Canoeing at the Ipswich River

A couple of weekends back, 4 of us went canoeing at the Ipwich river.
Ipswich and Essex are two seaside towns near Boston and to boost tourism there, they have introduced special shuutle busses to make touring there car-free.
More information here
We boarded the Commuter rail from North station and it was a 50min journey to reach Ipswich.
From there we took one of the various busses and reached the Foote Brothers Canoe place .. they rent out canoes and also take you to different drop off's from where you can canoe back.
Most of us were beginners and there were some doubts if we could canoe without prior experience .. so we took the easiest route .. ie .. take the Canoe from the Willodale Dam and go up stream and come back when we felt like it.
Our fears were unfounded as the canoe's were very stable and there was no real risk of capsizing .. and even if you did .. at most places .. the water was pretty shallow.
Anyways .. was a great experience .. was pretty easy to row .. but navigating took some time to get used to .. most of the time we were zig-zagging up the river.
It was part fun to look at Param and Mon banging into tree branches and even into the pillar of a bridhe we came accross :)
There were also places we could pull over .. haul the Canoe out of the water and go on short hikes into the woods .. we tried only a couple of them.
Best part personally was the low hanging branches over the water and we going below them .. was fun!!



Followed the Canoe trip with a visit to the Crane Beach (again!) and this time it was even better .. had got a change of clothes .. so didnt hesitate to take a dip!
was a nice n rlaxing wknd .. planning a return trip and this time gor for the extended 4-5 hour Canoe trip :)

Param

Mon