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Last weekend I went on another trip with the Outdoors Club to Tobermory. Its about 4 hours north of London and is right next to Lake Huron, one of the great lakes (I think). We were heading up there for a 2 day hiking trip along the Bruce Penninsula trail.
It was a really beautiful hike, firstly along the cliffs beside the lake, which actually looked like the ocean with huge waves and no clue where the other side of it was! And then we headed slightly inland and hiked through a forest. To be honest near the end I felt like I was on a climbing trip rather than hiking as we ended up having to scramble up so many really steep hills. Which isnt actually too easy when you have a huge rucksack on and the ground is a little slippy. We did end up witnessing quite a few falls but luckily I just got away with it despite a few close calls! The medal goes to Becky though who managed to fall over when we were all standing still! Haha she was ok though.
The first day of the trip was a 15km hike along the trail and then the next day we did the same trail back the opposite way. During the day we ended up all getting split up as everyone was a different pace. There was only 15 of us on the trip, (8 of us brits!) but by the end of the day it ended up about 5 of us girls in the middle group and unfortunately left without anyone who had done the trail before. After many stops for photos and breaks the trail took a little longer than we expected and the last hour was filled with tense silence as we all panicked slightly that we were lost and wouldnt make it to the campsite before dark. It turns out we were on the right track as we approached a new sign for the campsite, right next to a bright yellow sign reading 'Caution, Bear in the Area'. This sign paired with the rope that went off down the steepest hill yet towards the campsite really did not fill us with hope that we could survive the night here! After a while though we did manage to get all set up at the campsite which was right next to the lake and the 4 of us squeezed into our tent for an actually suprisingly cosy nights sleep.
The next morning though....we got out of tent to find it had snowed overnight!! And began to sleet a little as we were having breakfast - this was our first taste of the Canadian winter we've been warned about since we got here and we were the crazy ones camping in the woods!
It actually wasnt too bad during the day though as the hike really warmed you up! At the end of the 2nd day the leaders took us on a little detour to this place called the grotto, which turns out to be a sort of cave within the cliff with a pool inside. Oh and the only way to get to it was to climb through an absolutely tiny hole in the rock and clamber down the other side. It was so worth it though, the cave and the cliffs looked so dramatic from down there and the water was a lovely aqua colour. A few of the crazy outdoors people and slightly more reluctant Jess and Chloe ended up jumping in the freezing water inside the cave. I was cold enough just watching!
Unfortunatly theres a lack of photos from this trip as I stupidly dropped my camera on a nature walk in Hamilton (where we were visiting Ryan), so a $3 disposable camera was all I had. I'll be picking the photos up tomorrow so fingers crossed a few turned out!
Life is still crazy busy here, I've realised I have every week until New Year planned out here and theres always work I can be doing. This weekend (12/11) has been the first weekend in London for a while and we went to Cowboys (the country bar) again and had a bonfire on saturday for two of our friends birthdays. Next weekend I am really excited for as we're making the big trip across the border to Chicago!! I really can't wait, its just a 9 hour bus journey to get there first. We get back on the monday morning, and then on Tuesday night I have Kiah coming to stay for a week, shes one of my closest friends from high school whos also doing a year abroad in Delaware, USA. Its going to be soo good seeing someone from home and hearing all about what shes been doing! We are going to spend the weekend before she leaves in Toronto aswell so Im sure at some point a blog post will appear about that.
Always so much to see and do, I love everything I'm being able to do here and feel so lucky that I've got this oppurtunity! (cheeese)
I also think I might have the travelling bug! Already considering my next country to conquer....
- comments
Nicki Walker Ah, it all sounds brilliant! Uncle Nigel is proud of taking you on walks in all weather cos he thinks he's responsible for you being up for it, lol! Keep the blogs coming, you write really engagingly, they are really fun to read xxxx