Ive been back from Canada for a while now, but Ive been doing work experience and other stuff so I havent really had a chance to write everything up.
I had a really good time, and managed to get food to and from Canada without too much difficulty. I had to fill out a customs form on the way there, but I didnt understand some of the the questions so I kinda guessed a few of them. (eg: Where are you going in this country? Kinda embarrassing, but I forgot the names of the places...).
Security is pretty tight in the airports. They took my safety pin bracelet, and a compass (the circle drawing one as opposed to the one that points north) off me. However, I noticed when I got there that they had left a razor in my hand luggage. I could've slashed the pilot to death - except I didnt realise it was in my bag...
As soon as I got to Canada I went straight to camp and started with my task of keeping the toddlers occupied! I only had to do that for a few hours each day, so I spent the rest of the time swimming in the lake and meeting new people (and trying to get over my jet lag!).
Everyone was really friendly, and they liked to listen to me talk coz of my accent. As you all know, I have no trouble talking! They wanted me to teach them how to speak with the 'awesome' English accent, coz all they could do was the 'BBC' English accent. I got them all to sit in a circle and say "WOTEVAAAA" for ages. They now sound like female chavs. And yes, I AM proud of this achievement.
Here are some people swimming in the lake. As you can see (bottom left corner), I was standing on a raft to take this photo - not treading water!
This is a view of the rest of the lake, as seen from the same raft. The boats were following people as they swam to the other side of the lake and back again! Its a really long way! (Nope, I didnt even
think of attempting it!).
This is Dan in a kayak, wearing flippers and goggles with a life jacket.
This was a campfire on the beach. There were loads of mosquitoes and other vicious biting insects. They didnt seem to bit the Canadians half as much as they bit me...
We camped out on the beach that night...
....... this is Beacon Lake early in the morning!
This is the first cabin I stayed in with about 10 other girls (I was the youngest one!). We had fun together, but because we all had different jobs, we woke up at different times. There was 1 girl who woke up at 6 every morning to cook breakfast, and she had a really loud alarm clock that played hawaian music... .
It was right next to the lake.
This was a game of rugby in the lake with a watermelon. Apparently it's more fun if you grease the watermelon first!
This is people sitting on the dock.
(I think they were watching the rugby...)
This is the staff photo.
This is Becky holding the 'olympic torch'.
This is Dan looking really patriotic.
This is Suzie. She was really happy to see me! ;)
This is Luke. I got to know him quite well coz he was on both the camps I did. He can force fart, do 'interpretive dancing', do a mexican wave with his stomach, and squirt water really far from his mouth.
He also has a pierced eyebrow.
And I can beat him in an arm wrestle!
This is Jordan. He was also on the 2 camps that I did, and he did a poo from half way up a tree! He was also involved in the famous 'skinny dipping conspiracy'.
This is Aaron. He taught me how to fish (with a fishing rod! Impressive, eh?!).
He dressed up as a hula dancer, swallowed a live fish, and was involved in the skinny dipping conspiracy.
He tells really really really spooky stories.
The second camp I did (co-educational, 14ish - 17ish) was really good too! It included a 4 day canoe trip!!! It was going out into the middle of nowhere - totally out of the broadband/phone signal area! There weren't even land line phones!!!
We had no running water, and we had to pump lake water through a filter so that we would drink it. We were paddling in canoes for most of the day, and then we'd stop on random islands in the lakes and set up camp for the night.
There was a lot of wildlife (emphasis on the wild!) We had our camp attacked by racoons on 2 of the nights!!! Racoon hair in your cups and bowls is not a nice thing to wake up to! We also had snakes, beavers, big scary looking fish, a possible smallish bear in the night (we didnt see it, but it got our food barrel out of the tree where we tied it! =S) and lots of small but vicious bugs!
Also, there was a meteor shower on the last night which was AMAZING!!! The stars are really cool anyway when you see them from Canada, coz you can see the rest of the Milky Way stretching across the sky, but we saw LOADS of shooting stars!!!!! It was sooooo cool!
Anyway - here are the photos:
This is where we stopped on the first day.
You can see the small rock that the boys swam out to so they could practice their Venus Razor adverts (When they weren't singing Pink Floyd songs from the shore!).
Here are all the girls canoes after we took the stuff out.
The boys put really sharp sticks on their canoes with duct tape coz they decided they were gonna be pirates. I got stabbed in the back with their 'battering rams' several times!
This is the first camp site.
This is the 'toilet'. It had a great view, but it was just an upside-down crate with a hole in the bottom, and a pit dug under it. There were maggots crawling around in it, and it stank. (It was also about 50 metres backwards into the forest which would have been scary at night!
I didnt use it!!! Trees were much more hygienic! We all learnt how to aim as well as guys can! (Someone also learnt why you shouldn't pee facing the wind or uphill... =S). I even peed on the campfire! (we had to put it out...!)
This was when we were cooking. You can see how much stuff we had to carry in the canoes - and that was just the food! We had all the tents, sleeping bags and clothes as well!
This is sunset over the lake. We had really pretty sunsets. (Sunrise was probably quite nice too, but I dunno coz I was asleep...)
This was us trying to get a rope in a tree so we could tie our food up there. It took ages. We had shoe on the end of the rope to make it easier, but then we got the shoe stuck in the tree...
(Believe it or not, it was still light when we started!!!)
