Day 5 – Station Uapishka

I use a motorcycle navigation app called Scenic. I love Scenic since it has the best set of settings for different types of roads, a clean interface and it runs on my mPad (Motorcycle iPad Mini) alongside apps for the various cameras, drone regulatory apps and some for specific sets of trails (RideOFTR, BRMB).

Anyway, reason for mentioning Scenic is that it calculated this leg at 3+ hours of gravel roads. Oddly, the first time I used it, I set my schedule around it, and then after a map update, many of the legs doubled in time causing me to add a day (Mid 0 -> Mid 1, Mid 1->2 etc) between Baie Comeau and here. Yesterday was a 7 hour day, however today was only an hour. Anyway, I’m happy to spend a bit more time, my camping spot last night was nice, and not paying Parks Canada felt oddly satisfying.

The road was gravel for most of the distance which is always a bit more fun putting “Enduro Pro” to use which turns off traction control and ABS. ABS is useless on loose surfaces, as is traction control.

On arrival at Station Uapishka it started to rain. I was shown to a prospectors cabin (See picture) which I agreed to after my reservation for a room in the main building was cancelled, due to a combination of forest fires and not having a chef on hand. The forest fires went away (in fact, all fire restrictions are gone) and the new chef arrived yesterday afternoon. I asked and was moved to a room and now get 3 meals a day while I’m here for 2 days.

I spent the afternoon unpacking and repacking a little, doing laundry, and getting caught up on all the media I’m producing. I also started the research for my hiking adventure tomorrow. Turns out the main trail that starts close to where I’m staying, Sentier Provencher is closed due to degraded trails, fallen trees so I was considering other options…

When the weather cleared a bit, I headed down to the beach and took some drone video and ran into a couple that were also staying a night here. We agreed to meet over wine after dinner in the common room.

Dinner was a combo of shrimp and mango salad, chicken in a cream sauce over pasta with asparagus and a sickly sweet chocolate cake. Not bad for being on the shores of the Eye of Quebec.

I had a long chat about the road ahead (They were going the other way so had a preview of my experience to come), life and amazement that someone from downtown Toronto would do something like this along with a recommendation to find some like minded soul to come on my adventures. There’s positives (I’ve discussed some earlier, someone to carry stuff!) and negatives (Call it “alignment”). Was a pleasant evening overall and I slept like a rock.

This is the second time typing this, as Tumblr ate my first “Draft” – Can someone recommend a more modern blogging / picture / video sharing site? I don’t mind paying…