Hike hike hike

Ready for this? Its a long one! if your bored, this is something for you to read.

What a gloriously, wonderful weekend I had! Hiking, camping, swimming, eating, talking, laughing (a lot!) and driving! We'll rewind to Wednesday.

Wednesday I drove down to Darlington with Mom. We went out for lunch at Swiss Chalet, then went back to the MacLeod's. We stopped in at Cows for an ice cream from Kara, on the way. I stayed the night there, with all my stuff for the hiking trip. Thursday Rachel and I picked up Kara from work, then Melody, and went to Andtrea's house. The van was some packed by the time we got everything piled in! We had quite a fun ride. When we arrived in Sussex, we had to kill a bit of time before picking up Keirsten and Moriah, so we went the Walker Farm, which would be Andrea's Uncle and family. What a nice family! They were very kind, showing us around the farm showing us their kittens, rabbits, calves and the barn where they milk the cows. It was really nice!

From there we went to the Sussex Gospel Hall, expecting to pick up the other 2 when meeting was out. What we forgot, was that there were other meetings going on at the tent in Cornhill, half an hour away! We back-tracked into Sussex and finally, after a few unsuccessful attempts, picked them up. It was very squished to say the least in the van for the 30 minute drive to the cottage. I was some glad when we arrived. It was a bit chaotic at first, as the lights would not turn on, until we figured out the breaker was shut off. After much fiddling, Andrea turned the breaker back on, and we lugged all our belongings in to be sorted. The living room bounced alive with backpacks, food packages, sleeping bags, and all kinds of other camping trinkets. We were all pumped. It was late when we finally got to bed.

At 8:00 Friday morning my watch started beeping. When no one got up for a few minutes, I took the pleasure of grabbing my camera and walking up the stairs to wake up the sleepy heads. It was fun. By 9:15 we were on our way. Tim's was the next stop, we all got something to eat. The most notable food item was Kara's SMALL TRIPLE TRIPLE, because when she asked for a quadruple quadruple, they laughed at her! Cheaper than Red Bull anyway. We were loaded up and on the trail at 10:50, energy high, and 30-40 pounds on our backs. Great time was made, and it took us 1 hour 45 minutes, with only 1 woods stop to use the bathroom. Kara took it upon herself to serenade us for a while, with numbers like "Ate A Peanut Last Night" and "Miss Mary." Setting up camp was a bit of a chore at first, as it was windy and one of the tents blew over. We relocated to a sheltered spot about 50 feet away. It was fun to explore around the place. It was right in the bay, on a little peninsula-like spot, with the Bay of Fundy on one side, and a big fresh water river on the other. There was no running water, so we washed our dishes out in the river. There was an outhouse, but it was so disgusting I just about decided to go in the bushes. 

For supper that night we make KD and Sidekicks in little pots over these little fire/burner things. Hiking almost 2 hours up and down hills through the forest, gives you quite an appetite. We had lots of fun and laughs while playing Rook, Loser and spoons with the Rook cards I brought. At one point, as we were riotously laughing and carrying on, Melody stopped and asked of we heard anything. We brushed it aside. Two minutes later 3 hikers emerged. Andrea called out to them in conversation as they walked by. I can only imagine what they must of been thinking about us at that point. We started up the bonfire (illegally) when it started to become dark. We roasted hotdogs, and sausages then marshmallows and smores, and popcorn. It was a full moon, and it wasn't hard to tell- we were WIRED! That's when it happened:

We didn't think anything of it when Andrea kept glancing out in the river, until she asked us if we saw the white thing floating. We all turned around and looked. At first we wondered if it was just a plastic bag or something. As it moved, it got close to the land separated from us by the river, and started walking on the land! The land was about 100 feet or so from us. We were starting to get a little worried, but as long as it didn't try to cross over to us, we would be fine. We tried to be loud, hoping to scare it from coming over. It did the opposite. To our complete horror, we watched as it got off the land and started swimming directly for us! It turned into sheer panic. Andrea tried to calm us, to no avail, so finally she started to pray out loud. We found comfort in this, until she started saying how we were all saved so we were all ready if we ended up dying. Great, just what we wanted to hear. We all tried our best to guess what it was, wile huddling all together by the tents. Wolf? Coyote? Albino bear cub or raccoon? Beaver? duck? Turtle? We were getting more worked up by the minute. Finally it came to the land just down stream from us. We shone the light on it. It stayed where it was. We got braver as the minutes passed. Soon we were within 20 feet from it. We started noticing some similarities between it and a piece of sea foam 5 feet away from it. When Keirsten through a rock and hit it, we were more than relieved! We went back to the fire and gave a prayer of thanks.

The next morning after cooking breakfast, and reading by the peaceful river we headed back to the trail at 11:00. It was nice and sunny. The trail seemed easier on the way back, and by the end of the trail we were in a full-out run! Partly because we wanted to get back to the cottage to swim, and partly because it was just fun to do. Upon arrival at the cottage, we met Andrea's clan. We all had a great time all afternoon, swimming on the lake, playing soccer and having a bonfire. By the end of the night, we were completely and thoroughly EXHAUSTED!

Sunday after meeting we went to the Cormiers for a tremendous turkey dinner! I was stuffed as we left to go home. Coming up behind a van on the way, we were pleasantly surprised to find out it was the Van de Weils who we had just spent time with at the cottage! Pictures to come!