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I hadn't planned on travelling this year, particularly to Europe, as my last two trips had been to the continent. A good friend mentioned they were going to spend some time in the Azores on their way back from Portugal and I should consider joining them if I could scrape together enough spare change for a plane ticket and get some time off work.

It had been over five years since my last trip out of the country, so with my 50th birthday approaching I decided to redeem some Aeroplan points and take a holiday with planes, trains, busses, a bunch of new cities, and a lot of walking. I had originally planned for my next big trip to be a return to South America, a hiking trip to the Patagonia region. My last trip had been to Europe so I wasn't originally looking to go back right away but the schedule at my new job makes it a bit difficult to plan something in the northern winter / southern summer season. So with a friend and some wine, we both agreed a return to Europe was the plan. Boohoo for me.

This year's Victoria Day long-weekend trip into the backcountry of Kejimkujik National Park had a lot of weather but it was another fun trip with friends. It always feels so good to be back at Keji, the trees, the trails, the lakes, the big sky. This year I somehow managed to get the site I was hoping for, site 45, even though I was over 7000th in line when the reservations opened.

After a few years of being unable to make our annual Victoria Day weekend canoe trip into the Kejimkujik National Park backcountry, we were back on the water this year. The national parks have instituted a more "fair" lottery system for reservations and as in every other lottery, I've been pretty unlucky with the results. This year I was 2306th in line so I wasn't holding out much hope of getting what I was hoping for. Turns out I was right and had to settle for a two night stay on a site further down my wishlist, site 6. It wasn't my first choice but it turned out to be a pretty good one.

I hadn't been for a hike in far too long and I was feeling very guilty about having four days off over the Easter weekend and not having any plans. So I looked up a trail I hadn't done before, topped up the car's gas tank -- yikes! -- and headed north out of the city towards Truro.

After a long pandemic and life-related hiatus from hiking I thought it was about time to get back on the trail. After not having been out on a trail for so long I had to choose carefully: something challenging but not too challenging. After a quick look around I landed on the Admiral Lake Loop, part of the very good Musqudoboit Trailways Association. I've done a couple of their longer, more challenging trails, the South Granite Ridge and North Granite Ridge trails but knew I couldn't handle either of them at the moment.

In following with my unofficial, not-written-down-anywhere quest to visit the tall mountains of the world, a friend and I booked a trip to France to see Mont Blanc.

Desperate for a relatively local hiking challenge this year, I decided to finally hike the Liberty Lake Loop, a 56km trail in Kejimkujik National Park. I've had my eye on the loop for almost 10 years but just never took the plunge to make the reservations and take the time off work. Without a trip to some far-flung destination this year, it was time to tackle it.

After taking last year off from our (mostly) annual tradition, three friends and I jumped back into a couple of canoes and headed into the backcountry of Kejimkujik National Park for the Victoria Day long weekend. This time we were headed for Site 22, the last site on the West River. The weather was sunny and warm, the winds light. Perfect conditions, except for the flies which seemed to have exploded into life. Nothing a good bug net over you hat and some spray can't solve.

As I had a couple of extra days off for this year's Labour Day long weekend I decided at almost the last moment to spend a few days in one of my favourite places: Kejimkujik National Park. One of the few remaining parts of the park I hadn't hiked or paddled through was the Channel Lake Loop, an almost 27-kilometre loop in the middle of the park.