I decided to start a thread to contain the various images that I snap while out biking- you never know when there might be something interesting.
In today's case, that interesting thing is a flooded river.
This is a decommissioned rail bridge not far from me that goes from Ottawa, Ontario to Gatineau, Quebec. It's closed to the public but it seems to be a right f passage for locals to cross it, so I imagine I will get around to doing it sometime this summer. I'm all for practising a little civil disobedience here and there. Today though, you can see the water rushing under it- usually there's a lot more space between the bridge deck and the water, and the water is usually quite calm.
As you can see, the water is a lot less than calm today. It's hard to tell from the picture, but some of the rapids I saw are a couple of feet high. It would have been awesome to paddle through all of this, but I don't have my boats here.
What you need to remember while looking at these photos is that the water level has dropped at least a foot from last week. It looks bad in some of the photos, but locals are claiming that the water is higher than it has been in at least 20 years, and a bunch of homes on the other side have been flooded too.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/flooding-photos-gatineau-clarence-rockland-1.4097901
Obviously it wasn't as bad where I was today, but you could still see the effects of the high water. For example:
That's a "no dogs" sign, but given how far under water it is I'm guessing that isn't an issue. Of course, the not so amusing part is that it is an environmentally sensitive area (hence no dogs) but I guess Mother Nature doesn't give a rat's bum about your environmental issues.... it's a great environment for fishies now!
As I got further along the sidewalks had more and larger interruptions.
This next spot is one I know quite well, not just from cycling. I got talking to a few strangers there last year, one of whom was launching a canoe in the slight current there, and the other who swims across and back every day in the summer. There was no sign of either of them this time, as the current is so strong that if they were there they wouldn't be for long....
I thought about turning around, but where's the fun in that? Besides, I need to get my 10kms in or even I am going to make fun of me so I pressed on despite being soaked and muddy.
This small pond used to be nice open grass to well beyond the treeline, and you can see the large amount of debris from bushes that have been washed away or had all of their branches stripped off after they were submerged.
On that half sumberged fence was a sign that said "DO NOT DISTURB- ENVIRONMENTALLY SENSITIVE AREA." I was going to stop and snap a pic that I could add the caption to "Hey Bylaw Officers- get your ticket books ready because Mother Nature doesn't give a smurf about your rules!" but by now I was starting to feel the effects of many months of not cycling taking their toll on me.
Even the newer bridges weren't any match for the amount of water flowing in.
This might also be a good time to invest in a company that manufactures park benches because it looks to me like the city of Ottawa is going to buy a whole freaking bunch this year.
This is the same river I paddled on last summer, although you probably wouldn't recognize it.
Hard to believe this is the same section of river, isn't it?
I think it's pretty cool to see it like this.
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