Sunrise Little Brassau Lake
20 miles / 32 km Little Brassau Lake - Moosehead Lake, Big Duck Cove
Fine, then rain. SE wind.
We left our camp at Little Brassau Lake at 7.30 looking forward to coffee and an early lunch at the Moose Country store.
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Sunrise Little Brassau Lake |
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Brassau Lake |
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At the portage by the Brassau dam, the caretaker was mowing the grass and stopped for a chat.
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On entering the Moose River again, there is one final rapid.
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The caretaker at the dam told us that the store had closed this year in May. The owner, an old woman, had died last year and her son had taken it over on a condition from the bank that the loan was paid off within a year. He had not succeeded and the bank had foreclosed. The shop is up for auction July 22nd.
It seems such a shame that local communities lose their shops. Despite this information we stopped at the shop and indeed there was a notice announcing the sale by auction in two days’ time.
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A new board close by announced that food and fuel was available at the Birches, 2 miles North by road. We elected to paddle to the Birches and see if we could get some lunch. The lunch was EXCELLENT (goats cheese salad with cranberries and spinach served with French fries). Geoff also enjoyed a beer
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As we tied the boat up on the dock at the Birches the wind freshened but an hour later when we were finished with lunch the wind had lulled a little. The gentle SE wind produced a few rolling waves on the side as we paddled over to Hardscrabble Point and onwards past the following bay. It was a shame the rock face on Mount Kineo was not well lit.
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Once in the lee we had a tailwind which helped us on our way to Big Duck Cove. We began to worry about not finding a campsite because all the sites on Kineo and Kelly’s wharf were occupied by families settled in for a long holiday. We scouted a few potential stealth camps at the headland of Big Duck Cove but they were not needed as the first official site was empty. We got the tent and tarp pitched in time before a consistent downpour started (weather forecast wrong – we had been told it was going to be sunny for the next few days).
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Mushrooms do well in the rain.
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The rain did clear up just before sunset.
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