- - Memories of Muskoka - -

Hi everyone!

This past weekend I went to a cottage in Muskoka for three days and two nights with Andrew and two of our good friends. Muskoka is beautiful cottage country roughly 3 hours north of Toronto. Recently I found out that the National Geographic Traveler magazine has previously given this regional municipality distinctions for being one of the best places to visit in Canada and, in fact, even the world.

The weather wasn't the greatest for the day that we were there the longest (Saturday), but we made the best of it with some ATV rides, a short hike, Taboo and Cards Against Humanity. There was also some swimming for two of us (not for the other two though - water was too cold), fishing, and a lot of chipmunk feeding and bird watching for me. All in all just a nice break from the chaos of everyday life.

You can check out some of the highlights after the jump...

On the first day of our trip we ended up making our way to Muskoka in the evening, so technically I shouldn't even count it as our first day. It takes roughly 2.5-3 hours to get to Muskoka and the cottage we were going to, but it helped to have good music, great conversations, awesome friends, and snacks for the journey.

For the shot above, I tried to capture the beautiful sky we saw at one point in the trip.

On the morning of our second day we woke up to a cloudy and rainy day. Luckily, we had movies to watch (I'll discuss these on Friday), Taboo and Magic the Gathering to play (yes, Magic the Gathering).

After the rain stopped for a little bit, Andrew took me and our friends on an ATV ride around the property. This was the breathtaking view we saw as we went around one of these ponds.

As we came up to a hill, we had to leave the ATV behind and take the rest of the way on our feet.

At the very top of the hill there is another pond that has been highly regulated by the beavers, who affect it by building dams.

This is another view of the same pond I mentioned above.

After finishing our hike, we decided to visit a second cottage that is on the lake. This was still during our second day in Muskoka. As you can see - the weather didn't really improve at this point.

Okay, the weather did get a bit better, but it was still rainy most of the day.

My favourite part of our second day (other than going into town to an ice cream parlour) was getting a chance to feed a chipmunk! There were about four chipmunks running around in the area, but only one was confident and brave to come and take the sunflower seeds from my hand. In fact, this little guy would chase off anyone else who came closer. We named the chipmunks "Russell."

Funny enough, the chipmunks don't actually eat the seeds right then and there. Instead, they put as much seeds as they can into their mouth and run off to store them away somewhere. Then they come back for more.

It was pretty cool! As I was feeding Russell, I got to pet him with my thumb and my right hand. :)

Our last day at the cottage (Sunday) was a lot brighter even if a little cloudy still.

After sleeping in and watching a movie in the morning, Andrew and our friends went fishing. From what I hear it was a great experience!

 The last day was also warm, which was great!

I fed some Russells again. This time there were two other chipmunks that were brave enough to come up to me.

I also did a bit of bird-watching. This cottage has hummingbird feeders, so even though I didn't take a picture of any, I did get to see (and hear) hummingbirds.

By the evening everything started to darken, but just before it did I snapped this shot of the sky and the lake.

There was also some last-minute fishing!

Finally, we headed off on our journey back to Toronto.

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Although I really wish we got to stay in Muskoka for a couple days longer, this ended up being a much-needed relaxing and low-key vacation after all. I hope to go back there soon!

What did you do this past weekend?

Thank you for reading! -A.~