In Toronto

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Today we left the province of Quebec and continued along the St Lawrence River Valley to Toronto.

We stopped along the way to take a boat cruise along through 1000 Island District. We saw the famous Boldt Castle which originally had a bowling alley, hotel and all sorts of other extravagant things in it!! We also saw the world’s shortest international bridge which looked about 4 metres long and it joins two islands, one which is on the US side and the other on the Canadian side.

The houses throughout the Island are elaborate and the private islands range from having a backyard of stone to forest.

Went to the Big Apple - which I have to tell you has nothing on the Big Banana. They have a tribute inside the restaurant to big fruit and other big monuments in various countries, and Australia sure did dominate it!!! We are the home of big stuff!! They show our Big Banana, Big Marino etc… there was also a picture of the ‘Big Cow’ which is the ‘Big Bull’ but they stuff it up - Kylie was excited as that’s where she’s from. I found out something funny, most of the people on our bus thought that only bulls have horns and that’s how you tell them apart!! I found this really weird (I know you will too Dad!) as I’d never heard this before and wasn’t aware that this was a common thought!

We went out that night to a club called ‘Crocodile Rock’. There was a Scottish Rugby Team in kilts which seemed to keep some of the girls amused!

On our way home we decided to get pizza and ran into one of the boys on our tour from NZ looking a little bewildered. We asked him if he wanted to come and eat with us so he walked with us a bit then ran away. The next day we found out that they’d taken him to hospital as he was freaking out and they weren’t expecting him to re-join our tour…

The following day we checked out the Rogers Centre, formerly the Sky Dome which is one of the best stadiums I think I have ever seen.

It costed a total of $600 million to build and the Dome on the top opens by way of train tracks. It takes about 20 minutes, is completely silent and uses about $10 worth of electricity. In addition to this, they are also able to move the seats, which are also on train tracks, depending on the sport being played. They have it planned so well they can drop the dug out down and the home plate etc below, and put chairs over the top of it when not in use. It seats 53,000 for soccer, 51,000 for baseball and 68,000 for concerts and people such as Garth Brooks, Phil Collins and Torvell & Dean have performed there. It also has a hospital and other things below it. I got to sit in the corporate boxes and got to feel what it would be like if I had a spare $5 million to buy one!

We then went to the CN Tower which is the world’s largest free standing structure and gives an amazing view of the city. The lift ascends at a speed of 22km p/hr!! It was a little foggy at the top but was still well worth a look. Natalie, Anna and I had lunch up there and it was just perfect.

In the afternoon we went to Casa Lomo which is a medieval style castle which was built in 1911 and took 3 years to build. It cost a total of $3.5 million which was a lot back then! It has underground tunnels and an open tower which offered fairly spectacular views, only ruined by about 100 out-of-control school children on a school excursion...

Still trying to sort out flights etc again, I’m so over it, it’s dominating my travels and starting to spoil it for me… was on the internet doing that till about 12.30 when I should have been sleeping…

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