What an evening we are having. The light, as you can see above, is stunning. We arrived at camp, which we are calling “Cobble Barge Camp” just in time to unload the boat, set up the tent, and set up the tarp before a rumbling thunder squall romped through complete with downpour. I was cooking dinner while Marian set up the inside fixings of the tent.

After a yummy dinner of miso soup, fried cabbage and falafel with sweet chilli sauce, we celebrated the 700 km Mark with Aztec Hot Chocolate and a few squares of dark chocolate. We were hungry. We’d paddled 54 km today. I realized we are averaging a marathon a day of paddling. 42 km day in and day out. We are on track and meeting our goal each day thus far.

Tonight, Marian found a lump of oil sands. In a moment of experimentation, she put in our fire. It steamed. It smoked a bit and then it began to bubble. I poked it out of the fire and pretended to be a road builder and use a big rock to flatten it onto another rock. I just paved a mini highway!

I wish you could see and hear the 50 geese floating by. They are honking and grunting and singing as they go by. It was an amazing day watching geese. We must have seen at least 1000 fly by in giant flying V’s of 50 to 100 birds. We could hear them flying up and we would stop paddling and just watch them fly. You could see them change leaders and adjust the V. It was breathtaking.

We have our paddled most human generated sound save for a few powerboats that passed us. We thought another one was passing by out of sight when all of a sudden, a barge came around the corner and into our channel. We paddled quickly out of harm’s way and got set for the wake, it was substantial- the largest rapid we’ve run lately.

Another fab day on the river, our three week anniversary on the trip and we passed the 700 km mark. A good day all around. The bugs have discovered me so I must go in the tent. Good night.

PS Amazed to have a bit of coverage to send this.