Day 2 dawned with nice weather. I didn't sleep very well in my hammock. I'm not sure if it was the hammock, being overtired from the day before, the wind flapping my $35 fly all night, but I never fell asleep until 4 a.m. Waking up at 7 a.m. I couldn't fall back asleep. Today would be our longest travel distance for the whole trip and I was anxious I wouldn't be able to handle it. LT kept saying "we go as far as we go, we can stop anywhere". But I was still anxious.
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| Hammock set-up from last night with flappy fly |
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| Shhh, he's still sleeping in his hammock! |
A map of today's trip:
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| Day 2's route |
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| Personal shower stall |
Once we were back in the water, we still had more big lake before turning the corner to get a bit of a breeze at our backs. We passed a young couple going into North Tea Lake as we were heading into the narrower Mangotasi Lake. Today was Labour Day and I assume they were headed home whereas we were heading deeper into the park.
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| Going into North Tea Lake |
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| Portaging through to Biggar Lake |
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| Hmmmmm, where to put in? |
There was no fire tonight but we took out the Thermo Cell that I had bought for this trip. We did have the bug shelter tarp and screen tent, but it can be a pain to set it up if we're not going to use it. LT started the Thermo Cell near the fire pit where we were cooking.
Tonight's dinner was pasta with pineapple upside down cake for dessert.
I decided to try swimming. I really just put on my bathing suit and dunked a bit, but it felt good. Today it had been warm and a bit muggy once we got out of the wind on the big lakes. LT joined me for a quick dunk as well. Afterwards sitting by the firepit, we both felt itching on our skin. Uh-oh. It didn't last too long and would disappear if we covered the area (like put on socks).
I think we were in bed well before 10 tonight. I was exhausted with only 4 hours of sleep last night. I slept better, but woke up a lot. It was much quieter tonight, no flappy fly. LT had bought a much nicer tarp that he took out of his bag and I used it for the rest of the trip. Neon green!
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| The ground was spongy under the hammocks, ick! |
You can see the Thermo Cell in the last picture, perched on a rock of the fire pit. It comes with butane canisters that last 12 hours. It comes with 3 inserts that I assume have the chemical that spurns the bugs. Each insert lasts 4 hours. I had also purchased an extra box of canisters and inserts. We brought 2 canisters and 6 inserts. Well, we went to bed leaving the Thermo Cell running, so the butane canister burned for 12 hours with the insert running out after the first 4 hours. D'oh! Lesson learned there. It doesn't make any noise, you can see a bit of mist/smoke coming off of it in the right lighting when the insert is activated. But we'd basically forgot it was running. Thank goodness the bugs were really not bad at all.
On today's trip we saw a couple of herons, usually surprising them as we came around a corner into a marshy area. If I kept my mouth shut more and paddled quieter maybe they wouldn't move. But then we wouldn't see them, they do blend in quite well with their surroundings.
Today's numbers:
Portage #5: 585m
Portage #6: 305m
Portage #7: 50m
Portage #8: 140m
Total portage distance for the day: 1.08 km
Total distance for the day: 21 km
Total time spent travelling: 6 hours
Other posts for this trip:
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