The tent had a lot of condensation on it when I woke up and I thought my sleeping bag was a bit damp from it as well. It had barely felt warm enough right before dawn. I was out of water by the time I had my breakfast and the Coop wasn’t open yet. I wasn’t sure how far it might be to the next water source since the FarOut map shows places where water crosses the trail, but not all of them are noted on the map as water sources, possibly because they’re seasonal or difficult to access. So, there was possiblity a few kms away but certain water was much further. The trail uses the road leaving Ste-Marguerite and a man in a pick-up truck stopped as I reached the road and ended up telling me to stop by his house to fill up my water. He gave me directions on how to walk there since he had to go do something before heading back home and I wasn’t sure that I understood except that he thought that it would take me about the same amount of time to walk there as it would for him to go do his errand and return home. I walked along the road until I reached a fork and wasn’t sure if I should continue the way the trail goes or turn. I stopped and waited for a bit, figuring that the man would eventually come by. However, a dog in a nearby house seemed excited by my presence and I felt like I was a suspect presence, loitering on the road at 8 in the morning, so I just kept going the way the trail goes. As I was walking, the man in the pick-up passed me and turned into a driveway just ahead, so it turned out that I hadn’t missed my chance to fill up my water. I chatted a bit with him and his wife when I got there and they told me about a man with a prosthetic leg and a dog hiking the trail, who had taken a wrong turn and who he’d gone looking for on his atv with the man’s sister when he didn’t turn up when he was supposed to. They found him, he was just a day behind schedule because he’d of the wrong turn. I knew exactly where he’d gone wrong because there was a SIA trail marker on a trail called ‘plan b’ while none on the true trail, so quite confusing. I had used my GPS to make sure I’d opted for the correct fork…After leaving their house, the trail soon turned off from the road and followed forestry roads all the way into the town of Causapscal. There was a strong wind and it was chilly enough that I had to put on an extra layer for a bit. The walking was easy and I got into Causapscal around noon, just in time to head to the local cantine for lunch. I ordered a pulled pork poutine, which was apparently their specialty. In addition to fries, cheese curds and gravy, there was the pulled pork and bbq sauce. I thought it was nice, but I’m a poutine purist at heart.

After eating, I went to the grocery store to top up my cheese, fresh produce and snack supplies and then located the campsite. It consisted of a shelter and a tent platform and was up a hill (of course), next to a fire station and across the road from an apartment complex. The shelter was locked and since I hadn’t booked it, I didn’t think about going and asking for the keys, which according to the sign on the door were back at the grocery store. I tried to set up the tent on the platform, but it was a very windy day and I was on the top of a hill…the tent just kept blowing off the platform. I tried anchoring the guylines to the platform, but it was still blowing around uncontrollably. I gave up eventually and figured the wind would probably die down in the evening or worse come to worse, I would cowboy camp (just sleep out in the open). I stashed my pack behind the platform so it wasn’t visible and went back down into town.

I walked around a bit, bought a new sunscreen since the cap from the one I’d brought had broken and it was leaking a bit, then had an ice cream at an ice cream shop and sent off my first group email. When I got back to the campsite, the wind had died down and I was able to set up the tent. I had my homemade dehydrated risotto for dinner, with mushrooms, chicken and peas. The chicken didn’t rehydrate very well, but it was otherwise nice and tasty. I eventually went to bed and at some point woke up suddenly with a very bright light shining onto the tent. I was paralysed with fear, thinking that someone was shining their torch into my tent. I couldn’t hear anyone out there and eventually managed to make myslef turn around to see what was happening. It turned out to be a light on the apartment building that would regularly turn on and off, seemingly automatically. After my heart rate returned to normal, I tried to sleep again but it was patchy and for some reason I dreamt about a bear attack even though I was camping on the edge of a town, possibly because I slept with my food in the tent since there was no option to hang it…