Sept -Oct: Algonquin, Bon Echo, Wolfe Island, Homecoming...

 Wolfe Island 

With what turned into a weekend of no plans, we set off on a relatively close trip to Wolfe Island, just a 20 minute ferry journey from the harbour in Kingston. In all honesty, in off-peak season and in the late afternoon, there wasn't a great deal to do especially without access to car/bikes. However, we did manage to make our way to a nearby corn maze and set about wandering through never-ending corn fields. Also the owner of the corn maze was incredibly nice and managed to give us a lift back so we'd get there in time to make the ferry back!

Bon Echo

This was the first exploration into one of Canada's many national parks in Ontario. With autumn really taking place, this was an opportunity to catch the red maple colour of the trees at peak time! We ended up on a 10km hike, with some beautiful views across both the forest and a number of lakes. While we did end up in the middle of a thunderstorm 5km in, was a cool trip and a great way to make use of the thanksgiving weekend. 

Algonquin National Park

We followed Bon Echo up with another national park but decided we'd get some canoes, camping gear and make the most of this one! It was about a 4 hour journey so it really made sense, as well as the fact that the area is surrounded by some sizeable lakes. We got our camping permit and set ourselves an ambitious challenge of camping on a island that would take over 3 hours of canoeing to get there! As none of us had previous experience, the initial technique was interesting, to say the least, but it worked out amazingly as we saw moose, as well as incredible views of the stars both as we canoed through the dark but as well once we reached land and set up camp. 

Homecoming! 

A popular tradition in North America, yet relatively unheard of in UK universities is homecoming, where alumni students return and see the university, hanging out with other alumni and present students. On the another level, it's also a good excuse for a party weekend. With this tradition, also comes the tradition of waking up at 8am and starting drinking and attending street parties before watching some of the sports games on offer. We decided to go to the Canadian Football game, which turned out to be a cool experience. Although we didn't catch the entire game, it was good to see another side to Queen's University life that was so different to the UK. 

The last 4 weeks have flown by as routine with studying has began to fit in as well as weekends being taken up by cool trips like this, more photos can be found here: https://photos.google.com/share/AF1QipPlcJJjhJwf9H_oD56t5pdtti1XJq14ZNXoihMudDG7QhZakQZNvypppbyov9uhA?key=aFNYUzFRQ1JHclZZQ0FOOW51VndtOG9KSF9tdWt3