DAY 11 - MONDAY 17th SEPTEMBER 2007

Nickerson State Park & Wompatuck State Park, Massachusetts

It was very cold last night – it was about 48oF or so – but when you are in a tent that feels very cold. As a consequence it was not the best nights sleep ever. Also for the first time we heard some of the local wildlife in night time action. There was some unidentified creature squeaking and scurrying around outside the tent in the early hours, followed by some howls from which we assume were several prowling coyotes.

The morning was very bright but chilly. Today was the day of our planned move to Wompatuck State Park (up towards Boston) so it was time to dismantle the tent and move on.

Jack and Emily amused themselves playing with some new friends they had made Austin (10) and Harrison (8). This initially involved scooter rides up and down the paved roadway. They then decided to go down the lake beside our campsite and began to create a fantasy land complete with castles, ports (with light houses) and town. The port they created was eventually invaded by what would have been seen to local inhabitants as a giant duck.

Whilst the children had fun, their mother and we had to breakdown our campsite, which by this stage was in some sort of state of chaos. With the cool September nights upon us everything was covered in morning dew, additionally a week of tramping sand through our tent combined with a couple of days of rain meant sand and vegetative debris lay through out our tent. We had learnt a neat trick from the parents of the aforementioned Austin and Harrison, which was to dangle the ground sheets and tent fabric across the washing line and brush the sand off. It took a good 3 hours to pack everything away and as usual things like sleeping bags and tents never seem to go back into the bags they originally came in.

At last we set off about 11:30am with everything on board. The plan was to travel down to the Cape Cod Canal and visit either of a couple of points of interest en route to Wompatuck; the Cape Cod Canal and the Aptucxet Trading Post Museum (which was the site of the first trading post museum in Massachusetts. We never managed to find the former and latter was closed (attached is a picture of Jack next to the building we thought was the trading post but which was actually a storage shed!!). So we found a scenic area overlooking the Cape Cod Canal – which we discovered was the largest sea level canal in the world – it is about 18 miles long and 400 yards across.

A little further on down the road we did have an amusing experience having stopped in Dunkin Donuts (nothing unusual here for the Hobbs family). Opposite the Dunkin Donuts was a MacDonalds complete with a drive through, and just as we leaving a hearse (sadly without a coffin) pulled through the drive through. Obviously this was golden opportunity for photograph and later a caption competition.

Arrived at Wompatuck at about 4pm and assembled the tent we had taken down earlier in the day. This time it seemed to go up much easier as we had worked out the right way of erecting, learning from the mistakes of our first time. By 6pm we had unloaded the van, got the tent and screen tent up – pretty good. By this time we were hungry so we set off to find somewhere to eat and buy some food.