Some nervousness crept in through the window with the cool breeze that was slowly taking over our apartment. The weather started to carry the promise of summer on the spring breeze, and with it, a nervous excitement for camping. "We're taking the warm sleeping bags, right?" I asked Ryan. "Already laid out with our gear!" He shouted back. With a brief shiver, I closed the window and tried to push the ominous warning out of my mind. It was an overnighter; we could pack some extra warm items and it wouldn't make our packs heavier than normal. The forecasted rain on Sunday, and my camping curse, weighed heavily in my mind as we finished packing up our packs. With our final weight coming in at 26lbs, including consumables, I tried to reason that we were fully prepared. We wouldn't be on trail for a multi-day hike. If it was too cold, we'd be out the next day. Still, that blasted curse kept me tossing and turning all night. What is the camping curse? Well, I'm glad you asked. The camping curse started when Ryan and I met. I was a naive, fair-weather day hiker, and he was a lucky, although he didn't know it at the time, multi-day backpacker. For our first multi-day hike I was nervous and asked, "What if it rains?". Ryan replied saying, "It's never rained when I've gone multi-day hiking", and this is when the curse set in. All of our camping trips experienced some sort of rain. Now, you might be thinking that there is no way it has rained for every trip, but I can assure you that it has. I had some friends visit during one of New Brunswick's driest dry spells. There was a fire ban at Fundy National Park which was only lifted the day before we got there. That night the heavens opened, and it rained so heavily that my friends had to sleep in the dining shelter. I still laugh about it to this day. Sorry guys! Next time, I'll rain proof the tent twice! With the curse in the back of my mind, and a 4C wind gaining momentum outside, I was a tad bit nervous to start out on our hike. Recently, New Brunswick has committed to spending $46 million dollars to building a new road that will connect St. Martin's, New Brunswick with Alma, New Brunswick. The road up to Walton Glen Gorge has been completed, and it is part of the Fundy Trail Parkway. It's easy to get a day pass and park your car to do any overnighter on this section of the Fundy Footpath. There are still a few access trails that you can get to without going into the official park. Once you're on the Fundy Footpath it doesn't matter which park you are in. There are plans to extend the trail, but as of right now it's still in a transition. As of this weekend, you do not need to reserve tenting sites on the footpath. The access trail that we took into the footpath was the McCumber access trail. To get to this trail, from Fundy Trail Parkway, drive up to the last parking lot at Walton Glen Gorge. Walk down the trail that points you towards the footpath. Don't fool yourself into a false sense of security, this path is still not well marked. We knew that, in theory, we needed to follow the map pictured above. We had been on it previously, 2 years ago, when this section of the road was not developed. At one point, when we were going to Walton Glen Gorge, we picked up around 15 people who were lost and looking to visit the gorge. Ryan had to act as tour guide. "If you want to see the top of the gorge, follow us. If you want to go down into the gorge itself, continue down this path and you will start descending into the gorge." A woman with her two kids shouted to them, "Hurry up guys! Our guide is leaving; we'll get lost without him." He should have told them that we were working for tips, ha! To get to the McCumber access trail, follow the guided pictures below. The Fundy Footpath has to be one of my favourite trails that we've done. The fact that it's close by gives it bonus points, but it's really a fun trail, in that break-you-down-as-a-person way. We got to the trail too late to do any foraging. The peas, raspberries, and gooseberries were not yet growing, and the fiddle heads were too far along, or fuzzy (which it is dangerous to eat the fuzzy ones). Still, even without being able to forage, there is something very calming about walking through the forest. We had limited access to cell reception, and a silence that was only broken by my million stories that I feel compelled to tell while on trail. Lucky for Ryan, they tend to be the same 10 - 15 stories about previous camping trips, which he was mostly on. I'm hoping with increased camping trips comes an increasing talent in story telling! We wandered our way down the access trail, which is deceivingly lazy and meandering through the woods. "Well this isn't too bad," I remarked to Ryan. "Mmmm," he replied, with a reassuring "mmmm". My trail legs were getting under me, and I was noticing all of the yellow blazes, which was abnormal. Normally, on trail, my name is "Poco". The reason it's Poco? I am usually shouting out "MARCOOOOO!" when I inevitably get lost. All of these feelings were lulling me into a false sense of security though. We weren't on the footpath yet. I had 4 km to feel like I could be an expert hiker this year, then we hit the footpath. Now, as far as the footpath goes, this overnight trip is one of my favourites. Little Salmon is one of the most peaceful places I've gone camping. It is a tree covered camp site nestled between two foggy hills made of every shade of deep green that nature can imagine. It is completed with a few chirping, adventurous (brave), and over fed little squirrels that I've ever met. You're more likely to run into squirrels taking your food, rather than bears. Granted, we use the provided bear-box, so we've never had a problem with bigger animals. Don't let this lull you into a false sense of security. Those little sneaky ninja-squirrels will get to your food if you aren't constantly watching it. Before getting to the camp site, we first had to get through the footpath. There is one thing that rings true for the footpath, no matter how short a section of the hike you choose to do: going up is hard; going down hurts. Pick your pain. Out of interest in what the footpath looks like in numbers, I wore a Fitbit tracker to see what it would record. Keep in mind that Fitbits are not 100% accurate, and that the "flights of stairs" are only counted going up. Apparently, at Fitbit, they think that going down is easy. I challenge them to this hike! Below is the results of my hiking for the day. Before being able to get to our blissful camp site, we needed to wade across a small river running between us and our final camping spot. Now, it was a very warm 14C during the day. The nights had been dropping to an even warmer 2C - 4C. It was safe to say that the water was cold. Enjoy the video below of me crossing this, very cold, water. Around 15 minutes into our nap that we were sneaking in before getting our fire ready for the night, I heard some screaming. Oh no, no, no. No. No. Peace! Where is my peace and quiet? Where is my blissful reflection while having a drink and watching the sun set over the hill? Thump, thump, thump Oh my gawddd! My legs are chaffing! They're so wet! Ahhhhh! Thump, thump, thump No. No. No. No. Ughhhhh. No. Wait, that's not my tent! Thump, thump, thump "Muuuurrrrph?" Ryan said, getting awoken by teenagers who sound like they are running laps around our tent. He climbed out of the tent and tried to figure out what was going on. I stayed, pulled the hat down over my eyes and tried to get a few more minutes of napping in. Apparently we were sharing our camp site with an outdoor pursuits class. Sometimes you just can't get away from students, even if you hike 15kms into the woods. It's safe to say that they were loud all night. Luckily, the tent site it quite big, and we were able to camp far away from them, and get some privacy. We spent the remainder of the night watching the camp fire and playing Crazy 8s. With the sound of the fire crackling, the smiles and laughing of playing a card game, and the cozy feeling of the sleeping bag at the end of the night, the stress of the week had easily slipped into the cool inky black of the night. Our next day's hike was tiring, and left me napping for the remainder of the day. However, once we reached the car Ryan turned to me and said, "I feel like we should just sit and wait for rain to come before we can get in the car and drive off." I had forgotten all about the camping curse. Some god was smiling down on us this trip, and we finally managed to break the camping curse, nearly 4 years later.
0 Comments
“What are your plans this weekend?” A coworker asked. “We’re going camping” “In the winter?” “Yup!” “In the storm?” “Yup!” That’s right, Ryan and I are slightly crazy, but slightly not. Last winter we had the great idea of going camping in Kouchibouguac, and we wanted to do the same thing this winter. Unfortunately, Kouchibouguac is doing a year long renovation to their shelters. While I was upset that we couldn’t go back, we thought this could be a good opportunity to go enjoy some front country camping in Fundy National Park. The reason we didn’t originally pick Fundy was because the weather can be a bit more unpredictable there, with freezing rain sometimes ruining the snow. Since our options were limited we thought we’d give the park a chance. Ryan and I dutifully planned out front country camping with way too many things on our list, including: board games, sleeping bags, full sized pillows, a bag of clothes each, an IKEA bag’s worth of food, books, shoes, snowshoes, among other things. We ended up packing up the entire car full of things. Who knew that we would need so much to spend two days out in the woods? Once we packed up the car, and got on the road, we turned to each other, around an hour out of Saint John, and asked each other, “Wait, did you take the bathroom kit?” “No, did you?” “I thought you were going to?” “Huh…” We weren’t used to packing so much stuff, and we forgot the bathroom kit. We figured that it would be easier to stop off in Sussex, NB to pick up some toothbrushes, toothpaste, and bottles of water. With an easy laugh at our forgetfulness, we hopped back onto the road. As soon as we got to the park we signed in and let the park people know that we were in the park. We had rented out an OTenTik for $90/night down in Headquarters. There are a few options for winter camping. The OTenTiks are popular because they are wood and canvas structures, double walled, with heaters. There are also Yurts for $100/night, which have always been on my bucket list! Lastly, you can rent out an open tent camping space. I’m not crazy enough to think that I would enjoy sleeping in a tent, in the snow, in the middle of a storm. We stuck to the OTenTiks. “You know that there is a storm coming?” The woman at the Visitor’s Centre warned us. “Yup, we’re all set up and ready for the storm,” we replied. We originally planned the trip before we had a good idea of what the weather would be like. It turns out that a giant storm was working its way up the coast straight towards us. There was a mixed report that reported anything between 2 feet of snow and a warm 5C and rain. I was hoping that we were going to get more snow than rain and that the news report was wrong. “We were thinking about renting out fat bikes. Where do we do that?” We asked the woman from the Visitor’s Centre, just as the rep from Outdoor Elements walked in. “We’re just up at Chignecto. We were just about to leave, but if you guys want to try the bikes out we can wait.” Ryan looked at me with those big puppy eyes. How could I say no? “Sure, let’s try this fat biking thing,” I replied. “The snow is great for it today. Tomorrow, the snow won’t be as good because of the storm.” Damn this storm. We headed straight for Chignecto Recreation Area, where the fat bikes were being rented out. We tried looking around for the guys who were renting out the bikes. We couldn’t see any sign or anything that says where they would be. Soon, I saw someone biking around the corner. “Excuse me, where did you rent those?” I called out. Ryan laughed and said, “Sweetie, those are the guys we were just talking to.” “Oh….right...haha.” We rented both of the bikes with a quick phone call to the main store in Sussex to run our credit card. Ta-da! The bikes were both ours for a half day for $30/bike. We got on the bikes and headed off to the trails. “Oh man, this is easy!” I said, just before my front tire caught in a deep part of the snow. I promptly fell over, while screaming. “AHHHH!” Ryan turned, “Are you ok?” “Hahaha,” I laughed while being submerged in deep soft snow, “Yup, I’m fine.” I proceeded to fall over more than a dozen times during our time out on the bikes. I’m a bit out of shape and the trails are a bit steep. We ended up walking the bikes up the hill and turning around to ride them back down. “Weee!” I shouted while flying (hah, not really; I’m a granny when it comes to going down anything quickly). If I were to go back I’d walk the bike up the boring trail at the end of the parking lot where many trails start off, and then go down the Maple Grove trail. Going down that trail was a lot more fun! After we came down the trail our friends joined us at Fundy. We went on a short walk around the “open to the public” trails. These trails are all groomed for walking around, and we didn’t even need snowshoes for them, although you aren’t technically supposed to go on them without snowshoes, skis, or fat bikes. We really wanted to go on the other trails from Fundy, break trail and have some fun. Before planning on where we were going to go, we decided to unpack our cars and get warm before heading out again. When I chose our OTenTik I noticed that there was a bathroom very close to our site. It turns out that all of those bathrooms were closed for the season. We only learned this as soon as we picked up our keys. We would have to drive to the bathroom every time we wanted to go there. It was probably around 1 km away, and the roads were getting worse by the hour. As soon as we got all of our things in the OTenTik, it was time to start dinner. We pulled out the snacks, and boy did we have a lot of them! We spent the night eating, playing board games, and trying out different beers. It was a good night that ended in the early morning with a few board games won, a few lost, and stomachs full. The next morning,we went to the dining shelter to make breakfast. The storms starting in earnest now, and the wet snow was coming down rather quickly. The dining shelter had lots of wood, and we started to get all of our food out. “Can you grab the bacon?” Ryan asked. I looked in the bag. “Errr, which bag is it in?” “The perishables bag.” “Hmmm….so…” “We forgot the meat didn’t we?” “Heheheh, yes.” Did I mention that we are terrible at front country camping? All of our meat was in that bag. We had nothing to cook for dinner tonight as our friends were leaving after breakfast that morning. We would figure something out, we had enough food to feed a small army. After breakfast was eaten, a car was packed, and our friends were on their way home, Ryan and I turned to each other. “Wanna see what is open in Alma?” I asked. We didn’t pack enough water to drink, thinking that Fundy would provide drinkable water. They do not. They claim that you can drink the water coming from the bathroom taps, but that water is yellow and tastes like you’re licking a penny. Gross. We carefully clambered into the car, there was freezing rain now, and headed into the town. Thankfully, the pizza place in town was open. We got a pizza, and headed back to hunker down in our OTenTik for the day. We ended up spending the day napping, reading, and playing board games. It was as Hygge as one could get. We were cozy, our propane fire was keeping the tent warm, we had comfort food, good books, fluffy sleeping bags, and a neat hack which turned our jug of water and a headlamp into a soft diffused light. The next day we went to drop our keys back at the Visitor’s Centre. It turns out that we were the only ones in the park all night long. We were the only ones crazy enough to spend the night in the park during the storm. The roads were very slippery the next day, apparently one guy in Saint John was skating around on the streets! We took our time driving home, and thought about when we could get out camping again. Hopefully next time, we will have more snow so that we can have some more outdoor fun. On a chilly fall morning, with the leaves changing colours from green to red to yellow, Ryan and I bundled up in all of our warmest hiking gear, long johns included for me, packed our bags, and headed off to hike to the tallest point in the Maritimes. According to Tourism New Brunswick, Mount Carleton is the highest peak in the Maritimes at 820m (2, 690 ft). This hike includes a mix of Acadian woods and mountain peaks, set within a large provincial park which includes 17, 000 ha (42, 000 acres) of wilderness to explore. Ryan had been itching to go on a hike for a little while. He wanted to get out before the weather got to that awkward stage between being too cold to hike with regular pants, and too awkward to hike with snow pants (for the lack of snow). I would soon find out that he wanted to go hiking for very different reasons, unbeknownst to myself. I had chosen Mount Carleton because the pictures of the mountain peak looked stunning online, and I wanted to see all of the leaves changing colours. Autumn has to easily be my favourite season because of how crisp the air is and how beautiful the tress look. When we almost had arrived at Mount Carleton, after driving for more than several hours, I turned to Ryan and asked, “Wait, wasn’t this place a cash only spot?” We had just passed Perth-Andover (Perth is on one side of the bridge and over on the other side is Andover. Get it? Perth and Over! I chuckled for a good few minutes at that one). We were around an hour’s drive away from any ATM at this point. In a frenzy I ripped through our bags, found our wallets, and glory be, found a $10 to cover the cost of our vehicle entering the park. As soon as we pulled into the visitors centre, we were greeted with a “Bonjour!” Mount Carleton is situated firmly in the French speaking area of New Brunswick. This being said, however, the people there will switch to English once they see the doe-eyed look of the person looking at them like an alien has just landed on planet Earth asking for directions to Mars in a language like that depicted on Arrival, which is what I must have looked like at that moment. After paying our $10 and getting our map, we headed on the 20 minute drive from the main gate to the trail head. While I wanted to hike the shorter, but more challenging, Mt. Sagamook, we opted to stay on course for our plan to hike to the top of Mount Carleton. Soon, we had pulled into the parking lot, drove around it, drove out of it, and parked along the road. It was a busy day, and it seemed like everyone wanted to see the leaves work their magic during this majestic season. We quickly ate our sandwiches, as it was noon by the time we arrived at the trailhead, and headed towards the hiking trail. “Errrr...Marco? Where is the trailhead?” I asked, switching to his trail name because I was already lost and seeming to need our Marco-Polo system of address. “This way,” he pointed towards a small path towards the back left of the parking lot. There was no sign saying that this was the start of the path, and it looked so overgrown that you would be mistaken to think that this was a small side path that some hikers cleared away, not the official trail in the provincial park. Soon, I noticed the small green circle which let me know that we were on the correct trail. Just as I had suspected, the trail was in full bloom, with a dizzying colour array before our eyes. Ok, maybe it wasn’t peak season for leaves, and there was still a lot of green foliage, but the trail was still a beautiful sight to be seen. I happily snapped pictures of the trail as we walked our way up. While there were quite a number of cars in the parking lot, it didn’t feel like you were constantly hiking along side other people. We would occasionally pass someone, or someone would pass us walking, but once they were well ahead, you wouldn’t see anyone else for a while. It still felt like a secluded walk in the forest, which I appreciate. We walked past streams and babbling brooks. All the while, we were chatting about anything and everything that came to mind. The forest is a place where you can get some much needed nature therapy (scientifically proven to lower stress levels and increase those feel good chemicals). Soon, we came to the point where we could have camped if we had so wished to. As it is the shoulder season, and quite cold out, I’ve been shying away from camping in the cold. We also didn’t have much time to gather our camping gear for this trip, so we strode past he camping signs, taking note of it for when the weather would turn a little dryer and warmer. At this point on the trail, large rocks and small boulders take over, as you begin your climb to the edge of the tree line. The trees gradually become smaller, and the rocks gradually become larger. “Hump! Huah!” I exclaimed while climbing up the rocks. “Having fun back there?” Ryan asked. He always teases me because I make lots of noise (just in general and especially while I am climbing or hiking). “Yup!” I answered. “Want a hand?” He offered on some particularly deep knee bending climbs from rock to rock. “Nope!” “Stubborn?” “Yup!” Soon we came to a plateau. “Look at the view,” Ryan said as I climbed over the last rock. “Wow,” was all I could manage to say. The landscape before me offered a far-away view of the surrounding area. As the highest point in the Maritimes, the neighbouring valleys and peaks could be spotted. The leaves were showing a gradual change in colour from green, to yellow, to red. You could smell the aroma of autumn around you: wet, earthy, with just a hint of the frost to come. The wind was whipping around us and a chill was starting to make its way into my bones. I looked around, searching for the a form of shelter up on the top of this peak. “What are you looking for?” Ryan asked. “Isn’t there supposed to be a fire watch station up here?” “We aren’t at the peak yet.” “We aren’t?” I looked around and there was a small section where there was a taller looking rock. “Is it that?” I asked, pointing to the aforementioned rock. “Nope” “Nope?” “Nope. Come on, this way Polo.” Ryan walked off along the path towards a higher peak, only visible beyond the turn of the path. Where we were was known as the False Plateau. If you find yourself along this trail at any point, do not turn around here, there is more! Soon, the fire watch tower came into view, and we walked to the spike in the ground which showed us that we had made it to the top. We took a look around, snapped some photos, and simply took in where we were and the views that we were seeing. “Hmmm...it looks like it’s raining over there,” I said, pointing to a particularly angry looking cloud. Ryan seemed to be put off by the rain. It was windy and cold, and the prospect of getting wet didn’t seem to be pleasant. “Do you want to take more photos here?” Ryan asked. “Let’s warm up first in the fire station, and grab a bite to eat. I’m getting hungry. Plus then I can put my rain jacket on for when we start walking down.” Ryan agreed, and we headed off towards the fire station. The inside of which was a sight to be seen. It was very welcoming with the outside being so windy and cold, but the inside did not look like it was being taken care of very well. There was graffiti everywhere, the windows were opaque so that you couldn’t see out of the windows either upstairs or downstairs, and some of the wood planks in the walls and picnic tables needed to be replaced. However, in the cold rainy weather, it was very welcoming. Once we had eaten everything that we had wanted to, and I fished out my jacket, we noticed the sun shining through the windows, and braved our way outside to snap a few more pictures. “Let’s do one with the fire station in the background,” Ryan suggested. “Here?” “No, stand closer to the rock back there.” Ryan was adjusting the tripod so that we could both be in the photo. We had been snapping away, trying to find the best angle. We snapped a test photo and Ryan ran back to the camera to check if the picture had turned out. “Take your hood down,” Ryan said from behind the camera.
“It’s too sunny, I’ll be squinting,” I retorted. “Common’, it’ll look nicer.” “Ok,” I said, taking down the hood of my raincoat. “The other one too,” Ryan said, referring to the hood of my hoodie. “Ok,” I replied. “After this, we should try a photo over there,” I said. “Yeah, sure,” Ryan answered, seeming occupied by something. He clicked something on the camera and ran over. “Um, sweetie, the camera isn’t flashing like it normally does for a timer,” “Yeah,” he answered, smiling and very nervous. He began to reach for something in his pocket. He must be reaching for a remote control, I figured. But wait, if he has a remote control for the camera, why haven’t we been using it? Ryan got down on one knee. What did he drop? I thought. What happened next happened in a blur of emotions and wind. What I remember at this point was “Will you marry me?” being asked, a lot of “Oh my gosh”s, a “yes”, and I was somehow wearing a ring, wrapped in his embrace, and feeling incredibly happy. The rest of the walk down the trail happened quickly, with lots of smiles (to the point where it was starting to hurt!), and surreal feeling. I was realizing that I wasn’t walking off the mountain with a boyfriend, but rather with a fiancé. We were lucky that the rest of the trail wasn’t a difficult walk. There were no big boulders, or rocky paths like what we had encountered on the way up. If you struggle with climbing over rocks, walking up and back on this path might be your best option. We ended our hike with some pictures as a newly betrothed couple, excited to share our news with our family and friends. “We have some time this morning in Zagreb before we leave. What did you want to do?” My mother asked me. “I dunno. Let’s walk around and see what we can find? Maybe an English book store with the history of Croatia? I think I saw one in the main square,” I answered. I had been looking for a history of Croatia while wandering into book stores since the summer. It seems that Chapters, the Canadian book retailer, didn’t have what I was looking for. I was hoping that I would find something when I arrived in Croatia. So far, no luck. We walked over to the main square and entered the book shop. “Hello, I am looking for a book on the history of Croatia, written in English. Do you have one?” I asked. The shop girl looked sad and answered, “No.” It seems that I was not to be lucky today. Maybe another day. While I had been looking around the store for anything that could be construed as a Croatian story, written in English, my mother saw something. “Hey, J, come here!” She shouted in my direction. “Hmmm?” “There’s an illusion museum in Zagreb. Interested?” “Sure, why not? Nance?” “Sure.” And with that, we headed off to the Museum of Illusions in Zagreb. The museum was a little bit difficult to find, but soon we were walking around the museum learning about different types of illusions, and playing tricks on each other. There were a variety of different types of illusions that you could learn more about, and pranks that you could pull on each other. For example, there is an “illusion” where one person has their head on a plate. The mirrors make it seem that there is an empty space under the table. Since coming home I’ve learned that there is an Illusion Museum coming to Toronto. It is from the very same museum chain that is currently running their museums in Croatia. Now in the strictest sense, this is not a typical museum that you would be expecting. There are no old artifacts. There are, however, a variety of different types of illusions with short explanations on why your mind is being tricked. I’m not sure if museum is the correct title or this type of institution. If you are looking for some fun, this is the place to find it. I hope the one in Toronto is as much fun as the one in Zagreb. With a fun short trip to the museum completed, we headed off towards the airport. We had one more day to go before we were to start our tour. The flight turned out to be a short one hour flight, 2.5 hour affair, that left us in Dubrovnik. Getting around Croatia is really best when done by plane, car, or bus. It seems that the trains here aren’t a good idea because of the times that they run, the price that they are, and the speed at which they go. The flights are pretty frequent and not badly priced. If you are going to try to get around the country check out some of the budget flights. Also, it seems that, from personal experience, the flights are often fully booked. This means that you can ask at the counter if you can check your carry-on luggage for a hassle free flight. As soon as we landed in Dubrovnik we asked a local taxi how much it would cost to get to the Sun Gardens in Dubrovnik, and we were told a staggering 300 Kuna (approximately $60 CAD). We checked with Uber, and it was much less expensive. So we got an Uber, threw our stuff into the boot, and headed off to our hotel. “Wow, this place is so pretty!” I exclaimed, watching the landscape pass by. “Dubrovnik Old Town is down there,” the Uber driver explained. We nodded, and wondered when we would get out of the taxi. We wondered this while we continued to drive on, crossing a bridge, and for the next five minutes or so. “Ummmmm, Mom?” I asked. “Yeah, I’m not sure,” she answered my unasked question, which was “Where are we going?” Soon, we pulled into the Sun Gardens Hotel, Dubrovnik . This hotel was clearly not in Dubrovnik, but quite a bit away from it. “So I guess that we are staying in the hotel tonight?” I ask at the same that that we turn the corner of the amazingly long driveway. The sight which greeted me told me that this was not going to be a problem. The hotel was a luxury hotel, and it had beautiful gleaming white buildings, a whole host of staff dressed in white, luxury cars parked everywhere, and you could see the water from the main reception. This was clearly going to be a very nice hotel room. We were given our room key, our bags were all being taken by a porter to our rooms, and we were being driven down to our own room, located in the residences portion of the hotel. We were upgraded to a larger room with two bedrooms, a living room, a kitchen, and three bathrooms. It was quite lavish. Soon, my stomach was rumbling. We were celebrating my mom’s birthday that night, and we set out to find which restaurant that she wanted to eat at. We walked around the resort, and took our time reading all of the menus, as the restaurants didn’t start serving until 7pm. When in Europe, one must eat on European time. “This place looks good, and it’s nearly 7pm. Let’s get a table here,” my mom said. “Hello,” my mother said to the hostess. “Can we get a table for three, please?” “Yes, do you have a reservation?” “No.” “Sorry, we are fully booked tonight.” “Errrr…” “Sorry, most of the restaurants require a reservation.” I looked at my mother, “So…” “Let’s go to reception,” she suggested. Off we went to the food reservation desk and found out that our only option was to eat at a place called the Butcher. Seeing that our choice was made for us, we headed over to the restaurant. The steaks on the menu started at 250 kuna! I hoped for some gold cooked into the steak for that price! We ended up ordering a round of steaks, which turned out to be the best steak that I’d ever have eaten, and we celebrated my mother’s birthday by ordering a bottle of Dingač. Cutting into the steak barely required a steak knife; the gentlest of pressure had the meat falling apart. It was cooked to a perfect medium rare, with beautiful browning on the outside and a beautiful deep pink on the inside of the steak. Biting into the steak allowed all of the wonderful savoury flavours to envelop my mouth. Taking a bite of this steak was simply divine. I’d like to take a moment to describe how much I love Dingač. It is a Croatian wine which is a speciality of the region. Like a Champagne, it is a type of wine that can only be produced in one region of the world. It is a red wine with a bold and peppery taste. It is a delightful wine which we continued to drink for the duration of our trip. Unfortunately, it seems that it is difficult to find it on our side of the ocean. If you are in Croatia, and like wine, make sure to check this gem out. With full bellies, we headed back to our hotel at the end of our meal and rested up for the next day. *********************************** “TIME FOR OUR BOAT TOUR!” My mother shouted at me in the morning; it seemed that she was a little excited about our tour. We had booked a boating tour with Dubrovnik Boat Tours a few weeks before our trip. I read up that the city was packed during the day because of all of the cruise ship guests in the city. It was being compared with Venice. I had no interest in being shoulder-to-shoulder with other people. We decided that it sounded much nicer to be on our own boat. “We got upgraded to a bigger boat for the same price,” she informed me, with a big smile on her face. For $400 we were on a medium sized boat (enough for five to six people) for a private tour around the Elefiti Islands. We arranged for our suitcases to be dropped off at our next hotel, and headed off for our boat tour. Our guide met us at the marina, and we asked him, “So, where are we going today?” “The Elefiti Islands. That is where you booked the tour to, no?” He responded, looking worried. “Sure! We are going snorkeling, right?” “Yes, yes of course.” “Did you have anywhere you would like to go for lunch?” He asked. “Errr...no.” “I can make a reservation for you. During the summer it can get busy.” We thanked him, and with that we flopped our day things on the back bench, put on sun screen and proceeded to tour around the islands. The islands take around 40 minutes to get to on a private boat, and there are three main islands: Šipan, Lopud, and Koločep. We started our tour by walking around the island Koločep. It was a nice spot to start, get warmed up with a walk, before going for a swim. The island had a marina, lots of walking trails, a small beach, and a small fort. We didn’t spend too long walking around because we were most excited for going for a swim. Back on the boat, we headed off to the Blue Cave. The water in Croatia is pristine, and you can easily see to the bottom of the sea. The Blue Cave here is smaller than the famous cave in Capri, but it is much less crowded. There was no line-up to go into the cave, and the light in the cave was a brilliant blue. Getting into the cave is a little daunting because the entrance to the cave is low, and you need to keep your head down. Once you are in the cave, though, there is a lot of room to swim around. When we were in the cave there were three other people in the cave with us. After some swimming around and taking too many pictures with our water cameras, we headed off to the next set of caves. These caves are known as the Three Sisters caves. There are three caves close together. The first cave is very shallow and you can stand up in this cave. We stopped here and took a lot of pictures of us swimming in the cave. The next two caves are more of an open type of cave, and the last cave has access to the other side of the rock formation, if you are brave enough to take a short dive into the cave. I was not so brave without my scuba diving equipment, so I swam around to see the cave and then exited. Next, we went off to our lunch spot on Lopud. “Hey! Look at those paintings!” My mother said excitedly. It was at this point that I knew that the packable duffel bag was coming out of the suitcase for good. We were bringing paintings back to Canada. I had to admit that the paintings were very beautiful. I find that art makes wonderful souvenirs from my travels because they are something that doesn’t go out of fashion, like clothing does. Before we could buy our paintings, we had to find our lunch spot. We walked past several restaurants and eventually found the restaurant where our reservation was. It was a beautiful restaurant on the main walkway. As soon as we sat down the waiter brought over a large tray of seafood, still alive in some instances. Fresh fish and shellfish were being showcased as the freshest bounty of the day. We chose our appropriate meals and enjoyed a lovely lunch, while watching the sea rolling gently. After lunch we strolled down to the artist’s stall and purchased some paintings to take home with us.
We clamoured onto the boat after lunch. “So where are we headed next?” I asked. “To a very nice beach,” was our guide’s response. My mother and I looked at each other. “Did you want to go to a beach?” I asked her. She shrugged in response. “Want to do some more snorkeling instead?” I asked again. “Oh yeah, let’s do that,” she responded. “Is there somewhere that we can go for more snorkeling?” I asked. “Of course.” Have I mentioned that I really enjoy having a private boat tour? We ended up in an area where you can easily spot octopus walking around. We spent the afternoon looking for our eight legged friends. We saw a few and followed them around. At the end of the day we were dropped off at the marina and took at taxi to our hotel. It was a beautiful day, and I would highly recommend it for anyone who is heading out to Dubrovnik. If you are going with a group of people the boat is not very expensive to split among travel partners. We would later find out that that day in Dubrovnik was a hot, stuffy day with no breeze. It seems like we made the right choice for our day excursion. This ended our trip in Dubrovnik on our own. That evening we were to meet our tour group, through Exodus Tours.
Beep, beep, beep
“Huh?” “What?” “What’s happening?” “Oh it’s my phone and also an unnatural time for either time zone that I’m used to. It’s midnight for me at home. Ughhh.” Can you tell that I’m such a morning person? Anyone who knows me well can attest to that fact. My mother practically jumps out of bed, somehow already ready for the day. “We’re going to Plitvice National Park today!” She exclaimed excitedly. How does she do that? After a quick breakfast and a short walk over to the meeting point, waiting for our bus to arrive.
Soon, the minivan showed up, and we were headed off to the park. Our group was small - 8 in total. We took a tour through Viatour. The tour was around $250 total, and I was nervous to see if the tour was worth the price.
As we all piled into the vehicle we were told that it would be around a 3 hour drive out to the park. Three hours?! How are we going to pass all of that time. Our guide started a story with, “Let me tell you a little bit about the history of Croatia.” And with that, we passed the three hour driving time quickly.
From what I can remember the history went roughly something like this:
The History of Croatia According to Our Guide Note: please excuse biases, glossing over of terrible tragedies, and any errors. This is the history as far as I can accurately recall from our guide. Take this all with a grain of salt. If you would like a comprehensive history of Croatia check out this book. I am currently working my way through it; it's very well written. Lots of people live here. Byzantine empire take over! Bye-bye, hello Romans. Bye-bye Romans. Lots of groups of people joining together and separating, with Croatia staying mostly with Austria (because of the Hapsburg Empire). They don’t want to be part of the Ottoman Empire. Enter World War I. Side? Austro-Hungarian Empire. Lose the war. Groups of people join together, name Croatia and Serbia. What? Greater Serbia, we didn’t sign up for this! Croatia joins with Germany because they both lost the war. They’re both bummed about it. Break out of World War II. The Croatians don’t like who they joined up with - Serbia. Nazis come to take over Croatia and the Croatians see this as a time to use the Nazis to free themselves from greater Serbia. Looks like they joined up with the Nazis. Hmmm… Insert war crimes. WWII ends. Power vacuum? Tito is here to solve that. A good-bad country emerges: Yugoslavia. Good points about the country: stable economy, people are working and living generally good lives, on average, as long as you like Tito and Yugoslavia. Bad points: don’t like it? You’re in prison or dead. It’s also a dictatorship. Tito dies and a power vacuum emerges. Lots of fighting over who will run Yugoslavia. Another war. Croatia, as we know it today, is born. Ta-da! You’re welcome - it’s very difficult to find a history of Croatia in English. Trust me, I’ve tried. “We’re here,” our guide says. “We’re here?” We all ask. “Yes,” he answers.
We wait for our guide to get our tickets all ready, and we head into the park. By some miracle, there wasn’t a line to get into the park. Our guide told us that it is typical to wait for nearly two hours to get a ticket just to enter the park. According to our guide, next year the park will only be letting in timed entries into the park so that there won’t be crowds inside the park. If you’re thinking about going in the future, keep this in mind!
As soon as we got in the beautiful sights greeted us.
The entire park was jaw-droppingly beautiful. There are 16 terraced lakes and there are waterfalls everywhere. The entire park is a 13km loop that you can walk around quite easily.
“Ummm, can we go swimming?” I ask our guide, as beads of sweat start to form on my forehead. “No,” he explained, “this would disturb the ecological balance of the park. You can go swimming in Krka National Park. It’s very similar to here.” “So, how many tourists accidentally ‘fall’ into the water?” I asked. Our guide chuckled and said, “I wouldn’t advise it.” He clearly knew what I had on my mind. I started to look forward to visiting Krka on our tour, coming up shortly. For now, I’d have to put up with the heat, and day dream about going into the water. We slowly walked around the park taking in the views.
After our tour was over we headed back into Zagreb, went for dinner, and happened upon one of the best ice cream places that I’ve ever been to. Yes, one of the best. If you are ever in Zagreb, check out Vincek for ice cream. The ice cream had the most intense chocolate orange flavour that I’ve ever had. It tasted like a Terry’s Chocolate Orange.
I skipped through the streets of Zagreb, excited that the next day we would be leaving to go to Dubrovnik.
If you've enjoyed reading this post please consider supporting this blog by Buying Me a Coffee. Want to know more about this program? Check out the Buy Me a Coffee page here. Every little bit helps!
-Ding dong- “Can you get that?” My mother shouted as she tried for the last time to open and close her suitcase, packing another forgotten item. We were getting ready to leave for our trip to Croatia, or Hrvatska as it's known in Croatian. Don't ask me how you get the word Croatia from Hrvatska. I never did find the answer to that question. “Hey Nancy,” I say, opening the door. “Nance is here!” I scream to my mother. “Oh goodie! Our t-shirts arrived,” she yelled down the hall, running to greet Nance. “Ohhhh!” Another exclamation arose from my mother’s throat. Our cousin had made us all matching t-shirts. Our extended family is represented on the t-shirt and Polish designs are placed in the background. We had excitedly decided to wear matching shirts during our trip. My mother held up two matching shirts, except one was much larger than the other. “Which do you want?” She asked before taking a good look at them. I used my quick reaction to choose the smaller shirt. “This one!” I said, sashaying down the hallway with my new shirt. “Wait, this one is giant!” My mother asked, looking at Nancy incredulously. “Why is it so giant?!” “You said you wanted 42 inches!” My cousin retorted. “I think this is 42 across each way. I meant 42 allllll the way around,” my mother refuted. After a moment, a smile crossed her lips, “But they are so cute!” She gushed. And off we were to the airport to catch our flight. As soon as we boarded the flight we heard the elusive announcement, “Once the airplane is in the air and the captain has turned the seatbelt sign off, you are free to chance seats. We have undersold the flight. Enjoy.” These magical words have only sparsely been heard around the magical kingdom of travellers. As soon as the captain turned off the seatbelt sign I darted off to the free row of three chairs. I sat in the middle and slowly spread out over the entire row, feeling less and less guilty as the time went on. To be fair, other people had rows and extra chairs to themselves as well, but not so many were lucky to have a row of three to themselves. My mother had two chairs to herself, close to the window. She decided that she needed to defend her territory at any cost, so she found extra blankets and fashioned herself some armour to scare off scavengers. So with a row of three do you think I was able to sleep on the plane? Nope! It turns out that I cannot sleep on planes. Ugh, well good thing I brought a face mask. Last 40 minutes of the flight I popped on my face mask and made my skin look refreshed for the next day, despite only having had slept for one hour. “Ladies and gentlemen, we have begun our descent into Zagreb International Airport…” And just like that, I stopped listening and started planning what we would do once we landed. Oh, look it’s the Air B&B. Oh look, there’s the bed. My head hit the pillow and bam, I was asleep. Two hours later my cousin knocked on the door, “Ready to head out?” Groggy, but feeling a bit better, we headed out to see the city. We headed off to see the Museum of Broken Relationships. This was a must see on both my mother’s and my must see list of Croatia. This sounded like such an interesting museum. There were objects that people had donated to the museum which told a story of their heartbreak. Some stories were cute. For example, there was a modem with the simple story of “We tried. Not comparable.” There were stories which broke our hearts reading, such as stories of rape. However, all of the stories told a truth about a loss of some kind. Each story told a truth about love and/or loss which most people could connect with. It was a very moving museum, and I would recommend it to anyone who is passing through Zagreb.
Towards the end of the museum visit, I noticed my mother squinting and droopy eyed. “Tired too, eh?” I asked her. “Mmmmugh,” she responded. I could tell that she was hungry, as we all were. We headed off for dinner. For our first night we chose a typical southern Croatian restaurant for seafood. While the different regions in Croatia have different types of cuisine, seafood seems to be on constant offer everywhere we visited. There is a Croatian saying: Fish should swim three times: once in the sea, once in wine (while cooking), and once in your stomach. It's safe to say that seafood is a way of life in Croatia. We feasted on tuna carpaccio, a large plate of calamari, a fish (sea bream), and black risotto with cuttlefish. After a delectable dinner, we started our long walk home, made longer by getting slightly lost. “Common’ Polo, we’ve gotta get going,” Marco said while starting to pack up our tent site. I was sitting on a rock, savouring my morning cup of tea, warming myself up after my early morning dip into the ocean. The day promised to be perfect: warm, but not too warm, and there were no bugs in sight! It took all of my will power to leave the rock, get our bags packed, and get going on our last day of the trail. I’m not sure if it was because we had planned on hiking out the day before, or my renewed sense of energy, but I was underestimating how long the day’s hike would be. With my energy brimming over, my feet Voltaren’d (sometimes it’s the only way I can get going on trails when I’m hurting), and my pack securely on my back, we headed back on the trail towards my patiently waiting car in Fundy National Park. The last few kilometres were not very difficult. There were the last few ups and downs, but the ups and downs were more gentle. It was almost as if the trail knew that it had challenged us, and it was taking it easy on us for our last day. It didn’t take long for us to reach the 0 km mark. I can’t lie, when we got to the trail marker which indicated that we were officially off the Fundy Footpath I shouted in joy. “WHOO!!” “WHOOO!” Marco joined in. “Ok, so now what?” I asked Marco. “Oh, it’s another 8km or so walk out of Fundy National Park,” he responded. Yes ladies and gentlemen, when you are finished the Fundy Footpath you still have another 8 km (or slightly longer) to walk out of the park. We hopped off the trail and into the mud pits. There are two paths you can take when you are finished. One path is the traditional Fundy Footpath trail, where you need to do it at low tide. The other option is great for when the tide is high and you can’t cross the mud flats. However, the tide was out, so we were able to go through the mud. “That way?” I asked Marco. “Yup.” I then proceeded to walk through the mud. Marco took one look at me sinking in the mud and skirted along the side where there was significantly less mud. “Oh...that would probably make more sense, eh?” I asked while I looked at how muddy I was compared to Marco. We skirted what we could, but as per my messy nature, I ended up covered in mud and Marco came out generally unscathed. I have to say in my defence though, the sound of your foot making that “thwuck” “thwuck” sound while you walk is quite relaxing and meditative. We soon reached the area where the park boundary sign is. After a quick refuel stop of raspberries and gooseberries, we took a look of the park map. So this is where the 8 km hike starts from. This part of the hike is not very interesting, and I was so excited to be off trail to take a shower. I gripped my hiking poles with new ambition and used the poles to push me to walk faster. “800” “799” “798” “797” “What are you doing?” Marco asked. “You said that there was one kilometre left. That means around 800 steps. I’m going to count them,” I responded like this was the most natural thing in the world to do. “0!” I proclaimed. We still weren’t off trail. “800 is according to my pace, Polo. Count up now; it can’t be much longer now.” “98” “Wait isn’t that a car?” I said excitedly. “99” I was practically skipping at this point. “100” “WHOOOOO!” Everyone in the Point Wolfe parking lot at Fundy National Park looked at me funny. Who was this very smelly, screaming lady coming from? I didn’t care and yelled one more time, “WHOOOO!” I fished my car keys out of my pack, took off my hiking boots, got the clean clothes bag, which we had left in the car, out, and started to head towards Point Wolfe for a shower. You are supposed to go up the road for a shower when you’re coming off the back country trails, but I wasn’t about to smell up my car with my particularly horrible odour. We snuck into the showers at Point Wolfe, and it was the best shower that I’ve ever had, even though we only had dish soap (we forgot to pack the actual soap in our clean clothes bag). Once we were all clean we limped our way over to get a coffee and sticky buns from Alma. I had been thinking about sticky buns since the first night on trail. This was a sweet reward for finishing the Fundy Footpath. As I took a bite of my sticky bun, a sip of my coffee, and started the car to head home I felt a high sense of accomplishment and pride in being able to finish the footpath. I had many doubts if I had what it took to make it through the trail, and here I was, all the better for it. “Good-*buzz*-morning,” I said as I turned to Marco. It looked like we had another day of battling the bugs to contend with. There were a few clouds in the morning and a bit of a drizzle. This soon burned off, and the day warmed up. This time I knew that this particular cocktail of weather meant that we were going to be battling more bugs. We packed up all of our things and started our long and climb out of our campsite and on the path towards Rose Brook, our last stop on the trail. As we rose to the top of our elevation for that portion of the morning the smell of bacon and pancakes wafted through the air. “Marco?” “Polo?” “Are you smelling that too, or am I just going crazy?” I asked. I took in a deep inhale of the intoxicating scent. “Nope, you’re not imagining it; yes you are crazy, but that’s a conversation for another day.” I playfully looked shocked. “We’re by Martin’s Head,” he explained, just as a Jeep went down a dirt road I hadn’t noticed. “People here go out to Martin’s Head to go 4-wheeling, or muddin’.” Now I had just learned about this ridiculous practice only a few months earlier from a friend who lived up in Parry Sound, Ontario. Muddin’ (no -g) is when you intentionally go into the woods, get your vehicle stuck in the mud, and push it out again. I don’t pretend to understand why someone would want to do this. If my car got stuck in the mud, I would call CAA and it would ruin my day. However, people here do it for fun. I shouldn’t judge - maybe one day I’ll give it a go and see if I like it. I might need another car besides my Mazda to do it in; that will be a post for another day. “The beach looks to be a bit of an easier walk. We have to walk out to the beach anyway, right?” I asked Marco, just as we both swatted a mosquito for the umpteenth time. And with that, we were bush waking our way to the beach. We proudly emerged from the beach to the amazement and wonder of people who were camping nearby. We must have been a sight: bug bites everywhere, smelling from kilometres away, and dirt smeared across our faces. We were as proud as two hikers could be. “Day hike?” The bewildered family asked. “Nope, on the footpath. This is Day 3,” we answered before heading off towards our next camp. What that family must have thought of us! We hadn’t done this part of the path before, so we weren’t sure how far we could go along the beach before… “Marco?” “Mmmm?” “We’ve run out of the beach.” It seems that there were large boulders for as far as the eye could see. Just ahead we could see our next stop on the footpath - Goose Creek (or River, I can never get those two straight). “It can’t be that hard to scramble, right?” I asked Marco. Oh boy, I had no idea what I was getting us into. We were on a bit of a schedule, due to the tides, but we could see our next stop. It couldn’t be that bad, right? Right? After an hour of scrambling past big boulders, we found a free rock climbing gym! Or rather, we were being forced to boulder to get past the slippery seaweed. Now, rock climbing, for me at least, can be challenging, but rock climbing with 25 lbs strapped to your back and a few hours trip to the nearest hospital? Nerve-wracking! There were a few spots where I thought we weren’t going to get across. With a few scrapes and close calls, we ended up at our tidal crossing. After a quick lunch, where we can rest our feet, we started to do our tidal crossing. It didn’t take long, but I didn’t want to wait too long or else we would have the tide coming back in. “...what are you doing?” I asked Marco as he picked up a large log. “It’s muddy here.” “You’re going to carry it the whole way?!” “Yup.” And he did exactly that! It ended up being a blessing because the spot was pretty muddy. After some conversations about potentially walking off trail, we ended up taking one look at Rose Brook and decided to stay the night. I was pretty happy because if I had tried to walk off that day I probably would have been driven to my limit again. Rose Brook was one of the nicest camping spots on the trail, in my opinion. It had fresh water right there, the ocean to swim in, it was open to see the stars, plenty of trees to hang dirty laundry, and it was quiet as we were the only ones there. However, there wasn’t a functioning bear box there, and no thunderbox to be found. We decided to rinse out our grossly sticky clothes, and watched the clouds of salt and gunk emerge from our clothes and our hair. It was a sight to be seen! Next, we jumped into the ocean, and I proceeded to scream the whole time, while also swimming in it. It was so refreshing to be somewhat clean. With warm clothes on, we unpacked our treat dinner (Backpacker’s Pantry) and spent the evening star gazing. We ended up pulling the fly back on our tent and star gazed that night. That region of the coast is a light sanctuary so you can see a beautiful sky at night. This was my favourite night on the trail. I went to sleep, happy to be warm and well fed. One more day to go! When I first met Marco we had a conversation that went something like this: “Want to try going backpacking?” He asked. “Sure! But...um….” “Yes?” “It’s supposed to rain this weekend,” I told him. “Don’t worry, it’ll blow over. This is the coast - the weather changes so quickly. Also, I’ve been backpacking for years, and I’ve never been caught in the rain.” This is when the universe decided to curse us. Cue rain. Every time we go camping now, it rains at some point. Today we woke up and could hear the rain in the distance. We’ll be fine. We’re under tree cover! Besides, the rain is so far away. Hmmmm…it does sound like it’s getting closer. Yup, it’s getting closer. Annnnndddd…..*plit, plit, plit, plit, plit” the rain has started. Luckily the rain didn’t go for too long, and by the time we finished breakfast the rain had finished too. What we didn’t realise at this point: the rain had awakened a deadly monster in the woods, a monster that we were soon to meet: a large swarm of bugs. We were unknowingly walking into our doom, and yet we packed up our tent and headed out. We started our ups and downs, 200 m up, only to come back down that same elevation again. The views were beautiful, but this part of the Fundy Footpath is basically a giant muddy swamp. This is where bugs thrive - still water, dew from the plants around, and fresh warm bodies to steal blood. It is a bug heaven and a human’s worst nightmare. Without too much trouble we got to Rappidy Falls and crossed on the nice new bridge. Marco told me that when he did the path, years back now, there was no bridge. I was very glad that a bridge had been installed, and we excitedly walked across the bridge to our next stop. On our way, we saw the remnants of an old dam, broken now. At the next campsite, we sat and had lunch. I was pretty exhausted by this point and bitten by more than a few bugs. I was itching everywhere. The good news was that we were on a beachfront and the moving ocean, rocks everywhere (no plant life), and wind meant that we could eat in peace. The beach at Telegraph Brook was very nice. In fact, someone was slowly building a house out of rocks at Telegraph Brook. There was a stone floor, a slowly built up wall, a fire pit, and what looked like a little food cellar. Marco told me that he found animals bones there before. That made it a little creepy, but, honestly, the house seemed so inviting to rest my sore feet. “Ready to go?” Marco asked? “....er” “What’s wrong?” “I’m exhausted. I know that it’s only 1pm, but I am so tired.” “Let the food work its magic. You’ll get a second wind.” It was still so early in the day, and calling it quits here would mean a much longer hike the next day. So with my sore feet shoved back into my hiking boots, we started on our way to Quiddy River. I thought that my energy levels would pick up, but unfortunately, they just kept declining. Each step up was hard, and each step down just hurt. After a few more ups and downs the bugs were starting to get really bad. You couldn’t sit in one spot to get respite from the bugs. I so badly wanted to sit for a half an hour or so to get my feet to hurt less. Unfortunately, stopping for any amount of time just doubled the amount of time we got bit. At one point I sat down on a log and tears started to well their way up. I couldn’t hold it back anymore. We had thought that we only had one more kilometer left, but we couldn’t see a downhill anywhere in sight. Even though the downhills hurt, I looked forward to it because it meant that we were close to our campsite. I stubbornly pushed on, knowing that our campsite couldn’t be any further, but with every step, my feet hurt more and my bug bites itched something awful. I started to get even more tired and I started to trip over roots and rocks. At one point I slipped and had a less than graceful fall. I started to cry, embarrassed at falling and crying because I fell. It had all started to become too much. “Give me your pack,” Marco insisted. “No, I can do it.” “Give me your pack.” “No!” I declared through tears. “I’m worried about you,” Marco looked at me, clearly showing his worry on his face. I reluctantly handed over my pack. We had no more than a half a kilometre left, we had been going down for a while now. My legs, feet, and generally whole body, still hurt with each step, but the extra weight off of my back/hips had really helped me get to camp. Marco was an angel that night. He braved the bugs and set up camp while I sat in the stream crying and cleaning myself of the blood and grime of the day. I then climbed into the tent to filter water while Marco cooked dinner. We ate a quick dinner and got to bed very early that night. I thanked my lucky stars that I had such an amazing man on the trail, and in life, with me, and fell asleep. We had a big day coming up - up and over to Rose Brook. |