I woke up at 2.30 with a start thinking I had not packed my Hydration tube to connect to my Hydration Bladder, got up to check and sure enough it was nowhere to be seen. I flipped out a bit and woke Lari up as I was shuffling about. She went online and found a camping gear outlet on our way back to Toronto, Pheeewww. But we were both now wide awake so we read for a bit then managed to crash for another few hours. Due to our middle of the night disturbance we slept in a bit later than planned.
After a rudimentary breakfast it was time for the long drive back from Huntsville to Toronto via the Camping Store in Barrie. The camping store turned out to be a bit of an Aladins cave but we managed to escape with only buying a few exatras, always chanting “I have to carry this” as a deterrent.
With replacement hydration tube in hand we set off to find somewhere for Lunch ended in a Rib Joint but had crumbed and fried Cauliflower with sweet chilli sauce and Onion rings that was superb. Lair did also have a a salad to have though.
Now fueled up it was time to return the Hire Car, well that turned out to be more of a challenge than we had anticipated. The branch we had to return it to closed at 2pm and we arrived at 2.15pm. No-one had told us this when we picked the vehicle up. Although there was a key drop box we were informed that we would still be charged until Tuesday when someone could actually sight the vehicle and check it back in. Now thoroughly ticked off I called the central help line and was informed the only place open that could accept the vehicle was at the main airport and I might be charged for returning it to a different depot :-( After a bit of a struggle to find where the vehicle return place was we managed to get it all sorted.
After a short taxi ride we arrived a our billet for the night and rearranged our packing into Hiking mode as from tomorrow we will be hauling our packs. It will be exciting to see how our alternative plans for getting to Tobermory pan out.