Well Simon came over to do another trip with me and while the weather was for the most part excellent he did have to put up with an incredible string of bad luck that I seemed to be going through. These little adversities did not put a damper on his vacation but they did test my patients at times.
I picked him up at Stanfield International late at night in a torrential downpour and his flight was delayed (adversity#1). I hung out in the food court as the flight board said he was not coming in until 01:45am but then I get a phone call saying he was at baggage claim. It seems the airport did not list his flight on the screen correctly (adversity#2). I walked down to baggage claim but there was no British guy to be found. After waiting for 10-15 minutes I started walking around to find Simon standing on the opposite side of a small wall from me 40 feet away. We were both waiting for the other within shouting distance but obscured from one anothers view (adversity #3).
So finally we meet up and I go pay for parking which is $8 and then go to leave but the security idiot accused me of not paying and refused to let me leave unless I payed again. Long story short, They called the RCMP on me and after investigating the police officer was convinced that I was in the right and had payed however the security staff still refused to let me leave. When the police officer offered to pay for me I coughed up another $8 so she could just get inside out of the rain. Nasty letter to the airport enroute... (adversity #4)
So we drive an hour to camp with some geek friends of mine at a medieval reenactment thing and finally pass out somewhere after 04:00am. The next day the event organizers were wet and miserable and said more rain was coming in the form of a storm so they closed the event early and sent everyone home after I had paid for both of us (adversity #5). Of course the next day the sun came out and temperatures shot to 30C for the next couple weeks.
We drove back to New Brunswick and decided after a good breakfast to canoe the Class I & II Pollett River as the week of rain had made it runable. Simon had never done whitewater before so this was a bit of an experience for him.
This turned out to be a pretty good run. With all the rain we were able to do this river that typically is off the list after the middle of May.
After the river run we cleaned up and went to hang out with some of my geek friends for a bit and then went to downtown Moncton to watch the Canada Day fireworks display. After that we went up to the local pub to have a pint or two and to chat up some 20 something girls that wanted us to join hot yoga for some reason? As we were not drinking seriously the conversation began to lose interest. I do not really give a crap what Miley Cyris is up to these days...
Tuesday we bought another 600 rounds of ammo and headed out to the local quarry. Since the land technically belongs to the Queen and she is pretty cool with firearms use so long as it is 6000km away from her house, we made some noise an poked holes in things from various ranges.
I have a video of Simon with my 12 gauge I will put up later but I am having some computer issues at present.
Wednesday we packed up the car and met up with my friend Bill who was going to look after my car for the duration of the trip. We got about 50km out of town and the fuel pump blew on the car. We had to get towed back to Moncton, transfer all the gear into Bill's van and head out again. We got to the put in spot a lot later than I had hoped but we were on our way.
The weeks of rain however had allowed the mosquitoes an extra few weeks of life. Truthfully I have never seen them so bad in 35 years of outdoor living (adversity #6).
We spent a couple of days on East Grand Lake acclimatizing Simon to his new surroundings and the weather was excellent. We picked campsites that were as bug free as possible but Simon still looked like he was handling the shotgun from the wrong end from all the swelling holes in him.
A few days in we started down Forest City stream and took on a couple of class II before crossing Mud lake and portaging Mud lake falls.
After a long days paddle we landed on Hinkley Island. A little darker and buggier than we liked but after a full day on the water pretty much anything looked good. We gorged ourselves on double meals and chocolate bars but the heat was starting to take its toll on the chocolate supply.
Our next destination is a favorite on Spednic lake. A campsite called the ledges.
Hunter
This was a pretty good spot to wash up some clothes and relax a bit but since it was the 4th of July long weekend we were inundated by about 40 Americans and Canadians having some sort of floating party where the roamed around the lake and annoyed every camper they could find.
It was going well enough and they gave us a few beer, which was appreciated even if it was American beer (like having sex in a canoe) until one drunken guy accused us of being under cover border patrol officers. He wanted to see our ID and when I refused he said; "We could just take you out and put you in a shallow grave and no one would ever know..."(adversity #7)
I quickly retorted; "Well you are welcome to try but it will be a bad day for everyone because I will take six or seven of you with me..."
He called me a few choice names and wandered off until his friends told him he was being an bottom and forced him to come apologize. This netted us some more free beer and some free steak. The guy mentioned that his family was smuggling cigarettes in from the States and illegally selling bear gall bladders on the black market and that it was unfair what the Canadian and American border patrols were doing to persecute his family. I couldn't give a crap, obey the law or don't... just don't complain to me.
We next went to one of my favorite spots on the lake called Upper Todds Island and stayed there for 2 days.
This ended up being the campsite where I cut my hand on a defective tin of corned beef. It probably could have used 5-6 stitches but I patched it up on site and kept it clean and dry with a sock. (adversity#8) Cotton with a bit of stretch makes an awesome compression bandage.
After a rest day we portaged into the St.Croix river and headed down river. Simon learned what a recirculating eddy was and how much work is required to get clear of them but once on our way we paddled down to English Cove to set up for the night.
The next day we made it down to the Class III little falls and caught up with a boy scouts group that was about to run the rapid. After a proper scouting of the channels we headed to the top and Simon says; "I don't mind telling you Lloyd, I'm a bit nervous."
"Don't worry" I said; "If you are not sure what to do put your paddle across the gunwales and stay low."
Video to follow at some point...
Simon made it down the class III with no problems and pretty soon we were on our next class III of the day the Canoose ledge falls. A little class III rapid it is a bit of a scrape at low water but can be a killer in a big flood run off.
After passing the ledge we camped at horse island. So named as there are no horses there and it is not an island. The bugs were still pretty bad so the animals were taking to the water. We saw a deer swimming the channels and cooling off in the river.
The next day we left our campsite and came upon a turtle but he would not be the last.
Next we saw the endangered New Brunswick highland water buffalo...
And when we landed at Grand Falls Flowage we saw a few more turtles, a snapper and a wood turtle..
We camped a final night at the flowage and when our ride did not show up at noon (adversity #9) we continued to give blood to the bugs before I got a message out to Bill. It seemed that he parked my car another mile down river as the GPS was off slightly. Some locals drove me down to find it and we packed up and drove off to St. Stephan for some hamburgers and a rootbeer in an ice cold frosty mug.
Hunter slept for the next 16 hours but we cleaned up and went to a campfire and barbeque at a friends house. The next day we scored some breakfast, took a trip into Pictou to the Grohmann knife shop where Simon picked up a couple of blades at 50% off and we were off to the airport.
I considered finding the security guy from 2 weeks earlier and punching him in the nose but self control got the better of me.
I picked him up at Stanfield International late at night in a torrential downpour and his flight was delayed (adversity#1). I hung out in the food court as the flight board said he was not coming in until 01:45am but then I get a phone call saying he was at baggage claim. It seems the airport did not list his flight on the screen correctly (adversity#2). I walked down to baggage claim but there was no British guy to be found. After waiting for 10-15 minutes I started walking around to find Simon standing on the opposite side of a small wall from me 40 feet away. We were both waiting for the other within shouting distance but obscured from one anothers view (adversity #3).
So finally we meet up and I go pay for parking which is $8 and then go to leave but the security idiot accused me of not paying and refused to let me leave unless I payed again. Long story short, They called the RCMP on me and after investigating the police officer was convinced that I was in the right and had payed however the security staff still refused to let me leave. When the police officer offered to pay for me I coughed up another $8 so she could just get inside out of the rain. Nasty letter to the airport enroute... (adversity #4)
So we drive an hour to camp with some geek friends of mine at a medieval reenactment thing and finally pass out somewhere after 04:00am. The next day the event organizers were wet and miserable and said more rain was coming in the form of a storm so they closed the event early and sent everyone home after I had paid for both of us (adversity #5). Of course the next day the sun came out and temperatures shot to 30C for the next couple weeks.
We drove back to New Brunswick and decided after a good breakfast to canoe the Class I & II Pollett River as the week of rain had made it runable. Simon had never done whitewater before so this was a bit of an experience for him.
This turned out to be a pretty good run. With all the rain we were able to do this river that typically is off the list after the middle of May.
After the river run we cleaned up and went to hang out with some of my geek friends for a bit and then went to downtown Moncton to watch the Canada Day fireworks display. After that we went up to the local pub to have a pint or two and to chat up some 20 something girls that wanted us to join hot yoga for some reason? As we were not drinking seriously the conversation began to lose interest. I do not really give a crap what Miley Cyris is up to these days...
Tuesday we bought another 600 rounds of ammo and headed out to the local quarry. Since the land technically belongs to the Queen and she is pretty cool with firearms use so long as it is 6000km away from her house, we made some noise an poked holes in things from various ranges.
I have a video of Simon with my 12 gauge I will put up later but I am having some computer issues at present.
Wednesday we packed up the car and met up with my friend Bill who was going to look after my car for the duration of the trip. We got about 50km out of town and the fuel pump blew on the car. We had to get towed back to Moncton, transfer all the gear into Bill's van and head out again. We got to the put in spot a lot later than I had hoped but we were on our way.
The weeks of rain however had allowed the mosquitoes an extra few weeks of life. Truthfully I have never seen them so bad in 35 years of outdoor living (adversity #6).
We spent a couple of days on East Grand Lake acclimatizing Simon to his new surroundings and the weather was excellent. We picked campsites that were as bug free as possible but Simon still looked like he was handling the shotgun from the wrong end from all the swelling holes in him.
A few days in we started down Forest City stream and took on a couple of class II before crossing Mud lake and portaging Mud lake falls.
After a long days paddle we landed on Hinkley Island. A little darker and buggier than we liked but after a full day on the water pretty much anything looked good. We gorged ourselves on double meals and chocolate bars but the heat was starting to take its toll on the chocolate supply.
Our next destination is a favorite on Spednic lake. A campsite called the ledges.
Hunter
This was a pretty good spot to wash up some clothes and relax a bit but since it was the 4th of July long weekend we were inundated by about 40 Americans and Canadians having some sort of floating party where the roamed around the lake and annoyed every camper they could find.
It was going well enough and they gave us a few beer, which was appreciated even if it was American beer (like having sex in a canoe) until one drunken guy accused us of being under cover border patrol officers. He wanted to see our ID and when I refused he said; "We could just take you out and put you in a shallow grave and no one would ever know..."(adversity #7)
I quickly retorted; "Well you are welcome to try but it will be a bad day for everyone because I will take six or seven of you with me..."
He called me a few choice names and wandered off until his friends told him he was being an bottom and forced him to come apologize. This netted us some more free beer and some free steak. The guy mentioned that his family was smuggling cigarettes in from the States and illegally selling bear gall bladders on the black market and that it was unfair what the Canadian and American border patrols were doing to persecute his family. I couldn't give a crap, obey the law or don't... just don't complain to me.
We next went to one of my favorite spots on the lake called Upper Todds Island and stayed there for 2 days.
This ended up being the campsite where I cut my hand on a defective tin of corned beef. It probably could have used 5-6 stitches but I patched it up on site and kept it clean and dry with a sock. (adversity#8) Cotton with a bit of stretch makes an awesome compression bandage.
After a rest day we portaged into the St.Croix river and headed down river. Simon learned what a recirculating eddy was and how much work is required to get clear of them but once on our way we paddled down to English Cove to set up for the night.
The next day we made it down to the Class III little falls and caught up with a boy scouts group that was about to run the rapid. After a proper scouting of the channels we headed to the top and Simon says; "I don't mind telling you Lloyd, I'm a bit nervous."
"Don't worry" I said; "If you are not sure what to do put your paddle across the gunwales and stay low."
Video to follow at some point...
Simon made it down the class III with no problems and pretty soon we were on our next class III of the day the Canoose ledge falls. A little class III rapid it is a bit of a scrape at low water but can be a killer in a big flood run off.
After passing the ledge we camped at horse island. So named as there are no horses there and it is not an island. The bugs were still pretty bad so the animals were taking to the water. We saw a deer swimming the channels and cooling off in the river.
The next day we left our campsite and came upon a turtle but he would not be the last.
Next we saw the endangered New Brunswick highland water buffalo...
And when we landed at Grand Falls Flowage we saw a few more turtles, a snapper and a wood turtle..
We camped a final night at the flowage and when our ride did not show up at noon (adversity #9) we continued to give blood to the bugs before I got a message out to Bill. It seemed that he parked my car another mile down river as the GPS was off slightly. Some locals drove me down to find it and we packed up and drove off to St. Stephan for some hamburgers and a rootbeer in an ice cold frosty mug.
Hunter slept for the next 16 hours but we cleaned up and went to a campfire and barbeque at a friends house. The next day we scored some breakfast, took a trip into Pictou to the Grohmann knife shop where Simon picked up a couple of blades at 50% off and we were off to the airport.
I considered finding the security guy from 2 weeks earlier and punching him in the nose but self control got the better of me.
