If you go down to the woods today....

Well we survived. 4 city dwellers packed up our  growth hormone injected cases and headed for the woods. After smiling nicely at the car rental staff we were upgraded for free to a massive brand new ford fusion. Nice, very nice. But how the hell do you drive this beast! Unfamiliar automatic drive, wrong side of the road, all signage in French, unknown route, cavernous blind spots and so on. We were a more than a touch tentative as we eased her onto the main road. A hyper sensitive brake gave rise to some mild whiplash and some coffee spills but after a little screaming and very effective co-piloting we managed to avoid a full on recreation of the scene from clueless “ we’re on the freeeeewaaayyy!”

My hands began to seize after an hour or so as I gripped it as if my life depended on it…wait it did but the drive wasn’t too long 130 km approx.  Head North on the15 until Saint Agath des Monts then try to find the 323, fail, turn around and try again. Canadian drivers are very courteous, well of our experience to date maybe it’s just the Qubecers so even if you are trying to move  across 3 lanes of motorway at the last minute it is possible. The speeds are lower at between 60-100 on the motorway so it’s not as scary to try and rectify a wrong turn.

One thing we have learnt about Canadians is that they love rules, making them and following them, so the speed limits are actually real speed limits and the recycling bins are there for a reason. As Hannah learnt to her detriment  when she idly tossed a plastic bottle into a bin in downtown montreal……
“madammoiselle… madam…excuse me, hello MADAME!’ I see you just threw a bottle into the trash, you know that could be recycled don’t you. I mean I saw you do that and I just HAD to say something, I was like oh my god did she just do that!?’ So with as much dignity as possible in such a situation Hannah gingerly picked through the bin and guided the offending article to its rightful home.

But I digress, back to the woods! We headed north to stay in mum’s wee caravan near Saint Donat. When she described it there was a mild reference to a certain holiday home favoured by Ted crilly and his colleague Dougal. She was not joking, we arrived at THE Father Ted caravan in a little clearing in the woods. Well moving in didn’t take very long as our cases didn’t fit inside at the same time as us, so we had to use the car as a portable wardrobe and when we went ouT transfer them back into the caravan. But we could never be in the same place for the rest of the week. Our car betrayed our rugged back to nature image, with it’s lit-up cup holders and sparkling rims but we usually had it draped in a girly camouflage of wet towels and sarongs. The kitchen table moonlighted as a double bed and the end couch was already set for a  cosy double up.

After a quick unpack, a good solid laugh at the facilities (or lack thereof) we drove into Saint Donat town  for some dinner. We still haven’t learnt that the portions here are massive, 1 main dish is always more than  enough for a small family of working ponies.  With big hungry eyes anna ordered a medium size pizza- but was helpfully advised to downsize to a bambino size with which we all followed suit. It was still a waist thickening  diameter that left us all bringing half home in a doggy bag. But we are learning to co-op order, one salad, one pizza, one fries between us.
Our next port of call in Saint Donat was to a place which we would return to again and again. It was a place of many things, but a place we grew to hate…. ‘Le metro’. The one and only supermarket and despite a hefty 200 dollar shop on our first visit we returned every single day of our week in Quebec. Something to do with sleeping in the middle of the woods with 3 girls of a collective 15 foot height leaves one a little nervous, hence I wouldn’t quite call it binge drinking. It was more courage drinking. If you have to head out to the dark forest for a wee in the black of the night you need some fire in your belly.  So everyday we drove to le metro and trooped in with our empties to restock. One litre bottles of wine herald a greater degree of hardcore-ness to the cheese and wine club!

So according to my mum, there are absolutely no bears, no beasts no dangerous animals..quote on quote ‘perfectly safe’. I believed her and the girls believed me heading out alone to the car or the great open outdoor loo. Well we woke one morning to a series of animal prints around our ‘dunny’ area. One racoon paw, no worries there. But beside it, a larger one with 3 round pad imprints. “A bear” we squealed and took the mandatory photo for evidence. Later that night we showed the photo to Joseph a local man who works as a trapper. He studied it carefully and after some gentle calm conferring with his girlfriend announced ‘C’est un Loup, non?’ Excuse me, did he just say ‘wolf’?  It’s ok, he’s more scared of you than you are of
him they reassured us. Until Isabele thinking aloud said, ‘but its strange a Wolf is never alone’. Fantastic, now we’re dealing with a pack of the bloody things so much for worrying  about a little black bear going through the rubbish. Thankfully we had read up on the national park nature guide on what to do if you encounter a Wolf or a bear. Unfortunately the lengthy piece offered so many different scenarios of what to do, we were still a little unsure whether it’s the bear or the wolf that you calmly introduce yourself to or which one you start shouting at, or the distance that it’s ok to turn and legit or stay and fight back ‘aggressively’. You need to speak to the bear so it hears your voice and will realise you are a human and not for eating. Unless it’s a hungry bear with PMS in which case you may aswell accept your fate and sprinkle a little salt on yourself to season the meat!


Saint Donat lake is big and wide and very pretty unfortunately, it’s all privately owned land on the lakes edge so we were left with a scrub of imported sand on a 20 metre stretch of the public beach in town the only public access for swimming and sunbathing.  Due to school holidays the local kids summer camps like to descend onto the stamp sized beach so we lay amongst the swarms of life jacketed children who loved to run rings around the un suspecting  adult sunbathers. Which gave rise to a moment I feel pretty  guilty about now. Two 9 year olds ran along the stretch by our heads over ten times which led me to say the fatal words, I know this is terrible but I’m kind of hoping one of them trips and skins his knee so they had to go and sit down. No sooner were the words out of my mouth that he went flying and had to be carried off by his camp leader for a plaster. Woops sorry little guy!

One of our first nights we decided to make a camp fire and apparently chopping logs with an axe is not easy. Turns out none of us know how to wield an ole axe so while the other 2 set to making dinner on the 3 rings gas cooker, Hannah and I went to collect wood and were delighted to find piles of log size fallen birch wood. So we worked up a sweat gathering armfuls of the stuff  until we went to lit the actual fire and it’s all damp and smokey and useless and it’s now nearly dark so we start scrambling around looking for brown wood and not the white peeling crap we’d already amassed in large volumes.

Fighting with a fallen Christmas tree I managed to stab myself in the palm which left an impressive pool of blood in the cup of my hand. ‘Mom and Pop’ aka Anna and Bobby pulled out our medical kit- wet wipes, tequila and a fancy tri-way plaster. Back to the grind, and not to blow our own trumpets or anything but we built a pretty amazing fire, perhaps one of the best camp fires I’ve ever had the privilege to sit around. It was toasty warm, not too big, nice flames for light, not billowing smoke and looked picture perfect. Sitting around a cosy fire with friends, the iPod crooning and a sparkling starry sky is something people do not do enough. Encouraged by our successful first fire we went again the following night and raised the bar to include baked potatoes and corn on the cob with a knob of garlic butter and salt, wrapped up in tinfoil and chucked into the embers. So we sat and waited with abated breath for the parcels to be ready and the stars to come out, things were going so well until the iPod ran out of juice and we were left with the sounds of the potatoes hissing, nice. The fire crackling , nice and the sound of all kinds of monsters crashing around in the woods.

Ssssshhhh do you hear that?  What?! Oh My god stop. No I’m serious….ssshhhh listen there it is again. Oh Fuck. Seriously stop you’re freaking yourself out….

And then bobby heard it too.

A larger than usual swoosh and crunch from woods and just like that the fire was put out in it’s prime and moving at the speed of light the party was relocated to the relative safety of the small tin caravan where at least we could close the door!


Living in the woods certainly sounds very picturesque but there are a number of small drawbacks such as no toilet, no shower, no space  for your luggage in your bedroom, only 3 chairs, a fear of the dark, a fear of the woods, a fear of savage animals, a fear of lunatic murderers, a healthy thirst for beer and wine and the key issue - 4 miniature bladders!

Sunday we took a drive to Brebeuf to visit Brenda and Jacques , old friends of my mum’s. Brenda and mum go back to 1978 when they met in Afghanistan during the hippie trail days. Their house is almost an art piece, built with time and love over the last 30 years the house is open plan but cosy with massive wooden beams and sunlit conservatories circling the walls of the house. Despite the rain we joined B and J for their daily swim down at Lac A La Loutre  where luck would have it not a child in sight! The water was warmer because it’s a smaller lake and because it’s always feels warmer when you swim in the rain. Without the crowd usually perched on Saint Don’t Public beach we had a chance to fully appreciate the view and beauty of swimming in a still lake surrounded by thick green forest and wide open skies above.
 Back to theirs for a truly fantastic homemade pizza and home grown corn on the cob rolled on a slab of butter when piping hot and sprinkled with salt. Sunshine in a mouthful!

A bit of a nail biting drive home in the rain, mist, dark and thunder and lightning- white knuckles that almost glowed in the dark but with each person posted to look out from one of the corners of the enormous vehicle we navigated home to our sodden and cold abode. We sat listening to rain that got progressively heavier if that’s even possible as it was big fat jellybean sized drops hitting us when we first ran from car to caravan. The lightning was going like the clappers and the thunder sounded very close but all was well and the roof stayed with us and no leaks (bar one small one).
 A scenario occurred which we hadn’t encountered in our first few days which involved heavy rain and no inside loo, so you sit and await for it to let up but it just keeps going until you get a pain in your kidneys and you throw the door open charge out into the pouring rain pee like you’ve never peed before and you’re back inside within 7.6 seconds.

The next morning word must have spread among the locals about the crazy Irish girls living in the  woods. Within the space of 30 mins we had 3 visitors call round to our absolute pig sty of  a campsite which was storm blown furniture, strewn beer bottles and some dishes that we left out in the rain ‘to wash’. Not to mention the 4 horrors still in pjs reading in their table/bed at one in the afternoon. So it transpired everyone was very worried about us after the bad weather the previous night and they came down that morning to check on us but we were still asleep and when they called back HOURS later we were still just getting up- mortifying.