Since this is the first weekend I’m actually staying on campus, ive decided to update my blog ... and explain what ive been doing all the weekends previous to this when ive not been here!! Ok so, the other weekend a bunch of us from the outdoors club went to the Pinery, a national park on Lake Huron, we just spent the whole time exploring, cooking pancakes, and downing copious amounts of maple syrup! Went down to the beach at night and Pil and Francesca went for a swim in the cccollld dark water! We walked nearly down to Grand Bend one day and then warmed up by the fire at night making smoors and singing oasis ... oh its a good life =]
Last weekend we made the long trip up to Algonquin national park near Québec border. The drive up was interesting enough with lost of Tim Horton’s stops for Kevin to stay awake whilst driving. We stopped off at Lake Simcoe and the way and I, Pil, Carl and Kevin took a few snaps before jumping back in the car and carrying on up North. Arrived at about 1am (atleast our tents were up by then!) and crashed straight away. Apparently i tried to get out the tent in the middle of the night whilst talking rubbish ... thank goodness Pil stopped me or i would have gone for an involuntary swim most likely!! Damn my sleepwalking!
Anyhow, the next morning, we discovered that Frank, who had been in charge of food for our group had decided not to make an appearance ... thankfully Matt had got our food (even though it was the worst combination of food and we had an interesting time making meals out of the 45minuet cooking time rice, cucumber and some kind of meat paste ...) after much messing around, we got our canoes and paddles and set off into the wilderness!! The first night was a bit of a survival epic, our group having being split up in an unfortunate set of circumstances, its was getting dark and the wind was picking up ... a full blown storm commoth!! We pulled into the land and overturned our canoes to the others could see them (they were white) when they came in. We set to work to getting tents up and a fire started as the wind and rain picked up. I sent people off to get firewood while i found my tinder and me and Shannon got to work on the fire. Anyhow ... a while later we were all safe in our tents after a slightly unnerving night ... we had pitched out tents in the woods away from the lake for some shelter ... but now were closer to any bears .... Oops ... we hung food in trees anyhow and tried to sleep through the storm.
The next day was somewhat more successful, we covered a large distance and were really starting to work as a team and get into a fast routine when we got the each portage ... i have to say, me Shannon and Louise did an ace job of taking turns of carrying the canoe on our backs for as long as 1.6km at times through the backcountry ... we girls are tough! We actually nnnnearly saw a moose ... Reggie and the others in front yelled ‘MOOOOOSE!’ so it ran away lol. Spent the second night somewhat warmer and dryer, however had quite a job crossing the last lake as the winds were quite horrendous and waves were coming into the canoe! We tried so hard to keep ourselves at an angle to the waves so as not to capsize and eventually with allot of team effort from both canoes in GROUP OOOONEEE!!! We made it =] had allot of fun cooking out 45min rice and cucumber and cheese (because that’s the silly food we got given as out group shopper was ill) then moves quickly to roasting marshmallows and being smoked to death when silly people put damp foliage on the fire ... no names here.
Last day!!! Got out of camp after a few brave soles decided to brave the cold and go for a dip, and came across another group who had been stranded on an island by the storm and the worry of not finishing the route if they went further so we took the word they needed rescuing. A good few looooong hours later we were on the way home and after stopping off at a nice pastry shop and Tim Horton’s a little later ... we were pretty shattered, loooooong weekend =] very satisfying though =]
This week ive spent many hours with Emma, Vivian and the others in the glaciology lab modelling glaciers ... which is actually not as fun as it sounds!! Been to karate with Thomas and Jacob, and met up with a few new climbing busied in the Spoke bar on campus (its huuuuuuuuuge)!! Just off to meat up with a few friends for a mean and a rave after then off to examine the Ontario rock outcrops tomorrow ... oh ... and climb them of course lol. All for now fokes =] x
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