We had an excellent trip on Sunday Aug 18, departing Scott at Churchill at 9:15. With 2 ten minute stops on the way, we made it to Bonnet Rouge just in time to join the shuttle of a raft trip, with a wait of less than 5 minutes. Bonnet Rouge charged us each $13 ... for take-out, put-in and bus ride to the put-in...an excellent time saver. There, being just before noon, Liam and I had lunch, enabling all other boaters to get significantly downriver, so there-after we had the river to ourselves. While the weather on the river was initially cloudy with a few showers, for the 2nd half of the trip the sun came out and it got warm. The river was very clean, relatively warm (warm for the Gatineau but still refreshing), and low ... reading 5 feet at Bonnet Rouge. Being more familiar than LIam with the river, I led on the river, in a manner that Liam did not feel the need to scout from shore. This left us more time to play. We took advantage of play spots where they existed, but there were less than normal. The most significant was in the chute at Bonnet Rouge where I was able to park on the forward slope of the 2nd standing wave hole. With my Dagger RPM, and an upstream ferry, I caught and surfed the wave hole for 15 minutes on my way down, and then immediately again from the river right eddy for another 15 minutes. Unfortunately Liam had a shorter play boat that had too much drag to catch the wave hole. Coinciding with my last 10 minute of surfing, Liam enjoyed a swim at the Bonnet Rouge beach/take-out. We made it back to Scott at Churchill at about 19:30.
