Good Morning! I fell asleep with some assistance of a sleep-eze around 5pm and woke up around 2:30 AM which was the plan. The galactic centre should be coming up over old woman bay, so I got dressed and locked down what needed to be locked down. I turned my headlights off and brought my emergency brake up one click to disable my running lights, and then turned on the light bar on my front bumper which is aimed slightly down to avoid blasting any people I pass in tents. I stealthily crawled out of the campground and turned left on highway 17. Old Woman Bay was around a 5 minute drive. I was slightly dismayed when I did arrive, because smoke particles were dancing in my headlights, but I was well rested, and I was doing this even if it was a failure. I set up on the beach, and.. then saw the thing that made it a failure. In my excitement I had forgotten that the MOON was almost full. So, no star shots this trip. I took some night shots and hung around until about 3:30 AM before the chill got to me (6c!). Since I didn't want to go back to the campground yet, I descided to head to Wawa and top up my fuel tank, it was around 20 minutes from there, and by the time I got back I might be able to capture some light bouncing off of Old Woman Rock (as i call it). the drive to Wawa was a bit uneventful, just passing a few transports headed east. I arrived at the esso station there, and pulled in. The pumps were on and responding to my card so I put in my rewards number and scanned my card put the filler in, and then waited. Suddenly I heard a loud, phlegmy cough, and then several more, and then jingling chains. I thought one of the truckers had a bad cold and was checking his load. And then I heard more grunting and squeeling. Confused for a moment I looked around and saw a transport truck swaying gently. And then I saw the slots in the side, it was a trailer hauling Pigs. There was one in particular which had taken offence to me using the pumps. The pump made a 'bing' sound, it had cancelled my transaction. It appears whomever owns this station just left the pumps on, but someone needs to approve the final sale.. since no one was there, no gas. That dissapointment out of my way, I drove into the town proper The big goose was still there flying off into the night, and the place seems to have grown since I was last there back in 2009. There was a few more gas stations in town, but they were all closed. So I gave up, and headed back to Old Woman Bay. There was a slight 'glim' of light now, from the sun around 4:30 AM. I pulled up my photopills app to get an idea when the sun might crest the hill, and it seemed to be more like 7:00am for full visibility, but that was well past 'golden hour' So I considered taking a time lapse, but eventually decided against it. Those have a small problem in that you need to stick around and guard your camera when you might otherwise want to be somewhere else. the shortest one I can do is about an hour, and it only gives you about 30 seconds worth of video. In any case, I set up around 3/4 of the way down the beach to the lake, where Old Woman river had created a sort of sand bar, so there was a bit of water around 4 meters across then a sand bar, then the lake. I pointed my camera at Old Woman Rock and started adjusting things and taking pictures. I was shivvering quite a bit, wishing I had through to bring the sweatshirt from home but didn't bring because of the ludicrously hot weather we've been having. I had my large cotton jacket and a t-shirt under that, and that was it. If the forcast for tomorrow states that it will be cold again, I may have to get something from the visitors centre. I digress. As I was watching and taking pictures, I saw an odd figure out in the water, it reminded me of a Loon doing it's periscope thing, where it keeps its head low to the surface of the water while looking for prey. Suddenly the water erupted, there was a black and white stripe, and a tail in the air, and then the 'Loon' dissapeared, only to pop up a few meters away. I thought 'could that be an otter?'. So I kept watching, and sure enough, the Otter came up on the shore on an old piece of drift wood with a big fat white fish in his mouth, and proceeded to eat it while I watched. I moved my camera over to focus on him, and he didn't care. I went back to the car and got my 500mm lens, and swapped out the 250mm that I had on previously, and he didn't care. I took several pictures, and video, and he didn't care. Finally, finished with his meal, he went back out. And then he came back shortly with another fish, and continued to eat. He did this twice more before finally leaving. Might be good to fish down there, but I guess you'd not want to catch an Otter. The sun was shing on Old woman rock, so I refocused my Camera, and got quite a few more shots before packing up around 6:30AM. I went back to Wawa, which now had the esso station open, and filled up. Prepared for the day, I headed back to camp and ate back bacon and scrambled eggs, before cleaning up and heading out for the day.

Pictoglyphs - agowa rock

The first order of business for today, is to visit a place I last visited in 2009 when I had come to Lake superior last, and previously when I was much younger. Agawa rock, one of the few places to see red ochre pictoglyphs in their original natural environment in ontario. There is also some very interesting geology happening here, in the past lava had seeped up between cracks in the surface granite creating softer rock, which has since mostly eroded away leaving large angular canyons that can be walked through. Rocks tower on each side of you, in some places you can reach your hands out and touch both sheer sides. At the end of one of these is a rock wedged on its points, barely hanging there, yet it has been there for some time, at least as long as I've been alive. Probably thousands, if not millions of years. The Pictoglyphs can only be relitively safely viewed during calm days, today was reasonably so.. so I headed down there, you can see where safety railings had been put in at one point and cut off like someone took a giant pair of scisors and clipped them off level with the top of the granite. The power of the winter's Ice is much greater than any steel we can make, if given time. Unfortunately the same can be said for the red ochre concoctions of the original painters of the pictoglyphs. The first time I visited they were quite visible on the rock face, standing out well, but slightly worn. The second time I visited roughly 15 years later they were slightly more faded. Now, on my 43'd year, some are all but invisible. others are gone altogether. and to add insult to injury, someone took the time to carve a heart into the granite with their initials and their lover's initials. If the spirit of the lake really exists, I'd be staying away from lakes for the rest of my life if I were them. I came back through one of the chasms, where stairs had been built to take you pretty much directly back to the parking lot. Like Giants Steps, each step was roughly a foot by two feet made with native rock and some concrete where required. Some steps were completely missing, meaning you had to kind of amble up 2 foot steps in places. Not exactly easy, but well worth it.

I did run into a couple, and a couple with children there. An asian woman who's coment was 'its dangerous' and a german couple with children who didnt' speak english. When I had originally arived, there was a pickup truck with three native women.. it looked a bit like a clown car as they piled out to go to the washroom, they weren't impressed by the composting toilets 'eew there's flies in there' If they had seen some of the washrooms I'd seen in my travels, they'd be thankful for the flies.

I moved on to the visitors centre next, I noted my Otter sighting in the sighting book. No one can probably read my writing. After looking through the displays I hit up the visitor's store and got my lake superior provincial park sticker. I looked at the warm hoodies there, so far, I think i'll hold off. They're a bit pricey. Maybe on my way out. One of the most important things there that I found interesting, and don't remember if it was there before, was the 3 wheeled manual hand cart supposedly the actual one, used by the group of 7 artists, when they rented a box car to travel the trans canada railway around painting the landscapes here. Worth seeing in person, I did not take a picture. It was around lunch time, so I was going to have a snack - but I forgot them in the fridge in the trailer, ?I didn't leave them in my backpack because they melt in the heat. So I guess i'll muscle through, I have lots of water with me.

Sand River

This river is pretty good for fishing, and the trail is somewhat demanding. The trail travels along the sand river, supposedly an old native hunting path. There are lots of offshoots with amazing waterfalls and pools below where brook trout can be found. Unfortunately, this place is quite famous and in order to actually have a chance of catching anything, you need to get a little bit more dedicated. The parking lot was almost full when I visited, so I got my camera pack, one litre of water, my tackle box and reel, and my rod. these items are all very portible and don't add much effort to my hike. I picked my path slowly and carefully between the 5 ish waterfalls, stopping to take photos. The trail becomes treacherous towards the end, and most people turn back, I passed six groups of people returning and continued onward. There are places the trail is simply a sand cliff held together by roots, with only about two foot widths worth of room to walk, with bushes pushing you towards the 3-4 metre drop down to the river and rapids below. Being carfeful not to be pushed off, caught on, or stumbling is key unless you want a very exciting and probably fatal trip back to the begining of the river. As I got towards my target, the first camp site on the river, there was signs of the river bursting its banks and pushing great amounts of dead trees, logs, sticks, etc up several meters from where the water level is now, and recently. I could see areas where the park had tried and failed to install boardwalks on floats so they will ride out the water, but only seeing bent, torn and broken wooden beams and snarls of rebar sticking out dangerously from the ground. And at this point, even the most foolhardy turn around and go back. I am apparently more foolhardy than most, because I continued on for about another 20 minutes, carefully picking my way through the detritus and doubling back to find a new route where needed until I reached the first campsite. Here is a nice sand/pebble beach below some rapids, with two or three deep pools where Brook trout like to hide. I set my line up, and casted out, first with a Meps #2 with no luck, then I tried my new Rapala and immediately caught a Brook. Unfortunately, he was slightly smaller than a fish stick so I had to carefully unhook him and send him back. I kept trying for maybe an hour, with little luck. First, that rapala that had worked, kept getting caught on the snap swivel on my line and going out backwards, or tangled.. so I switched to my favorite red and white spoon. That spoon now belongs there, because after about six casts with it, it was wedged deeply and I could not recover it. Losing that lure, I decided it was time to head back. I did my best to keep my heart rate going as I returned, now knowing what hazards there were, and how to deal with them, I was able to handle them much more efficiently, my feet were sore by the time I came out, but otherwise I was good. I had a drink mixed with 'after workout' powder I like, which usually helps me not wake up like a stick man the next morning after a hike... and headed back to my camp site still about a 40 minute drive from where I was. I was pretty darn hungry by the time I got back to camp at around 3:40PM so I made my last batch of macaroni and cheese, and put a hot dog in there with it. I had worn my heart monitor and watch, and it said I had done 4030ish calories today, and It would take 88 hours to recover from the workout. Nice, don't tell it about tomorrow!