And there I was back again to Algonquin, one week later...This time, I went on a trip with Clemence, Charline and James. Skipping work on friday, we left eastwards, had lunch at Bancroft and stocked up on booze and food before heading to the Algonquin Backpacker's Hostel - the 'wrong' place, but it was still nice, situated in a one cross-road village with one store, gas station, breakfast-lunch-restaurant and LCBO at the south side of the park. We went for a short hike that afternoon, to a small waterfall in the south of the park. There was no one except us, we didn't even notice when the trail ended and went a little further along the river. Driving back to the hostel, the colours of the setting sun and the surrounding forest were great. Charline cooked great oven baked mushrooms with bacon and blue cheese, and pasta with lots of veggies and meat for us. We also had pumpkin pie, and lots of wine and beer to celebrate the night.
The next morning, I woke up early (as usual), and went for a coffee at the breakfast place. It was so American: mostly farmers, everyone knew everybody, free-refill coffee, and folks driving from the place to the grocer, which was two houses away with their pick-up truck... The hostel had no space for us the next night, so we had to pack up, and drove to highway 60 into Algonquin park, where we did Charline's favourite hike 'Centennial Ridges' - 10km long with great look-outs from rocky ridges over a wide part of the park (no Moose, though). The hike was beautiful, the weather awesome, blue sky, the forest was golden-yellow coloured. I had a good time walking, chatting and taking lots of pictures. We still had to find a place to stay over night, which turned out to be harder than expected as any motel even in Huntsville was booked. We finally found a spot in Bracebridge, got some Thai food for dinner, and had a lazy night.
The next day, we drove north-west to Massasauga Park at Georgian Bay, hoping to find some good hiking spots there. It turned out to be more of a marine park, where you could reach hikes by boat or canoe. We started bush waking along a lake, and ended up at the other end of the parking lot...We then took the easier way along the road to the end of the bay, where we spend some good time sunbathing and drinking wine.
And, yes: Moose do exists! we saw two right at the roadside driving out of Algonquin.
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