The Rockwood Conservation Area is near Guelph, Ontario, and near enough to civilisation you can hear trains in the night, which I enjoy -it's a bit eerie and a bit romantic. This was our first camping trip with our baby, now 7 months old, and Michelle and I were joined by our intrepid ready-for-anything nephew. It rained a lot, but I managed to make espresso over the fire, we found caves, enjoyed the Cambrian coral limestone formations, found the ruins of a mill from the 1800's and discovered glacial potholes being broken with generational slowness by the cedar forest.
I always feel like I'm committing an artistic sin when I go on a trip like this, sketchbook in hand, and don't take the time to do any sketching. What can I say: we were gone two nights and spending time with the family hiking and puttering around the campsite took priority. So I took lots of reference photos. And I will say ten Hail Artemsia Gentileschis and draw something difficult like a foot in foreshortening to atone.
Enough talk. Pictures.
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| Thistle in the rain. |
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| Cedars along the rocky shore. |
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| Entrance to the Harris Mill, established in 1885 . |
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| Sitting with the sleepy monkey after a long hike which he snoozed his way through. |
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| Our nephew exploring the ruins, looking for good spots to jump off of. |
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| The Mill in the distance. A lot of goldfinches had baths in the stream. |
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| Entrance to some caves. These went in really deep, and we could see chambers beyond. |
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| Mist roiled out of the caves into the humid Ontario air. |
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| Me and my boy sitting under the blue tarp in the rain. |
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| Espresso brewing over the fire. |
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