Hiking: Thousand Islands National Park #Canada150 #DiscoveryPass #hiking

I realized that we’ve been having a ton of movie reviews lately. So, for my sake and anyone else who drops by here not for reviews, we’re having a review-free day! During my vacation, we headed off to Thousand Islands National Park to take advantage of the Canada 150 Discovery Pass to do some hiking.

Thousand Islands is wildly known for its cruise around the beautiful Thousand Islands area to see all the lovely residences on the different islands scattered about and eventually for the longer cruises and those with passports can head on to see the castle. We’ve never been to the castle but its on our bucket list however, Thousand Islands National Park was somewhere that popped up on our radar to check out. We ended up heading into the park and while one of the three locations to go hiking were closed, we ended up going to check out the other two trails locations.

The Visitor’s Centre is located at the Mallorytown Landing Trail area which is kind of like walking around in someone’s backyard as a good bit of the beginning and end rounds around some houses in proximity. However, the trail is pretty nice and easy. Its mostly flat and goes up a small hill in the back roads.

Thousand Islands National Park

It turns out I did take some pictures but nothing was quite as memorable as finally seeing the toilets here which were in little cabins like this and had this Phoenix composting system or something. It said to close the lids on the toilets when people were done but of course, no one does so as I was in there, I kept imagining that the whole Snakes in the Plane scenario would happen or some frog would hop out at me. Stupid since its crazy deep but hey, overactive imagination can be a curse sometimes.

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

Here are two shots that I liked of the Mallorytown Landing trail.

Just down the road for about a five minute drive was our next location with a network of over 2 hours worth of trails if you really wanted to do it and it was the Jones Creek Trail. We headed over there and figured out a way to at least reach the other side of their boardwalk and the lookout spot and then head back. The trails have all these animal names and it was pretty cool. For those looking for those trails, you can find the map HERE. we started on the eel and kept going right to follow Turtle which keeping right lead to Heron which leads to the Boardwalk and we did a part of Snipe to the lookout point and headed back. The trails are marked pretty well with the colors of the trails on the map so its easy to just spot where the trail is by looking for those little tags hung on the trees. The trails were relatively easy and its mostly lookout points at marshlands.

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

Thousand Islands National Park

As much as it was a flat course, it was still really comfortable to walk in. The trails were nice and it still had the nature trail that the trails weren’t always really defined so the hunt for those colored signs happened at times. Some of the lookouts aren’t exactly great but its still a milder walk which turned out for the better since we don’t get the chance to hike as much as we’d like.

Thousand Islands National Park is a decent spot. There are some nice scenery around. Although, you should definitely go for the cruise if you are in the area. As for us, we’ll probably see if the leaves are still around and hunt down another location to hike up in the mountains to catch some leaves before the weather gets cooler and we only go hiking in the spring after the snow has melted and/or when the parks open up again.

My Weekly Adventures #51

My Weekly Adventures

Hello everyone!! Welcome to the next Weekly  Adventures! This will be a slightly shorter one with less fluff or serious stuff mostly because tomorrow is going to be the October marathon announcement or kick-off or whatever! It was why I slightly hesitated to do a Weekly Adventures however, why not, right? Overall, it was a pretty chill half a month. The first week of it didn’t really have anything in particular however the last weekend to this one has been a little more eventful.

Rock ‘N’ Roll Oasis Montreal 2017

In celebration of the Canada 150 and the Montreal 375, this year’s Montreal marathon took place over two days instead of just the Sunday. Obviously, I only was a part of it because of my friend who usually needs me to help with drop off and moving the car downtown where the race ended. This year was pretty cool as because of the event closing a wider area, I ended up having to change where I parked which came with its problems such as discovering where the boundaries were and figuring out where to get some tea in the new area. I work in Montreal however I don’t venture quite as much in the area near the LaFontaine Park surroundings so wasn’t quite so familiar however, I did end up finding some breakfast near the Berri-UQAM metro at the bus station and for the first year, ended up watching the race in the middle of the course. It was pretty nice with a live band and water stations and everything. Anyways, it also happened to be the hottest weekend of the summer, hitting the 40s Celsius in humidity and the full marathon was cancelled. However, the weather really took a turn around and I think because of the heat, everyone wanted to just mentally find that extra gear to get to the finish a lot of faster. Still, the event was cool as usual.

Baking Date

Last Friday night, I hung out with my baking and travelling friend. Its always nice to hang out with friends after a long time and we had decided to the weekend before due to her acquisition of many apples because this is the apple picking season. The original plan was to make apple pie however due to time running late and whatnot, we ended up making these little apple galette and I learned what pate brisee was and that was super cool. I’ve always wanted to make them and never did but they turned out to be pretty simple. Plus, its always fun to hang out with this friend. Hopefully, I’ll get my finances in order and we’ll be able to head on another foodie adventure to Toronto soon.

Battle of Ingredients Gathering

This month’s Battle of Ingredients will go live at some point next week. However, we had our gathering for it. We decided to do an early fall BBQ event. The weather’s definitely dropped since the last month and that weekend before with the  40+ Celsius temperature. We’ve been in the single digits the last few days so its been a sudden hit of cooler weather. Either way, this is coming up and we had a little Moon Festival twist since that’s also next week. Look out for that if you’ve been following it! 🙂

Moon Festival Early Celebration

Moon Festival is officially next week however, we got together earlier for an early celebration as my husband has work during dinner time on the day of. However, I will still have one more dinner with my mom on the day of. Its always nice to get together for dinner.

Cute Kitty Pic

Upcoming:

  • HALLOWEEN MARATHON!!!

Sorry for the late post today!
I’ve been plagued with migraines all weekend, so not as productive.
Thats it for this adventures!

Halloween marathon starts next week with little bits of random non-Halloween posts
The announcement post tomorrow will cover everything from whats the franchise I’ll be working on and such!
What have you been up to?

Music Obsessions: Canada 150 Special [July 2017]

Music Obsessions

And we’re in July ALREADY!

For those of you following me, I  was on vacation and was on my way back home on Canada Day! That also meant that I couldn’t celebrate Canada Day the way that everyone else was. Instead, we had the chance to enjoy Canada’s beautiful landscapes as we traveled back from New Brunswick back to Montreal. It was a fantastic few days away and now I’m more relaxed and with the next week of staycation, I’m ready to really get back into gear and maybe hopefully create some backlog. Of course, I couldn’t give up a chance for my own Canada Day post. Its a day late but Canada 150 wasn’t something to pass up on.

With that in mind, this Music Obsessions is all about Canadian music artists and some of my favorite songs from before and now. The list really does go on but I had to make choices from what popped up in my head right away.

That Don’t Impress Me Much – Shania Twain

S’il Suffisait D’Aimer – Celine Dion

I Believe in You – Michael Buble

Call Me Maybe – Carly Rae Jepsen

There’s Nothing Holdin’ Me Back – Shawn Mendes

What are some of you favorite Canadian artists? Which songs do you like?