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Sept 2nd, 2005 - 13th of 16 days - in Québec

Are we in Baja yet??

After one last look at the falls, we get on our way to Manawan.

No 1 most important thing when camping out: You've got to be able to adapt!

The sun is up, and so are thousands of mosquitoes...O.K. time to take the bug-vests out! Pretty effective against mosquitoes, but they make it a little akward to eat...

We normally use a bug repellent cream that works very well all day long. But we don't use it at night, because of the smell...I mean, It smells good to us, we just wonder if bears like it too... Quebecs bug festival

Yeah ! Swamp crossing: At last, some challenge!

	We were looking for the trail. A nice gentleman tells us it's closed because of a really nasty swamp we have to go across...Cool, let's check it out!...Guess what? We made it!!
Bof...	Can't find a spot to camp near the water.
	After eating dust all day...would have been nice to wash it off...

Now what the he** is goinig on?

We are met by litterally about 100 OHVs: There's quads, motocrosses, 3 wheelers, rhinos, rangers, you name it! They all zoom right by us at full throttle, some of them side by side, creating a gigantic cloud of dust...You'd think we were running the Baja 1000 the wrong way!! No dust mask can help!

dusty

We are told it's a yearly ritual. Every labor day week-end they all meet in St-Michel-des-Saints and race up to Parent to party and spend a couple of nights there. The next Sunday, they race back down. Good to know!

As we are getting closer to more populated areas, remote spots near the water get harder to find. Time flies, we've got to set up camp somewhere.

We hit this more open spot in the middle of the forest. Nobody around.

That will have to do for the night. Camping in the middle of nowhere

After pitching the tent, we share dinner with a good number of our buzzing friends (actually, they have dinner on us!!), as always at a good distance from our sleeping quarters.

Vroumm, Vroumm...3 quads appear. They're folks from the area that have a camp not too far. They seem to be pretty surprised to see us there, but not as surprised as we are to see them!

We learn that we are on an old runway that has'nt been used for many years.

"But why did you decide to camp here?" One says. "There's numbers of nice spots right along the river, not even half a mile from here!"

Not being familiar with the area, we had no clue a river was close by. And besides, there comes a time in the day when you have to stop and set up somewhere if you don't want to do it in the dark.

The man continues, "There's a hunt camp, about a mile from here, that is always open and available for people who are looking for a place to sleep. If there's no one there, it's all yours, so long as you leave it as you took it."

We're a little sceptic...Bâhhh...The tent is up... too late.

You never know what can happen in the forest.

After reading a few articles on the subject, we decided that we should always have with us the following items some of them in our pockets, others in a fanny pack:

compass
copper wire (to catch hare)
bug repellent cream (wont leak)
candle
pencil (always works)
paper (messages)
multi-tool
kit-in-a-can: containing:
fire starter, a small rope
fireproof matches, dry soup, duct tape, band aid, whistle and more...
head lamp
emergency blanket
toilet paper
small towel
wind and rain proof lighter (not shown on photo)