Day 3 - Cambridge ON

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Susan’s home town. We walked to Tony’s Diner for breakfast along trail paths lining the edge of creeks (streams) and along sidewalks (pavements) through clean, attractive housing areas where the homes are well spaced out with tidy gardens. Each house is very individual, unlike a lot of areas in the UK where estates are populated with very similar looking houses. There are lots of trees with birds and squirrels. We saw Canadian Robins - bigger and leaner than the small round ones we have in the UK, and their red breasts aren’t as vivid. There are grey squirrels like in the UK, but also black ones. I attempted to get photos of the robins and the black squirrels, but as is often the case when trying to photograph wildlife – in my experience anyway – as soon as the camera pointed at them they flew or scampered away; I’ll keep trying!

Breakfast was tasty and plentiful, and I had my first experience of making a payment where the tax (13%) is not included in the advertised price, and where a gratuity of 15% is expected rather than discretionary. Anyway, Susan made sure I did everything correctly and we wandered back home, the air temperature starting to feel rather warm.

After saying good morning to Sarah, we jumped in Susan’s car and drove to downtown Galt, one of the 3 areas of Cambridge. The City of Cambridge came into being in 1973 when the 3 municipalities of Galt, Preston and Hespeler were amalgamated by the provincial government into a single legal entity. Each area still has its own ‘downtown’ with its own personality. Galt has a somewhat gothic feel about it, and there’s a lot of development going on to improve the infrastructure.

We completed an Adventure Lab cache based on some of the beautiful street art in the area, and celebrated by visiting the Healthy Rabbit for a smoothie. Across the road from the Rabbit is a cannabis shop – legal in Canada with certain legal restrictions. Susan said that the smell of cannabis is often apparent in certain areas, but we didn’t notice it at all today. And no, we didn’t buy any!

We carried on with our wander, visiting areas where filming for the Handmaid’s Tale took place along the Grand River. We saw red-winged blackbirds, a great blue heron, grackles (one caught a small crab!), blue jays and a chipmunk!

The air temperature had really ramped up by now – around 30 degrees – so we drove to the west side of Galt, an area of expensive houses on tree-lined shady boulevards, to continue our walk. We bumped into Lynn, one of Susan’s besties who was out with her sister, Janice, and some grandchildren at the local park. You’ll hear more about Lynn in a few days.

We arrived home and rehydrated with some delicious watermelon before chatting about some of the plans for the next few days.

After a delicious dinner we headed out on foot to Churchill Park, an urban park with trails, wildlife and sporting facilities. It also has an amazing facility called a splash pad, which is basically water for the kids to play with, the water being hosed or dropped from various brightly coloured elements.

There were a couple of geocaches in the park, but sadly I was unsuccessful at finding them. The instructions for the first one just didn’t make sense so I abandoned it, and despite having a jolly good search for the second one which was hidden under a bridge over a shallow stream I couldn’t find it. I did however need to rinse some stream detritus from my feet, and guess what was nearby – the splash pad! Now I know I have been described as a big kid, but I really did only use it to rinse my feet, honestly! And yes, it could well have been solely because there were already a few children there being observed by their parents; had there not been I may well have partaken.

Anyway, we continued our walk along trails and paths infested by mosquitoes which are noticeably bigger than any mossie I’ve ever come across in the UK. They were somewhat troublesome!

We walked past a gourmet ice cream shop called Indulge which had a queue out of the door – I told you it was hot! It was situated in an old train caboose. Caboose is a new word for me; it means railroad car with accommodation for the train crew, typically attached to the end of the train. Every day’s a school day!

I managed to snatch a photo of a Canadian robin sitting on a fence – they are prolific birds over here, so I’ll attempt to get a better photo before I leave.

As we passed a small lake we heard bullfrogs having a conversation – I don’t remember ever having heard them before – we stopped to try and spot one, but they all seemed very well hidden, and when we got closer to them they stopped croaking which didn’t help the search. Something else to pursue on the trip.

Back at home we spent a few minutes putting peppermint oil on our mossie bites, then a glass of wine in the garden before bed was a lovely finish to a very enjoyable day; the fly over by around 30 Canadian geese in their V formation was the icing on the cake.

Tomorrow we head off towards Niagara. Expect more and better images once Susan starts taking photos!

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Photos

Fountain.
Note the 2 dogs in front of the sign saying no dogs :-D