Day 14 - North Bay to OTTAWA! 361 km. 31C

We made it! We are now at the Nepean Campground just a few kilometers from downtown Ottawa. We had a terrible night in North Bay. Our camp site was right next to a small river inlet that was a great breeding ground for our favorite friends, the mosquitos. They surrounded our trailer and planned their attack. It was a very well formulated plan. There was a narrow gap between the window screens on at the back of the trailer. We checked everything over before we went to bed (about 10:00pm), killing about five lil’ critters. We went to bed and within minutes we could hear the familiar weeeeing of a mosquito. On go the lights and we kill another three. Check everything over and lights out. By now Ryan is asleep. Exhausted from a long day.

What! Another critter? On go the lights. Where are they coming from? Kill another five. Repeat. At 11:00 I scoured the trailer to see how they are getting in. I then notice the gap around the back window and go about duct taping the screen to the trailer, closing off any gaps. This I have to do all this around Ryan who is sleeping in the top bunk and by now I am exhausted and we all fall asleep. I hear a mosquito but am too tired to do anything about it. Did I mention that our trailer was like an oven? Sooo hot!

ipods in the trailer. You can see the bites on Ryan's face.

Brittania Beach, Ottawa, ON

The next morning I wake up at 6:00 and go take a shower.

When I come back Jenny is awake and she has killed at least 15 mosquitos, all full of blood! It was a massacre... I don’t mean the mosquitos. Jemma has counted 30 bites and Ryan, well he has some bites on bites. The good news (for me) is that Ryan’s delicate milky skin is like a magnet to the mozzies so I have very few bites.

Ok, I’m just kidding about it being good news. The poor little guy is itching all over.

It turns out that Jemma got up in the night to go to the bathroom and was kind of sleepwalking. Who knows how long the door was open for. The mozzies were just itching to get in.

We arrived in Ottawa at about 1:00pm. Set up camp and had a little nap. We then explored along the Ottawa River. We found a nice spot on the beach at Brittania Beach and we all took a dip in the river. The water was lovely and cool.

We then found an Afghanistanian restaurant and pigged out on swharma, chicken kebabs, rice and eggplant stew. This was our best meal of the whole trip. I can barely type as I am so exhausted (from lack of sleep) and full from the great meal.

Jemma’s Journal Entry for Last Night

33 Mosquitos Bites!

I just counted all my mosquito bites and they all add up to 33... 4 on my face, 16 on my legs, 6 on my back and 7 on my arms. It’s absolutely crazy. Last night we had a violent, bloody, brutal battle with the pests. First of all we tried to find them all and kill them. We had thought we had got them all but at about 10:00 o’clock my dad heard one buzzing around his head so we got up turned on all the lights and killed about 4 of them filled with blood. We lied down thinking we had gotten them all but we were wrong. That went on about 6 more times and I fell asleep at take 5. Then we had to get up at 6 o’clock. That might not seem early but if you look at the night we had it was pretty early. I got into the van and I slept for 3 more hours.