fishing, swimming, kayaking, bbq, beer drinking and games! We played Risk, (which Matt won rather easily, cards and trivial pursuit. Thats us inside little camp playing cards.

The water was really nice, and very clear. You could see the fish swimming around your legs. Chuck couldn't bear to be without Matt or Nicky and followed them out to the dock, he seemed to really like the water. The kayaks were rented from some nearby store and were well used!

The ride home wasn't bad at all, traffic was reasonable except a couple stoppages. To the left is some asshole who was tailgating me while we were going slow, like there is anywhere to go! He was cutting people off and stuff, so a big UP YOURS to mr. license plate ADPF-035! (we actually passed him several times as he tried to figure out the 'faster' lane LOL)