Cardiff Pond

Cardiff Pond is located about 15 minutes north of St Albert, just east of Morinville. It is a small municipal pond that is stocked for fishing (and there were lots of folks fishing while we were there). The easiest access point is by the main dock (about two-thirds of the way down the lake on the west edge).

There is a parking lot that is about 300 feet from the water. I didn't see any bathrooms here but I suspect there must be some in the park. At the water, there is a floating dock (behind bush in picture below) but you can also access the water for a beach launch. It isn't much of a beach and I was happy to have water shoes).

Below is a reverse shot of the landing, which is to the left of the dock, just below the trailer.

The pond is small and narrow and has good cover from the wind. It was pretty breezy the day we were there but the water was calm. A nice place to take kids or to practice stand-up paddle boarding.

Although the lake is small, it has lots of coves and reaches. We leisurely paddle all but the NW reach in about 40 minutes. We would have paddle that one as well but we ran into an angry loon (young nearby) so we decided to reverse course.

Jessica had fun hunting for lost fishing tackle and we recovered four errant floats.

I'm not sure I'd go back. It was a nice paddle. Pretty much similar to Hermitage Pond in NE Edmonton. But it was a bit small for our tastes and abilities at this point.