May long week-end canoe-camping trip day 1

We left Montreal at 11 am, we should have left at 10 like I wanted to but time seems to just disappear. We made one pit stop at the first truck stop on the highway between Montreal and Trois-Rivieres.,  The next time we stopped was at the lookout tourist information for Charlevoix. The region is beautiful. We had stopped briefly at Baie St-Paul to go to Parc National Grand Jardins last year, this time we were looking for Parc National des Hautes Gorges de la Malbaie.  The view at the tourist information was spectacular. We're way up above and you can look down into the harbour on the St Laurent.

We got to the gate of the Parc National des Hautes Gorges de la Malbaie at 4:50pm. The gate closes at 5pm. I wasn't sure we'd make it because of the distance which is why I wanted to leave at 10am to make sure I'd make this gate.

We drove the 8km to the parking lot, where we left the Suzuki for the week-end and took out our canoe and gear. Thankfully they had canoe dolley to help transport it to the point where we can put it in the water.  We took all our gear, and we don't travel light, and put it in the canoe for an 8km paddle to our campsite.

We left the canoe launch site at 6:30 PM. Part of what delayed us is we had to wait for the SEPAQ to get their boat in the water, as it was the first day they were opened for the season. We couldn't load the canoe until the waves they created while parking their boat subsided, it was just too much.

They told us the canoe ride would be 2 hours, but I guess that would be with a small canoe and little gear, but we have a big canoe and lots of gear. We did not make it there until 8:50, so it took us 2:20 minutes.

The last 15 minutes were the worst as it was getting dark and there was a canoe that moved around the same time and over took us we saw them go in a long arm of the river and come out and disappear to what seemed the campsite so we decided to take the shorter route. However the longer route would have been preferable as we ended up in a shallow area where the canoe got stuck in sand. More then once. It was almost impossible to see anything by then and my companion was ready to park there. {Would not have been a good idea as it was a small island but I digress} I pushed and we found the campground a few minutes later.

Usually I get a thrill with new adventures but seeing I had driven 5 hours, and paddled over 2 hours, and I was tired and hungry, by the time we got stuck I was pretty unimpressed.

Once we made it to the campground, we then realized that the spot we chose was NOT waterfront, and we had to lug all our gear to our campsite. The only thing we did not lug was our canoe.  It was 9:30 pm by the time I put the chickpea curry on the coleman and started warming it up. It was 11pm by the time we had the tent up.