danielsku

[danielsku]

Iceland

View of Keflavik airport inside

A few years ago, before COVID-19, me and my family had a day layover in Iceland when we were traveling to visit family in Europe. We used this opportunity to explore the small country a little bit. This wasn’t my first time in the country as we used the same flying route last year, but I always found Iceland to be a fascinating place to visit because its landscape was just so unique.

Map of the Golden Ring Road in Iceland

That year, me and my parents decided to explore the Golden Ring Road which covered 4 main unique natural wonders in Iceland caused by the geothermal activity on the Island. All in all, this road was one of my most favorite places to visit in the world because it showed the weird and powerful the nature in Iceland which was unlike any other place I visited. Otherwise, we visited the following 4 places on the Golden Ring road. 

Thingvellir National Park

When I think of national parks, I always think of big areas full of forests and maybe mountains, maybe because I visited so many in Canada, but Thingvellir National Park is a relatively big area, but there were no trees, just fields, some bushes and rivers. The main part of the national park is a valley of tall formations of rocks in a weird mozaïk kind of way. There was more you could explore of the national park such as hiking trails through hills and crystal clear rivers. The place itself was quite impressive and felt like I had reached some kind of a different world because it was so unusual and this would be a theme for all the landmarks on the Golden Ring Road. After exploring the national park for a short bit, me and my family continued to check out the Geysers.

Geyser Geothermal area

This was probably my favorite place to visit on this ring road because it was fascinating to look at how the water from these small pools called geysers just explode up to 30 meters above the ground and all from natural phenomena. Me and my family, once we got there, explored several different geysers, the big geyser, the original geyser, the little geyser among others. What I loved most about this place was when I experienced the first geyser eruption I saw from the original geyser. I waited a little bit until it would erupt and then unexpectedly it made this loud popping sound and water flew at least 20 meters high. It was a fantastic thing to watch, especially all the water becoming a puffy white cloud and feeling the warmth from it knowing that it’s from a heat source underground. I’ll be honest, the thing that is most sad about this place is the big geyser. It used to erupt very frequently, but, during the last few decades, it only erupted a handful of times due to tourists throwing rocks into the pool itself. I advise you to not do that if you visit that place because it would be nice if it's kept preserved since when it erupts, the water flies more than 50 meters in height, the tallest geyser eruption in the world. When we were done exploring the geysers, it was hard to leave because it was so lovely being there, but he continued forward to the Gullfoss waterfall.

Gullfoss waterfalls

The growling noise was the first thing I heard when we approached the waterfalls. I could hear the power within the moving water and didn’t think much of it when we approached, but once we got out of the car and I looked at the falls, I was kind of in shock.  The amount of water moving through the waterfall was powerful and the only similar waterfalls I ever saw were the ones in Niagara Falls all though the latter is bigger. The heavy streams of water vaporizing while hitting the rocks was just mesmerizing to look at for the next hour. Once we were ready to leave the falls, I just had to take one final look before going to the destination where we would wrap up our Golden Ring Road trip. 

Kerið lake

We were running low on time because we had to be at the airport soon so we made a quick stop at Kerið (pronounced Kerith or Kerid lake). We hiked out the parking lot and we looked over at the lake inside its volcanic crater. It was impressive, but it wasn’t as interesting as the other destinations. What I liked most about it was its color being vivid aquamarine unlike any other water source I’ve seen during my stay in Iceland, but I think it wasn’t worth more than 10 minutes of my time. 

After we visited Kerið lake, we went back to the airport, returned our rented car and we passed through security to wait in the terminal for our flight. We boarded our flight to mainland Europe in a few hours. 

View of Keflavik airport from the outside

Before I wrap this blog up, I have to add that the Keflavik airport really looks out of place. What I mean by that is it’s a huge building, and runway, in the middle of nowhere and only a few kilometers before the next town. 

I have to say that Iceland is a completely different world and I would love to return to the country to drive the complete circle around the island. I recommend you, my dear readers, to take the time to visit the country if you have the chance. It's really one of those places where you realize that our Earth takes many shapes. 

Stay tuned for my next blog about my most recent trip!

[danielsku]

The Petawawa River (Pt. 2)

The Morning we left the Petawawa Garrison

Following my stay at the Petawawa Garrison, where I gathered the knowledge for the upcoming expedition trip, me, 35 other cadets and 7 adult staff biked from the military base to Stratton Lake in Algonquin park. It was a long and grueling 40km bike ride that went up and down hills which were full of sand, gravel and beautiful scenery with clearings and impenetrable forests.

The nature around the Petawawa area on the road to Stratton lake

It was nice because it was easier to breathe the fresh air from the forest rather than the dirty and stuffy air from the cities where I came from. It was also gave me a break from my personal worries as biked further into the forest. I was more focused on the moment and what was most important to me. After we made it to Algonquin park, we quickly transitioned to hiking gear and put our bikes away in our rented cube van. 

Map of the Stratton lake area

We hiked for a few hours and we got lost several times as well and, due to us also being late with our timings on our bikes, we got lost during the night. I didn’t know where we were going because we resorted to bushwacking half the time and I was without a personal flashlight, so I had to also somehow figure out where I should step without tripping over rocks or branches. The next day, I realized how lucky I was not to twist our ankles because there were so many dangerous rocks when we hiked the following day. Luckily, after that first night hiking, my group made it to our campsite in one piece. We met up with the other cadets and adults, set up our campsite by the lake, did a debrief about how the day went and then we set off to do our ablutions and go to sleep. This would become a habit for the next 9 days.

View on Stratton lake next to our camping site once we arrived

The hiking cycle was a relaxing experience, yet uneventful. I could easily go into my thoughts while walking around Stratton Lake with my rucksack and think about life in a way I don’t do usually.

Some of my group members hiking

After a few days of the hiking cycle, we put our hiking poles, boots, tents, etc. in a cube van and we hopped once again on our bikes down a hill and we went deeper into the forest. 

After several hours of biking, we made it to Lake Travers where we put our equipment from the rucksacks into a new waterproof boundary bags, then we took our canoes from a truck that arrived for us and we set off with our paddles to our next campsite on the lake where we did the usual routine.

The next morning was miserable.

It was rainy and I woke up in a drenched tent and having a strong desire to keep sleeping so the rain eventually passes, but I had to walk out into the cold outside and pack all my stuff and put it under a waterproof tarp we set up since A : We had timings to meet; and B : It would have probably have not been a good idea to keep sleeping in the wet. It was a mess because the 20 other people we had on that campsite (the others split off to a different site) did the same thing and a lot of kit got mixed up or lost. It was really uncomfortable because it was very cold, so cold in fact that the water that felt cold the day before felt warm when we got into our canoes on that rainy morning.

The moment we docked before we conquered our first rapid

When we got on the water, we canoed out for around 20 minutes and we hit our first rapid and we had to stop to inspect it. It was not a great experience since we had to walk in our wet water shoes looking to see a possible path we could take to cross the rapid. I was shivering all the way until we got back into our canoes to attempt to cross the obstacle.

In the canoe was me in the stern (back) and an officer in the bow (front) and it was anticlimactic because when we tried to cross we got unfortunately stuck not even 10 meters from shore. Our canoe filled up with water and we had to get a few people to get the canoe unstuck from those rocks. The funny thing is that we successfully crossed the moving water right afterwards, so if not those rocks, we would have perfectly conquered the rapid. Overall, it was an enjoyable ride down the river full of adrenaline which made it a little warmer during the cold morning.

One of the adult staff crossing the rapid

For the next following days, we camped at several different campsites, tried to nail our routine on our campsites to the fastest time we could, we crossed several different rapids and smaller swifts and we portaged our way to avoid more dangerous water. One formidable portage was on our third day canoeing which was the “Crooked Chute” portage because it was a long one kilometer walk down and up hill,  with heavy canoes, pressing down on our shoulders, and boundary bags which were unexpectedly even worse as they would seem lighter. After all of that, a rewarding feeling came to me and all my teammates because we have overcome something that we warned as being the hardest part of the trip which meant that we were closer to completing the expedition. 

View on a hill called "Cayote Rock" from one of last camp sites of the trip

During the last day, we debriefed in all of our separate groups we were originally split in at the beginning of the trip. We reminisced about the fun parts and the miserable parts of the trip and one comment from one of my team members stuck to me till this day :

“After this trip, I learned to embrace the suck.”

Following this notice, the team member explained that every bad thing makes the good events feel even better. This reminded me of the time when the sun showed out at noon during a miserable cloudy morning we had which made me so happy. Maybe it was because of the horrible morning we had, but it was the happiest I’ve been when looking at the sun. Then, after the team member stop talking, I had a moment of deep thinking and I realized how much fun I had during these past 10 days and how much I would miss the good moments and the "suck".

My greatest revelation during this trip was to embrace the suck, not only because it makes the good moments worthwhile, but also because there is only so much suck in our life. 

After this debrief, it was another good night's sleep and then we unloaded our kit the next morning once we canoeed back to shore. We returned back to the garrison and from there we parted ways. 

Stay tuned for the next blog about my trip to Iceland! I hope y’all have a wonderful rest of your day.

P. S.

I got to see parts of a pretty cool air show in Toronto while I was on the bus to train station!

[danielsku]

The Petwawa River (Pt. 1 Petawawa Guarrison)

The 3RCR, a regiment at Petawawa, headquaters

This is the first thread on this blog about my Top Ten places I visited where I write to you, readers, about my experiences, enjoy! As a part of an opportunity I have received this summer from army cadets, I have had the chance to visit the magnificent Petawawa river. The Petawawa river is located in the  northern part of Algonquin park next to the city of Petawawa which is around 2 hours from Ottawa. Throughout this experience, I’ve had the chance to stay at the Petawawa Garrison, bike from the base to the river and canoe the whole length of the river with rapids while camping for 10 days. On this blog, I will cover my stay at the Petawawa garrison.

Rooms in the shacks!

My trip to Petawawa started when me and 35 other cadets and 7 adult staff arrived to stay at the barracks in the city’s military base where we stayed to practice canoeing through rapids. The shacks, as the military personnel call them, were very spacious. They weren’t necessarily cozy, but they were comfortable as they contained 4 huge beds for 4 people per room with 2 windows, 4 wardrobes and 4 bed stands with outlets. Bathrooms were located on the other side of the corridor and were very well kept. My only complaint is that there is not much privacy because the bathroom door was always open and everything was visible from the corridor.

The mess hall at the Petawawa Garrison.

The mess hall at the garrison was just fantastic. The military really knows how to feed their members because it always raises morale to go to the mess hall due to the food being always great. The best meal was supper where they fed meals like lamb chops in a sauce or steaks with cranberries which was something to look forward to at the end of the day. In addition to that, there were always different types of desserts, a salad bar and juice dispensers. As a part of my stay in the Petawawa Garrison, me and the rest of the group biked to the fast moving Petawawa river to practice how to canoe through rapids and how to swim through them if the canoe tipped over. It was fun because I learned interesting different canoestrokes to use through fast moving water and what swim position to adopt if a canoe tips in that water.

This is me swimming in the river!

Stay tuned for the second part of this blog next week when I’m going to cover the trip along the whole Petawawa river.