Onion River Exploration Project: Mauthe 2016

Pretty white flowers

Day 5 (6/17/16)

I am guessing that we won’t have a lot of time to kayak or blog this summer. We purchased an old Town Hall in Belgium, Wisconsin and plan to renovate it into a studio and gallery. I will be doing update blogs on my Dolmen Project Blog site. Since we close on the property on June 24^th we have been trying to pack our entire summer of work and fun into two weeks. Mauthe Lake has always been one of our favorite kayaking spots so it was a no-brainer that when we got the chance we headed there first. It was a beautiful sunny day with very little wind, in other words, a perfect day for kayaking. We raced across the lake and into river. On the way up river we were not alone but before long the others had returned to the lake and we had the river to ourselves. Lately there have been flocks of freshwater Pelicans hanging out along the lake in Sheboygan. We were lucky enough to see a group circling above us at Mauthe. We hoped for a closer look but never got one. The river was fairly high so we continued upriver until we got to our usual turnaround. When we got there however somebody had cut away some brush so we were able to go even farther. We then headed back down to our favorite hidey-hole, a narrow channel that goes back into the swamp. At the end is a crystal clear pool with hundreds of bubbling springs. They are just so mesmerizing to watch and record. It is also usually about ten degrees cooler. As usual it was hard to leave but since it was our first outing we were not used to sitting that long. We worked our way back to the boat dock, stopped for our obligatory icy and headed for home.