At 9 a.m. every one was there, at the Montreal offices of Détour Nature. Julia had taken the 6 a.m. flight from Halifax. Mylène and Jordan are not the only ones to have travelled more than 2 hours by road with their families. After all-around introductions, it was group photo time, hugs and kisses and goodbyes. Moms hold back their tears and dads are a little too serious.
Everybody accounted for? No! Wait! Here comes Martin, the physician, just in time to hop on the bus.
After seven hours on the road, we’re all slightly sleepy, except JF and Virginie who did culinary marvels with their super sandwiches. Try that on a bus! They’re exhausted!
Coming out of Parc des Laurentides, we catch a glimpse of the Saguenay River, we roll through Chicoutimi en route to Cap Jaseux, the starting point of the expedition. Paméla, who is from Saint-Stanislas in Lac-Saint-Jean, joins us there. Hear, hear! The gang’s all here!
Cap Jaseux (literally, “Chatting Point”) is well-named as this is what we do during this getting acquainted session around a camp fire after dinner, on the beautiful shores of the Saguenay. People would chat in groups of two, the idea is for each person to introduce his/her partner to the group. This is how we learned that: Breeann loves cows, Cass is from Châteauguay, Hugo plays centre in hockey, Jessie has a canary names “Cyrano”, Paméla and Mylène want to be police women, Francisco’s father hails from Nicaragua, Émilie is a life-guard at the Boucherville pool, Jordan is already familiar with kayaking and Julia’s bookmark is a photograph of her hero “Edwin…”, a British football player. WOW! Talk about a great group! Can’t wait for tomorrow! Then, in a single row, we salute the sea and head off to bed