An Impromptu Airstream “Mini-Rally”!
/Farran Park Campground
9 – 11 July, 2021
After having our trip to the Parks of the St Lawrence cancelled in 2020, this was our first opportunity to try again!
Getting ready!
We were pretty organized for this trip, or at least maybe it felt that way because we weren’t trying to get away especially early.
I turned on the fridge mid-day on Thursday and it was cold by the evening, so I started packing Holly’s fridge late on Thursday night. We also managed to get our laundry done on Thursday night, which was helpful. Chris hitched up between meetings on Friday so that we could get going right after his last meeting at 3 pm.
If you read my post from Martin River a few weeks before this, you’ll know that our sway bar broke. Earlier in the week, I ordered a new sway bar online, it arrived in good time and I put the unopened box with the rest of our hitch gear. However, when Chris opened the package and went to attach it, we realized I’d ordered the bar for the wrong side! I had relied on the photo from the website, which pictured the side we needed, but it was actually the other side that I ordered. Grrr. I called Ottawa Camping Trailers, which is just south of Ottawa and on our way out of town. Luckily, they had the correct sway bar in stock. We stopped in and popped it on. It delayed us about 7 minutes! Easy. Except now we have an extra sway bar that we don’t need…
Getting out of the city wasn’t especially pretty in terms of scenery, but once we passed Winchester, the skies turned a bit moody and the fields were really green. Much easier on the eyes.
We arrived at Farran Park Campground around 5:30 pm, checked in, dumped our black tank and found site number 84. It was right on the water, under a tree, with a spectacular view and breeze! The sites along the water are a good size, but very open. There aren’t many trees between sites at all, so if you like your privacy, this isn’t the place to come!. We were parked between two large 5th wheel trailers, but we didn’t feel overly crammed in. We noticed that most trailers park sideways at the front of the site, so that their door faces the view (and gives them some privacy). Since we like to have our view through the front or back windows, we tend to either back in or angle in. We backed in and the view from our bedroom window was spectacular!
We were camping with two other families - their sites were close together with one campsite between them, but our site was a short walk away. They had sites 64 and 68, which were also on the water and seemed to have a bit more open space, but less trees. They also didn’t have other large trailers flanking them. We spent most of our time together on site 68, which seemed to be the largest and best laid out.
We had great water access from our site, and it would have been amazing if we’d brought a canoe, kayak or SUP board. This was our first trip to Farran Park and we noticed that there were a number of seasonal sites. There were also lots of boats and a few of the sites around us had seadoos parked in the water at their site. It’s definitely a different vibe than many provincial parks we’ve been to, but we found it quite enjoyable. We didn’t find it especially noisy either, which made it feel more relaxing.
On our way out of town, we picked up sushi for supper so that we wouldn’t have to cook or do any dishes. We didn’t even bother to unhitch right away! We hung out with our friends for supper and stayed for a campfire (there were smores!). Chris headed back to Holly a little earlier than I did. The bugs were out, but our thermacell came in handy and worked like a charm. Chris was watching a Netflix series when I arrived back and I read for a little bit before going to sleep. We kept the fan on all night and the cool air was wonderful through our back window.
Daisy was up early and Chris took her out for a long walk while I slept. He came back and made coffee for us and I stayed in bed drinking my coffee, admiring the view and reading my book! Such a wonderful leisurely morning! Eventually, I got up and made eggs and toast for breakfast (delicious!) and we ate outside overlooking the water. It was a spectacular day, with a little breeze and lots of sun, but not excessively hot. We had full sun for a bit during the late morning and early afternoon, but then the sun moved around so that both the trees and our awning provided some shade. We were happy with the way we had oriented ourselves on the site! The sunshine helped our solar panel charge our batteries a bit and gave us enough to get through the rest of the day and night.
Morning view from the bedroom! So beautiful.
Breakfast with a view!
While our friends had bigger sites, their sites were situated facing a different direction and as such, had the full afternoon sun. Our friends in the 16 ft airstream had more help from their solar panel than we did since there was no tree coverage at all on their site. Their sites were quite a bit warmer in the afternoon, so to get any shade we needed to sit behind their trailers by the road. I hadn’t considered that when I thought they had pretty great sites during the sunset!
The morning was spent taking it easy, reading and relaxing (I talked to our oldest on the phone for a bit) In the early afternoon, Chris went for a run while Daisy and I took a walk down by the beach and around the campground. Our friends decided to try out the Brewery in Ingleside (Humble Beginnings) so I unhitched our car from the trailer and waited for Chris to return from his run so that we could join them.
After Chris finished his shower, we drove the 2 km into Ingleside and wound up sitting on the Butler’s Restaurant patio, since it was shaded and the brewery was not. Amit, Kevin, Chris and I ordered a beer and a bite to eat. While dogs aren’t technically allowed on the patio, they let us bring Daisy with us as long as she was well behaved, which she was, of course! Jeea, Gail and the kids joined us after spending some time at the beach. Afterwards, everyone seemed to still have room for ice cream!
Daisy and the boys!
On our way back to the campground, our driver’s side mirror came off AGAIN!! This time, we were able to retrieve it and it was unharmed. It’s so bizarre that it only seems to come off that side. We’ll have to research more about what the problem might be. We think maybe it comes loose while we’re driving?
We gathered again for a big dinner over on site 68. While we were prepping for supper, the couple who used to own Norrin (our friends’ 22 ft airstream) dropped by! It turns out they were also camping at Farran Park, noticed the airstream and recognized it as their former trailer! It was fun that they came back to say hi and introduce themselves. They are retired, from Ottawa and upgrading to a 23 ft twin bed Globetrotter (I think that’s what they said?). While waiting for their new trailer to arrive at Can Am, they were camping in a borrowed Safari Alto also from Can Am (if you know anything about trailers these days, you’ll know that the wait for a new one is LONG!!).
You can see the top of Norrin (22 ft airstream) peaking out in the distance!
Dinner was a far more spectacular event than anything Chris and I usually do! We feasted on naan, chipatis, butter chicken, spatchcock chicken, tandoori chicken, as well as a few other Indian specialties. It was so much fun to sit out and share a meal together! Especially after so many events needed to be cancelled over the previous year. Evie and Ash took care of washing all of the dishes, which was lovely, and afterwards, we sat around the campfire listening to various stories about kids, camping, travel and careers. After more than a year of a pandemic, physical distancing requirements, masks indoors and stay at home orders, this felt so very normal and wonderful.
Chris and I left the campfire at around 10:30 pm to head back to Holly. I read a bit before bed, but was tired and wasn’t quite able to finish my book.
I finished my book while Chris was out walking Daisy. Breakfast was eggs (again), toast and fruit, outside on the picnic table overlooking the water. Delicious!
We cleaned up after breakfast and hung out with Amit and Jeea at their site for a bit and took a tour of Wally (Gail and Kevin’s 16 ft Airstream that Gail has done an outstanding job decorating!). Gail came over to our site to check out Holly (space saving solutions are always a great topic of conversation with anyone who lives in a tiny space:) and we ended up having a long conversation, that included Haagen Dazs ice cream bars, while sitting outside in the shade. We thoroughly enjoyed getting to know Gail better and these conversations are what camping is all about for us.
Our relaxing morning was coming to an end and we finally started hitching up and preparing to leave. As we were putting our awning away, it felt like the awning arm closest to our door was loose. We’ll need to figure out if our awning arm is loose because it’s actually broken or because it’s just a bit loose from hitting the chair a few years ago at Murphy’s point (when the trailer fell off the blocks and the chair was leaning against the trailer where the awning arm is). It seems looser than it should be and it’s definitely looser than the arm on the other side. Add that to the list to ask about when we visit Can Am RV in the fall!
As we pulled out of our site, we looped around to say goodbye to our friends and took a few photos to commemorate our first camping trip together. Weekends are always short, but it was such a fun trip to take with long time friends of ours (Amit and Jeea) and new friends (Gail and Kevin who are also long time friends of Amit and Jeea) to celebrate both of their first seasons with their “new to them” Airstreams.
We finally made our way out of the campground and headed off towards Murphy’s Point Provincial Park, where we were meeting up with my sister and brother-in-law for a few days. Fun!
Ottawa - Farran Park Campground - Murphy’s Point Campground
Towing: 225 km
Driving: 4.3 km
I didn’t take photos of our usage when we packed up, so am not certain what our usage was, exactly! We had enough space in our black tank to use the bathroom before dumping at Murphy’s Point and we had enough water in our fresh water tank to use the bathroom on our way.
Black Tank: Not quite full
Fresh water: Not quite empty
Batteries: Our solar panels were helpful in keeping our batteries charged during our time here. We didn’t have full sun on them though.
