Camping at Oka

Friday - drive to Oka National Park

Months ago, my friend Marie-Julie invited us to camp with her family plus two other families on this weekend, at Oka National Park. At that stage we had no plans for late June, so we eagerly accepted. Despite making a long day of driving from Baie St Paul, it was well worth it!

After a relaxed and calm morning, we left Baie St Paul mid morning. The children were all tired after a bike ride and hike on successive days, as well as very late nights. With the sun setting about 9.30pm, it is hard to get them to bed! Once we got underway, they promptly fell asleep.  The drive took us back down south, basically to Montreal. We skirted around the outside of Montreal and arrived at Oka National Park - about 6 hours of travelling. 

Marie-Julie, Julie and myself ... and a mutual love of champagne

As soon as we arrived and met the other families, we knew we were in for a great weekend. Marie-Julie and her husband Vido, Julie and her American husband Bruce (which meant another of us who spoke only English, so all communication was in English), then Manon and her husband Yann. We had nine children in total and the other six are completely bilingual - even the 4 year old! It is a marvel to watch these children switch between English and French without even thinking - their brains just know that if they are addressed in French they respond on French; also they just learn to whom they speak French and to whom they speak English - they don’t even think about it.

The other three families actually had on-site tents, which meant they had mattresses and basic kitchen equipment supplied, but not many other comforts. There was a gas cooker supplied, but no running water, no sink or no bathroom. Bertha as parked in a separate part of the campground, so our bikes proved extremely useful and moving between our site and the other families. We based ourselves in front of M-J’s site and that was were we all shared meals for the weekend. We had an awesome three days and all the families were great fun. 

Oka is a national park and is situated on the Lake of Two Mountains, right at the southern tip of Montreal island. It is a beautiful location and the closest thing resembling a beach around Montreal, which makes it very popular with day-trippers out of Montreal. This weekend is also a long weekend for many people. Canada Day falls on Tuesday, 1 July, but it is a movable public holiday - businesses and individuals can discuss when they wish to take the day off: thus many people are taking it on Monday 20 June. The campground was packed and certainly the fullest of any park we’ve seen in the last week. The “beach” resembled Bondi in popularity: but in no other way! We all had a square metre of sand and happily eavesdropped on conversations around us! The kids loved the water … the adults were a little more suspicious. It has been extremely hot and it was very warm in the middle of the day on the beach.

The campground is within the national park and there are many walking and cycling tracks around the area. It is heavily wooded … the image of Canadian woods is exactly what it is like. Great paths to run along! Unfortunately I didn’t take my phone out with me so couldn’t take any photos. Raccoons are a public nuisance … think possums when you are out camping … same thing happens and we had to put everything away each night. Even while we were sitting around the fire, raccoons came up close to explore and try to find food. We heard stories about raccoons eating anything - munching through plastic containers, managing to open sealed packets of food and even destroying toothbrushes! 

The only disadvantage to this park was the mosquitos. Mosquitos have been a problem everywhere we’ve been, but Oka was extreme. As soon as I got out of Bertha to help Tony reverse in, I was attacked - hours before dusk. Eau de repellent (it does sound impressive … roll those r’s and say with a french accent - and don’t pronounce the t at the end of repellent) was the fragrance of the weekend. It was applied as soon as we stepped out of the showers in the morning and reapplied regularly throughout the day. 

The weekend involved great food, with everyone contributing. Life revolved around eating; drinking; sitting around and relaxing; great conversations about Quebec, USA and Australia, including solutions to the medical systems of all three countries/province; children causing havoc/fun with fires; a trip to the beach; more food; more drinking … fun times. Very late nights but well worth the trip back down to Montreal to meet these great families and share the weekend with them. We hope to see them in Australia in the near (or distant) future!

From Oka, we headed into Ontario province, towards Ottawa - only about 90 minutes from Oka. 

M-J would quite like Olivia and Sophie to go to uni in Montreal ... they can live with her!