It is the time of the year when we look back at the great adventures of 2017 and start planning for the year ahead. With numerous camping trips, countless microadventures and a three-week road trip to Newfoundland, choosing the most memorable moments wasn’t easy. Every nature outing, no matter how short or close to home, is an opportunity to stop time, breathe deeper and marvel. Some trips, however, stick in your memory more than others. Here is my attempt at capturing ten best nature adventures of the year.
Hiking in Algonquin
Algonquin Park, the in-between season
November is when the restlessness usually sets in. Darkness slowly eats up the daylight hours. Camping trips get shorter and far apart. Even Saturday microadventures are sacrificed to accommodate other engagements. Somehow the month passed by without a single nature outing. I could feel November’s foggy vagueness making a permanent camp inside me. I needed a deep nature therapy. Fast. Luckily we had a yurt booked in Algonquin for the first weekend of December. I was counting days till I could start my morning with coffee and campfire instead of an overcrowded bus ride.
I am going on a solo hike: Backpacking in Algonquin
Remember those childhood riddles about an animal that carries its home on its back? About a week ago the answer was me making my way along the Highlands Trail in Algonquin. Not only because I was lugging my home, a.k.a. tent, on my back, but also because I was so slow.
Our camping weekend at Algonquin: itchy bodies and soothed souls
Camping is always good for my body and soul. Occasionally, though, along comes a trip so perfect and emotionally satisfying it feels like a dream. Our most recent trip to Algonquin was one of those. Minus the bugs. But then bugs are part of the camping package this time of the year.
Happy Birthday to Algonquin, land of beauty, memories and adventures!
So Algonquin Park is turning 122 today! Established in 1983, Algonquin is the oldest provincial park in Canada and it’s becoming even more beautiful and attractive with every passing year.
I couldn’t miss such an important occasion since it’s the place of so many favourite memories: our first trip into the interior, our first four-day canoe trip, our first winter camping adventure in a tent. Beautiful sunny skies, stormy weather, rainbows, fall colours, spring flowers and moose sightings, incredible sunsets and loon calls at night. We’ve visited Algonquin in all seasons, experienced it in every type of weather, explored it on foot, in a canoe and on a bike and it is always beautiful and exciting.
Lake of Two Rivers in the spring
Gone Camping 