Had a fabulous night's sleep in the highest bed I have slept in. I barely managed to touch my feet on the floor with my Butt just clinging precariously on the edge. The Cape Chin B&B is an amazing establishment that I would highly recommend for anyone thinking of traveling this way. We had the best breakfast that certainly provided me with power food for the day. It’s a good thing we were only here one night or I might be in Calorie surplus not deficit.
We had arranged for our Back Packs to be taken to Lion’s Head for us so that we could have another easier day after the brutal 2 day introduction to hiking in Canada. It was a very cool misty morning as we set off. We both had to dive back into our packs and grab a long sleeve thermal to wear. After a short 500 mtr walk back up the road we got back on the trail by climbing over a huge style into a padlock full of Black Angus cows. “Curiosity killed the Cat” I think not, should be “Curiosity killed the Cow” as they will always follow you through the paddock just checking you out.
Once through the paddocks we were onto the trail proper and what a change, we were both instantly uplifted to be walking through fantastic woodlands on amazingly soft trail. We passed through a broad section of Canadian lumber that we probably covered most of trees grown here. The trail headed towards the escarpment and we were both dreading it as we expected some more of the dreaded rocky cliff top from our first 2 days. Thankfully this was completely unfounded, although it was rocky in places it was not anywhere near as harsh or as continuous. The trail was predominantly along cliff top and at times within a meter of the edge and not a single sign warning you of “Danger Cliff Risk” that we have polluting our wonderful trails in Australia. Canadians obviously still give people credit for having a modicum of common sense. There were the occasional challenges just to keep it interesting but for the most part it was just fabulous. The vegetation variety and fungi we saw today was phenomenal and slowed our pace down as we just had to stop and photograph each in turn. We also saw a Garter Snake and were constantly harangued on our way with the Chit Chit cry of the many Squirrels.
We both just fell in love with having such a fantastic trail to walk on. Lari’s bung knee was functioning perfectly and at times I had a hard time matching her pace. She did take her eye off the ball for a bit an slipped ace over base in some lovely white clay, it stuck everything. I think it was just so much relief of being able to walk without the mental fatigue of focusing entirely on our foot placement. We both question the posted distance as we know our own pace and we certainly took longer to get into Lion’s Head than expected. The weather gods have sure been kind to us so far, the forecasts have been horrendous but the reality has been nothing short of perfect. We have only had one serious downpour and that was just prior to arriving at Stormhaven on our 1st night and a couple of sprinkles not worth mentioning for the rest. It has certainly chucked it down but not while we were out and about.
Lion’s Head is a beautiful Rural country town with some very top end properties along the foreshore, many with their own private Lake Side frontage dotted with private decks/BBQ areas, just fabulous. Our accommodation for the next 2 nights is excellent and we managed to get our clothes washed in a proper Laundry for the first time since arriving in Canada. No more hand wash and Chinese Laundry line in our room. I also managed to find some Alcohol fuel (Ethanol) for our stove, these guys just don’t sell methylated spirits or if they do we can’t find it.