Algonquin Provincial Park..October 7th 2018

Left Toronto at 6.30 and back 10.30pm
20-00$ ticket to go enjoy the park (But it seems no tickets issued after 2pm...free after 2 pm?)
I have visited this park, in previous falls, but this is the first time I saw it was crowded! (http://www.cnn.com/travel/article/overtourism-solutions/)
There were hundreds of cars with thousands of people, at Algonquin, enjoying the fall colours. There was not enough parking space and so people were parked on the sides of the road!
Majority of the people seemed to be visiting from India and China. They were talking in their native tongue and so I assumed they are visiting or are new immigrants.
I saw a few who could not make the steep climbs, and were ill-dressed (sandals, heels, summer clothes instead of warmer clothes) for the weather. Felt sorry for them, but how can I help?

Here are a few photos. I have an earlier article (Algonquin in fall, 2012)with similar photos in this blog. But I simply can't resist the temptation to upload these photos! So, here goes!

Above is a mushroom, I saw...lovely shape...like a flower. I have never seen one like this before. But I did see a similar one of a different color at Balsam lake about a month ago. Below are a few more, same family of mushrooms I think.

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The three above seem to be mushrooms of one type. I wonder why they are black at the base
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The three above are mushrooms too. There were at least 20 other types of mushrooms I saw...but no time to photograph them! They were all different shades of grey, brown, white.... If one could live on mushrooms, one would not go hungry if in the Algonquin park, at this time!

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 This one above must be algae and not mushroom. The one below is a lovely red mushroom. It was possibly the only red mushroom I saw...I had seen a lot of colourful mushroom by Balsam lake...here in Algonquin, I saw mostly brown, grey and white ones.

This mushroom above reminded me of coral...it was so beautifully shaped! Or is it some other fungi and not mushroom? I dont know for sure until I google it!

Below are three photos of a dead, baby ?beaver I think....The poor thing was on a boardwalk. I am assuming it's a beaver but it may be something else.

The most scenic points in my opinion were lookout point and Oxtongue river Ragged falls. We also walked part of the Mizzy river trail.

The electric wires by the road are my pet peeve!

 This is one of the many photos I took at look out point. I was really annoyed by the (mostly Asian..Chinese, maybe) youth, who were posing dangerously at the very edge of the cliff to photograph themselves...it was an accident waiting to happen. I was so terrified, I left this crowded spot quickly. 
Why this bloody need to take photos by standing at the very edge of the cliff, facing the photographer which means you may fall off if you accidently take even one tiny step backwards? One slight nudge by someone's backpack (someone with a backpack...standing with their back to you...think they are safely away from you but  don't realize their backpack is touching you)  could send you  over the edge of the cliff to your death

 The thing below in the water may be a beaver dam

While walking by a running stream in Algonquin park, a poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson floated into my mind from the recesses of my childhood memory! I have not thought of this poem for years but here, in the cool shady path by a stream. it came to me!

The Brook

I come from haunts of coot and hern

I make a sudden sally

And sparkle out among the fern,

to bicker down a valley.

By thirty hills I hurry down,

Or slip between the ridges,

By twenty thorpes, a little town,

And half a hundred bridges.

Till last by Philip's farm I flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

But I go on for ever.

I chatter over stony ways,

In little sharps and trehles,

I bubble into eddying bays,

I babble over pebbles.

With many a curve my banks I fret

By many a field and fallow

And many a fairy foreland set

With willow weed and mallow.

I chatter chatter as I flow

To join the brimming river,

For men may come and men may go,

But I go on forever.

I wind about, and in and out,

With here a blosson sailing,

And here  and there a lusty trout,

and here and there a grayling

And here and there a foamy flake

Upon me, as I travel

With many a silvery water break

Above the golden gravel,

And draw them all along, and flow

To join the brimming river

For men may come and men may go

But I go on forever.

I steal by lawns and grassy plots,

I slide by hazel covers

I move the sweet forget-me-nots

That grow for happy lovers.

I slip, I slide, I gloom, I glance,

Among my skimming swallows, 

I make the netted sunbeam dance

Against my sandy shallows

I murmer under moon and stars

In brambly wilderness

I linger by my shingly bars

I loiter round my cresses;

And out again I curve and flow

To join the brimming river

For men may come and men may go

But I go on forever.

God! How much I enjoyed reading this poem in my childhood! It was from an English textbook(from England..not my school's) which my dad had bought second hand. This poem had a lovely black and white photo illustration of a brook...grey and lovely. I loved this book and wonder if it's still around in my dad's home. I enjoyed all the other stories and poems and essays in this amazing book, with a fantastic 'second-hand book smell', water stains on the brown hard cover. 

Why do I have such clear recollection of these ancient, not-useful facts  but not have memory for the things I am studying now to pass a bloody exam?

Ragged falls of Oxtongue river is my favorite place for photography