Over the Easter long weekend we went up to MacGregor Point Provincial park.  This park is just south west of Bruce Peninsula.  It's actually open year round and is one of the few parks open this early in the year.  We'd never been so we decided it would be nice to try out spring camping - we've now managed to camp in all 4 seasons. Its not too far away so we drove up on the Friday morning and got to the site around 12 or so and started to unpack and set things up. As well as get some lunch in us. Our original plan was to get to the site set up the tent and tarp quick, get firewood, have some food and go for a short hike on one of the trails before heading back to camp to start up the fire and get dinner ready. As with most plans, this one didn't really work out all that well. And I really don't have anyone to blame but myself. The tent went up without a problem. Our 3 season tent is great that way. Its simple and quick to setup. While Zoe was setting up our sleeping bags and pads in the tent I was supposed to setup the tarp over our cooking area. Once we were done this, we would get fire wood and then go for a hike. Well, setting up the tarp took a whole lot longer than I had anticipated. I didn't finish getting it up until close to 2pm.

The problem was that I couldn't remember how to tie the knots I had learned them when we went to Arrowhead, and I had assumed that I would just remember how to make them. I was wrong. Eventually after many attempts I figured it out, but I learned my lesson and will be practicing prior to our next trip. So after I finally got the tarp up we were pretty hungry so we had a late lunch of our favorite camp food, Chef Boyardee. We got to use one of our latest purchases, a new MSR micro rocket stove. Its a great little stove and worked much better than our WhisperLite stove. It boils water nice and quick and can even simmer things when we are cooking. I think the issue with the WhisperLite is probably due to the cold weather and possibly gunk stuck in the system somewhere. I will need to clean thoroughly and give it a test again in warmer weather before our next trip. For our back country trips I think we will just be carrying the MicroRocket as it packs much smaller than the WhisperLite and requires much less maintenance and work to get it started. The only drawback is the need to lug the canisters around. By the time we had finished the food and driven around to find food and water it was already close to 4pm. We decided we weren't going to be able to get any hiking in today. Instead we walked down to the lake shore trail and wandered around for a bit, checking things out and deciding that that would be the trail we would hike the next day. We got back to camp around 5 and decided it was time to start the fire and start prepping for dinner. As Zoe began preparing a pre-dinner snack (yes I know we had only ate lunch a couple of hours earlier), I started prepping things for the fire.  The easy part was chopping the wood.  I was able to get through 2 bags pretty quickly.  Next, was feather sticks.  Man, I suck at these, as you can see.

I think part of the reason is my knife.  Like a newbie, I decided a blade that was half serrated and half smooth would be most versatile.  I was wrong, in hindsight, I should have bought a plain non-serrated (I don't know the proper word) edged knife. Part of them will have browse these guys viagra pill on line the amount of bleeding like during menstrual period metrorrhagia, and the disease can cause shock for patients who find it harder to consume pills. It is not a two in one medicine where more cialis online store than one purpose is solved. These medicines would not cheap viagra in australia be given away to any one of these packages based on budget and convenience and also based on the kind of disease. The information is Prices buy tadalafil cheap concerned for all males who develop erectile issues. Anyways, my problem is that the edge closest to the hilt is serrated, meaning that when I am making feather sticks, I have to use the edge furthest from the hilt which makes it much more difficult to get the leverage I need to make the cuts.  I'm also probably doing something wrong, but, well, I blame the knife. So I got a few of my crappy feather sticks made, now was time to prepare the tinder. This is another thing I'm really bad at. I managed OK this day. I stripped some bark from our firewood and managed to make it fluffy enough to work as tinder. I think I got lucky with the bark this time. Now it was time to start the fire. I brought some lint from our laundry room this time. I laid out my tinder with a decent helping of lint on top. Had some napkins in the ready along with my feather sticks. This is when the fun started for me. My knife includes a fire steel and there is a spot on the knife where you can strike and create sparks to start your fire.

I had tried using this before but was never successful in starting the fire. Today, I was. I setup and used the fire steel to create the spark that caused the pieces of lint to fire up. My first attempt failed to catch and he fire died when the lint was used up. The second time I used napkins - I really should use tinder - to keep the fire going as I added my feather sticks and other small pieces of wood and azures for them to catch. Eventually they did and I started my first fire without matches. I know I cheated a bit with the napkins, but it felt good to be able to start the fire that way. That was the highlight of my night.   For dinner we did something a bit different than we normally would. We made a real meal instead of our normal fish balls and other grilled items. We made beef curry and mashed potatoes.

Our friends made something similar for us when we went winter camping and it seemed pretty easy so we decided to try it ourselves. It also gave us a chance to try out the capabilities of our new MSR MicroRocket stove. The stove worked great for simmering. And the fuel canisters lasted a lot longer than I had expected. Anyways we settled in for dinner and a nice night sitting around the fire and looking up at the stars. Next post will be about our second day there - and possibly our last day as well, as that day was pretty boring. Hopefully it won't take as long as this post to make it up.