It was cold and windy this morning even though the sun was out, making it difficult to want to get going. I did finally hit the road around 9:30. I was looking forward to heading into the Reserve Faunique de la Matane later and getting onto some real hiking trail after all the road and atv trail walking of the first section. I still had some roads to contend with this morning although there was a section of hiking trail as well. A man in a car stopped on one of the roads to say hello and he told me about a river crossing that was coming up. I hadn’t realised there was another crossing, but when I got there, it was more of a stream and the level was low enough that I thought I could cross by rock-hopping. I got at least half way across before stepping on a rock that was slippery and falling into the water. It was only ankle to shin deep so there was no real danger from the water and I didn’t hurt myself thankfully. This trail ended at a highway and it was a short walk along it to the Matane river.

The trail turned to follow the river, but was still on paved road for a few kms before becoming a hiking trail along the bank. I stopped for lunch on a pebbly river beach and looked for salmon in the water but didn’t see any.

Shortly after lunch, I met some day hikers going the opposite direction, the first hikers that I’d seen since Day 1! That afternoon I also had my first trail magic; two fishermen that I said hello to offered me a beer. I drank my beer with them and as we chatted, we figured out that one of them was a Radio-onclogist at Charles-Lemoyne hospital and that he knew my friend Karlene! They hadn’t caught any fish yet and told me that it’s quite hard since they can only use lures that float while the salmon hang out at the bottom and aren’t hungry at this time in their life cycle (I did learn when I got home that they did catch a huge salmon, but had to release it back given it’s size). I continued on after finishing my beer, as they were preparing to go back into the river. The trail continued to follow the river into the Reserve. There’s a welcome centre and camping area at the entrance, called Poste John, and I went in to see if there was somewhere I could properly dispose of my almost empty gas canister. The person that I spoke to took the canister even though they don’t collect them and said she would bring it somewhere that does. There was no registration or anything needed to hike in the Reserve, so I continued along the trail for the last few kms to the Abri Riviere Matane, where there’s an abri and tent platform. I needed water when I got there, so I followed the ‘trail’ down to the water, which was ok to start with but then turned into a few meters of vertical soft dirt where the bank was eroded. I used a rope to get down and got my water, but it wasn’t easy getting back up while holding my water bladder and bottles at the same time as the rope. I did make it up and when I took more time to look around the shelter, I saw a sign pointing out that access to the water was a few 100m further along the trail. I went to check it out and it was indeed much easier to access the water there. I soaked my feet as much as I could bear in the cold river and then went back to the shelter to stretch. As I was stretching, a couple of dayhikers with a dog walked by. They were finishing their hike and warned me that the signage was a bit confusing where I was going tomorrow. A little while later, another hiker came by and judging by the size of his pack, I thought he was a day hiker as well. However, it turned out that I was wrong and that he’s an ultralight (pack under 10 lbs before food and water) hiker. Chris has been hiking since January doing the Eastern Continental trail (ECT), which strings together a few different trails, including the Florida trail, the Appalachian trail and the SIA, from the Floriday Keys to the end of the SIA in Forillon, some 4000+ miles. He had skipped up to New Brunswick from somewhere on the Appalachian trail and will go back to finish the Appalachian trail at the end of the summer when it’s less hot. He had hiked all the way from Amqui today and was planning to do the entire Quebec section of the SIA in about 12 days! I was quite impressed with the distance he can cover even with an ultralight pack. He also uses his food bag as a pillow, which seemed a bit crazy to me even if it is an odor-proof bag. I left him the shelter and set up my tent on one of platforms although we did hang out and chat in the shelter until it was bed time. It was nice to finally have finally met so many other hikers today, even if I knew that I wouldn’t be seeing Chris again since he was going more than twice my speed.