Forillon

July 1 we had a full day of hiking planned with a sunset kayak with the seals to finish the day. Unfortunately, we awoke around 5 to pouring rain again. We took a quick vote to stay in bed and do shorter hikes before kayaking. The next thing we knew it was nearing 11 and we were still snuggled up avoiding the rain.

We went to the campers room to have lunch out of the rain. We (well Shane) reviewed the other things we wanted to do around here to reconfigure our schedule. Poor Shane dropped the box of matches out of the car in the rain and had to pick them all up.

It was still pretty chilly so we went to the kayaking place to see if we could move our reservation to the next day. The girl at the front desk wasn’t overly helpful and told us it was up to the guide at the time of departure and if we moved it, we’d have to pay for both. We were feeling a little demotivated by that since it was freezing out and raining still.

We decided to do a short trail to a waterfall to kill some time and hopefully get a call cancelling kayaking. The trail was super short and the waterfall was freezing so we didn’t stay too long.

We still had some time though so we decided to check out La Taïga since we heard it was good for wildlife. Unfortunately, our bad luck with animals continued and we didn’t see anything. It was a short, easy trail that was good for stretching our legs. It was a cool trail though since it was super sandy and had a different kind of forest than we’d been seeing. We saw a lot of mushrooms there too.

After La Taïga we went back to the kayaking place and tried to hype ourselves up. The sky had cleared considerably but it was still freezing out. We layered up and went to meet our guide. Julian was nice and immediately told us that there was a good chance someone would end up in the water that night. This was not encouraging to us since we’re all beginners. He did tell us we could reschedule if we were worried about going out that night so we had a quick chat. We were worried about Kat being cold as she was even not on the water, and we wanted Shane to be able to bring his DSLR.

So we went in to talk to the office again about switching and this time there was a guy working. He was Cm helpful and found us a spot for the next morning. I requested we be with Julian if possible, I felt bad switching on him and we were all having fun joking around. There was a spot at 8:45 the next morning so we eagerly signed up!

We left in much better moods than when we had arrived and set off to explore a bit. Julian has suggested a look off to see some seals so we wanted to check that out. Unfortunately, we didn’t totally listen and ended up going the wrong way. We stopped at a beach for some photos, then a lighthouse, a wharf, and just meandered our way back towards the campsite.

We stopped for dinner at a cool old school cantine we’d read about. The waitress comes out to your car for your order and even brings a window tray. The sun had come out a bit by then so we sat outside and enjoyed some local food.

We went to bed pretty early that night since we had to be up early for kayaking. By the time we went to bed, we were all freezing and so grateful we weren’t out on the water.