When you’ve lived in Newfoundland for almost 20 years and you tell people you’ve never been on an ATV you get some funny looks. What can I say? I’m a city girl. So it was a good thing that Adventure Central added a backcountry ATV excursion to my epic Central Newfoundland summer itinerary.
Whitewater rafting on the Exploits River sounded like the perfect way to end my Central Newfoundland road trip. Except for one thing… getting dunked underwater makes me panic. How would this go?
I hadn’t done much hiking this summer and so I knew the 8.6km of the Alexander Murray Hiking Trail in King’s Point was going to be a bit of a challenge but what had me shaking in my hiking boots was the 2200 stairs and the 1200’ of elevation change. Yep, you heard right, two thousand, two hundred stairs.
I like a hiking trail with a good name. I also like when that name has a good story behind it. The Damnable Trail of the Eastport Peninsula in Central Newfoundland ticks both of those boxes for me.
I hadn’t ridden my bike in over two years when I decided to spend some of my Prince Edward Island road trip cycling the Confederation Trail. With it’s flat terrain it’s perfect for hill haters like me.
Have you ever heard the sound of 8,000 sneakers hitting the pavement? It was a sound I wasn’t prepared for and was perhaps one of the coolest unexpected sounds. The dull slap slap that you barely notice when you’re logging solo training miles but when multiplied by 4,000 other runners it becomes a symphony of rubber and pavement.
What better way to spend a hot Texas afternoon than tubing on the San Marcos River near Austin in some of the cleanest water in the state.
“It’s like bingo…but with chickens,” I implored. “So you, like, wait for the chicken to walk across your card and poop?” my friend asked, obviously grossed out.“ “No, there’s actually only one card and the chicken’s in a cage. You know what,” I mused, “it’s actually more like chicken shit roulette when you think about it.”Ah, Austin…land of the weird.
A spider monkey I am not. They run up and down tree limbs with ease, swooping from one branch to another. Meanwhile, I huff and puff and awkwardly hoist myself from one climbing hold to another. I have the upper body strength of a T-Rex but yet seem to prefer to try to pull myself up the tree rather than push myself with my legs. Knowing this, I still signed up to take a go at the Arboreal Climbing Park at Sky Adventures in Monteverde, Costa Rica.
Was this really going to happen? Was I going to make my way to the top of Mount Vogel in Slovenia…and then run off the edge? Well, that was my plan anyway. If the weather would let me. I was going paragliding.
Twelve feet doesn’t seem like that much does it? It’s the width of my living room. Twice the height of my last date. Four metres. Sounds so small until you’re standing at the top of a waterfall and someone is telling you to go ahead and jump into the pool below. This is canyoning in Slovenia.
Based on the name of this site, you’d assume that camping wasn’t my thing. And… well… you’re not entirely wrong. But I decided to put that to the test with a friend recently backcountry camping in Terra Nova National Park. What could possibly go wrong? We’d commune with nature, spend a night in the fresh air, and wake up to birds chirping next to a pond. What could go wrong?
I’d just fallen over and was quickly being engulfed by a quarter million white semi-translucent plastic balls. The people falling around me were creating waves of balls and making the levels rise until I almost went under. Techno music thumped through the air, filling my ears and making my pulse quicken. I tried to stand up but floundered, never quite getting my footing. A stranger’s hand suddenly shot through the crowd like a life preserver. I latched on as he heaved me up. “That was awesome!” I shouted.
It’s the main reason why people endure that six hour bumpy, swervy, roller coaster of a shuttle ride to and from Puerto Princesa. Island hopping in El Nido in the Philippines. It’s a pure tropical island experience. So what do you need to know before you go?
I could feel my feet heating up inside my hiking sneakers as they dug into the side of the volcano, trying to maintain some control over my downward speed. Dust and rock kicked up into a cloud around me as I hurtled down the side of Cerro Negro, the youngest active volcano in Nicaragua. Some horrific accident? Nope, I signed up for this.
I felt like I was slowly spinning and tumbling through space, but I knew that I wasn’t actually moving. I had lost track of where my hands and feet were. Was I high? Nope. I was floating.
So there I was, crouched on the sidewalk outside a Rite Aid on West 12th St in New York City with a handful of tourists huddled around me. I was trying to simultaneously dress a wound and keep my shit together. I was only moderately successful on both fronts. So what happened?
Every now and then a new activity will emerge and become really popular. It seems like everyone and their dog is doing it, so you’d best try it too. That was my thought on stand up paddle boarding (SUP) when I went to Puerto Rico. It seemed like fun, based on previous articles I’d read. So how did it go? Read on…
I dipped my hand in the warm waster of Laguna Grande, scooped up a handful and let the contents run down my arm. The water lit up and sparkled like I was a float in a Disney light parade. With every dip of a paddle or swish of a hand the water would glow. Almost like someone had cracked open a glow stick and emptied the contents into the lagoon. There’s a reason bio bay visits are one of the most popular things to do in Puerto Rico.
The EdgeWalk guide called it “Toes Over Toronto”. I called it terrifying. So there my 10 little digits were, perched over the edge of a grate, 1168 feet over Bremner Avenue. Every time I looked down my head would swim and I felt like I was going to fall forward. My fingers tightened on the thick black cable that was keeping me from doing the world’s most epic swan dive. How did I end up tethered to the top of the CN Tower anyway?
Paddle, paddle, paddle. Push up. Plant left foot. Plant right foot. Stand up. Oh my god I’m actually doing it… I’m surfing! After proudly hopping off the board in the knee-deep water I looked around expectantly to see who had seen and recognized my brief moment of glory and triumph. Not a bloody soul. Solo travel sucks sometimes. Surfing was something I just had to try while in Costa Rica. Like a good romance, despite some initial frustrations I stuck with it and now I’m hooked.
