Blogs from Orillia, Ontario, Canada, North America

Today is the reason why I'm in Canada ??..... our reunion day, 4 days of laughter and gossip, and dreadful jokes ? We checked out of our hotel and headed to the airport, reluctantly giving the car back. We visited the VIP lounge courtesy of My lovely friend Sharon, and took full advantage of all it had to offer. Connie made sure she got her "free" money's worth by not only having a massive breakfast but a Bacardi and Coke to follow .... 10 am !!!! ?. When we met up with the common people in the departure lounge, a tannoy announcement asked for passengers to give their seats up as the airline had overbooked !!!!! Honest a god how can an airplane be overbooked !!!!! Anyway Connie is Danish so she donned her Viking helmet ... read more

It's 11.08 on the 7th of May. I think I left off on Sunday night, leaving Ottawa - something that already feels a world away. We got up earlyish, 6.45, on Monday morning, and Tim gave us a lift into Ottawa to catch the 10.30 bus to Barrie, via Toronto. It was sad to leave The Winchelsea as we had settled in there, but we were also ready to move on. The journey was uneventful, and we made the connection to Barrie (just), and arriving in the city's bus terminal at 5.30. We then waited for someone to come pick us up, though we had no idea who. Half the other people in the bus station were peculiar looking hill billy type people - clearly residents of Barrie and the surrounding area - and half what ... read more

This was one of the coolest things we have seen so far. The boat lift was constructed to move vessels over land (a climb of about 60 vertical feet) from one lake to another, along the Trent-Severn waterway. The first was built in the early 1900's, but later rebuilt in 1979 to accommodate larger vessels and handle a busier schedule. Boats are loaded into a sort of cradle, moved up a train track, over a road which stops traffic just like a train, then down the other side to the next lake. We were able to watch several boats being moved - only took about 10 minutes for the one-way trip. Then reload to bring another boat back. Cool!... read more

Day 1 is done! 130km down, only a butt load to go. Left at 7:15 this morning and arrived at 2:45 for a total of 7.5 hours (stops included). Rained really hard at one point. I sat it out at a grocery store for a little over an hour. Now however it is very the sunny. Campsite sucks. Really wet. Just off the side of the highway, only tree cover I could spot for a while, so I took it. Out for now.... read more

Canadian cottagers dread the arrival of the Labour Day Long Weekend - the first weekend in September marks the end of summer. There's a great conversation on url=http://wondercafe.ca/discussion_view.php?loadedFrom=Index&type=discussion&tid=6021&recview=1&curpage=1&utm_source=swamp&utm_medium=sm&utm_term=none&utm_content=aug&utm_campaign=lci_wc/Wondercafe.ca about how religious service providers change the tone of the sermon this weekend. I believe it. Everyone with a cottage in Canada feels the sadness autumn brings, and my friends are no exception. On Sunday Sept 2nd 2007 six companions hiked the trails at Hardy Lake, in the heart of the Muskokas, on a desperate attempt to capture the last warm days of summer. Little did we know how easily summer could capture us... Hardy Lake is a provincial p... read more