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Published: July 26th 2010
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ME AND THE ORIGINAL FAT MOOSETuesday 13 July
After heroically fighting the jet lag all the way through to 10pm last night we got up early and drove into London to collect Allison's contact lenses. It was such a major shocker as she said "oh, its not too far..." hmmm, it was a good 2 hour journey just to turn around and come back. I think its going to take me a while to get used to the distances and driving here! On the way back we stopped off a East Side Mario's diner for lunch which was huge! I cant believe they serve so much food here. i got the tipping lesson and it is weird here as they tip a good 25% and it is expected; i guess that the brits are just plain stingy! As we were in Woodstock we stopped over at Dick & Carols for dinner and home made carrot cake, in addition to my first Tim Horton's doughnut I can see my jeans being tight at the end of this trip... Its not all food though, we went out in the kayaks that evening down at the local lake where the Sea cadet sail centre is for a quick poodle
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ALLISON AND ME ON THE LAKE around the lake which was lovely as the sun was setting and we saw lots of carp jumping.
Wednesday 14 July
Ok, the recovery time is now well and truly over as we prepare for a big day. Neil (Allison's fireman) came over early and cooked a good hearty fatty Canadian breakfast of back bacon, pancakes, eggs and hashbrowns with a good dose of Ontario maple syrup - yummy! He then drove us down to Niagara Falls where we had a good laugh at the tackiness of the Clifton Hills tourist trap including a statue of Frankenstein eating a burger and then we had a walk along the top of the falls to have a good look down the fall. i wonder what went through people minds when they were just at that point hiding away in a barrel. Did you know that the first crazy fool ever to it and survived was a woman - a school teacher of all people (its always the quiet ones...) We had a look behind the falls which was a bit disappointing as it was just a hole looking at water rather than a walk way although they do provide an observation
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CHILLING OUT IN THE KAYAKS deck which gives a good view. Allison bullied me into wearing a yellow bin bag cape 'for the experience' but I got so sick of it I tore it off half way as it was sooo hot but I didnt get away scott free as she tied it around my head as a turban, lovely. The Maid of the Mist was pretty cool though and I tested the sharpness of my elbows out making sure that we got a good position right at the bow of the boat - there is no messing with me when it comes to making sure I get wet! Back up at Clifton Hills we both thrashed Neil at a rather violent game of air hockey - honestly, who did he think he is taking on henshall girls at a game like this? poor poor man!
Thursday 15 July
Oh my god were we tired and aching this morning from all the walking around yesterday so we took it pretty easy. Neil stayed cooked us another fab breakfast and then as Aunty Carol had come over the 3 of us went up to St Jacob's to the farmers market so I could get my
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KAYAKING maple syrup presents and have a good look at the Armish farmers. the Menonites dress very traditionally in long dresses and bonnets, drive around in horse drawn carraiges and live a very traditional farmers life with no electricity or powered machinery. Slightly strange but I guess it takes all sorts. We also had a look at the kissing bridge which is a very long and very old covered bridge that looks like something out of sleepy hollow that is famous because the young menonites used to walk back along the bridge for a sneaky kiss because it was the only place they could not be seen by any elders. The day finished well though with a healthy dose of home made sangria and a good film vegged out on the sofa!
Friday 16 July
Another fairly lazy day creeped in today and we didnt get our backsides moving until about lunch time when we drove down to Port Dover to relax on the beach. I couldnt get over the fact that it was not sea, I mean there were waves and seaweed (ok, lake grass) and sand and I couldnt see the other side of the water. It was
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ALL OF US ON THE RIVER quite weirtd but at least I made Allison laugh!
Saturday 17 July
Last ngiht we went over to the cadet sailing centre again to watch the young cadets doing sailing capsize drills and there I met Brian who's cottage we were due to stay at later and he offered to take me diving so we got up early and drove down to Woodstock where the lake was. Kitted up and ready to go in the water it took me a couple of attempts to get down as first I didnt have enough weight to sink and then I had a squeeze in my ear which was really painful but eventually i managed to dive and saw lots of wrecks in the lake such as a school bus, a couple of old airplanes including a harvard, a few boats and cars. It was pretty cool and I felt pretty lucky to be able to chuck something extra like that into my trip. We then started the long journey up to Ottawa. It took 6 hours and to me that felt like a pretty long journey and thought that we had travelled a long way - after all, 6 hours in
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AMERICAN FALLS nearly into scotland! However, when I looked at a map of canada, that 6 hour journey was nothing more than a speck ont he bottom corner of the country. wow, I was pretty speechless at the enormity of the place, again.
Sunday 18 July
We didnt arrive at Emma & Norms house till quite late last night so all we managed to do was have a chat while the boys went to bed but this morning I was up bright and early and ready to go. It was quite a slow start trying to get the boys through breakfast and into clothes and we didn't manage to leave the house until until lunch time again which meant that the 100km journey to Parc Gatineau was a long one. We did get there and had a quick picnic lunch by the beach before we start to hike into the forest. We had seen on the website about a set of caves so we went searching. It was quite a long walk in for the little ones, about 5km up hills and through dense forest at times and Warren, 7, didnt hold up well and struggled to keep up. The caves
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NIAGARA FALLS FROM THE BOAT were awesome though and even though we all forgot water shoes and torches we went in anyway to test it out. The second time through little Graham ,4, came with us and was so brave even when he got a little skittish at the deep water section. I dont think that I would like to try caving for real but a fun little cave like that was fun. there was another section which was deeper and darker but without being better prepared decided not to try that one and leave it for another day. As it was such a long walk in Norm and I yomped back to the car in quick time to pick the others up and drive back to Constance Bay. It was pretty late so we stopped at a Mexican restaurant for dinner and I had my first Texas size frozen margarita which was awesome and as the meals are so large I also had my first doggy bag, woo hoo!
Monday 19 July
It rained right through the night really heavily so we couldnt go straight into Ottawa but it cleared up nicely so we prepared ourselves for a good day of mounty hunting!
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THE ELEGANT CLASS OF CLIFTON HILLS... However, the first stop of the day was to the local pharmacy as I had to get something to control the massive great spider bite I had on my thigh. Somehow, yesterday I got bitten by something and by this morning it was about and inch deep and the size of my palm with 2 very neat little bite holes. man it hurt, it made my entire leg go dead so I had to limp everywhere... We eventually got into central ottawa and after a bite to eat where I had to eat my words about how disgusting Poutin was (chips covered in beef gravy and Quebec cheese curd) we headed up to Parliament hill for some mounty hunting. I was sooo excited but when we got there, there was not a red serge to be seen anywhere! apparently, because it had been raining they decided not to go on parade that day. I was a very upset girl!! In our effort to track one down we drove to their stables but because it was so badly signposted we missed the shop opening by 5 minutes and all the stables were locked shut for the day so poor michelle had
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NIAGARA FALLS to go without, boo hoo!! All was not lost though, we treated ourselves to a 'beavers tail' which is a rather large pastry base baked with cinnamon and lemon and just one whiff can clog the arteries at 100 paces. soooo goood....
Tuesday 20 July
Today we drove early up the Ottawa River to Beachburg to go white water rafting with wildernesstours.com. Compared with the day before it was blue skies and a raging hot sun beating down which was just the perfect setting for the rafting along with our guide, Tyler Fox or "Foxxy" as he likes to be known... We went through some awesome rapids despite the river being very low and there was no doubt that our raft hit the waves harder than anyone else and we all got very very wet! I was determined to ensure that I was sat at the front of the raft to ensure that myself and Allison got the best drowning possible and I think that Norm underestimated the sharpness of my elbows in achieving this... although no complaints as was sat right behind us and luckily so as he had to catch Allison as she nearly fell out on
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I WONDER WHAT GOES THROUGH PEOPLES MINDS AT THIS POINT... the first rapid. It was a pretty chilled day with a beach BBQ half way through and a fair few stops for swims including somersaults off the front of the raft and even a stop for some cliff jumping which although was nervy was awesome. But even out there where the only people in the water were rafters and white water kayakers there were some interesting sites! We were going round a fairly large rapid that circled a rock and sat on top of this rock was a female kayaker that was the size of a moose! i have no idea how she fitted into a white water kayak let alone roll and I was so distracted that I nearly fell out! It was very bizarre, she kind of looked like a heat sealed marshmallow wedged in there with her skin tight leggings....
Thursday 22 July
Yesterday we drove down from Ottawa to Big Rock Road on Six Mile Lake in the Muskoka's which took about 6 hours and although we arrived mid afternoon we did nothing but stand in awe at this million dollar "cottage" that we were invited to stay in and chill out on the attached
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SHE SAID I HAD TO WEAR THE BIN BAG SOMEHOW... dock with a drink to have a good gossip. This morning I woke early and feeling energetic I swam about 1km across the lake to burn some of this canadian fat I have been stocking up on accompanied by Uncle Dick on a kayak for safety. There are a lot of speed boats on the lake and I figuered that one little swimmer was just not visible enough. This was followed by an aweome cooked breakfast made by Aunty Carole of pancakes and sausages and all things yummy and unhealthy eaten outside on the patio. What a way to start the day eh? Most of the day was spent chilling out on the dock reading and relaxing apart from when I sat my big fat moose arse down on a chair and broke it into little pieces, oops-better lay off the doughnuts now !?! I did do some exercise though and went out in the kayaks with Katie (Brian's daughter) and Uncle Dick around the bay to see the little islands which was nice. I went out again later with Allison to take some photos and decided on the way back to try paddling whilst standing up. Watching each other
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MAID OF THE MIST fall in again and again and then try to haul our arses up back into the kayaks was sooo funny. Beaten only by Allison bringing her kayak along side to get in it but rolling straight over the op and back into the water, I laughed so hard I couldnt breathe and we were making so much noise that everyone came down to have alaugh at our expense too. Eventually I managed to stand up and paddle but I was totally knackered at the end. Brilliant!
Friday 23 July
Last night Brian drove up with his other 2 kids (although fully grown up) but the weather was awful. It had rained and stormed through the night and was looking grey and cold out so we all hid inside drinking tea and waiting for the sun to show. A hard thing to do in such a large beautiful lake palace... It did come out a little so we went out for a speed boat tour of the lake and saw the cottages that are so far into 7 figures it is unreal, some with drive in boat garages and 4 floors of cottage with amazing features. I was green with
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NEIL AND ALLISON envy! and to think that these are all nothing more than summer houses... Braving up a little later we had a go at waterskiing but both myself and Allison managed nothing more than a face plant and a good snort of lake water which was an attractive site. The promise was though that it we had a go we could go out on the doughnuts later which was worth the initial price! Brian thrashed us really hard, he did everything he could to spin us off but I held on for grim death, poor Allison got spun off but he worked it so hard that the tow rope snapped (nothing to do with my moose arse!) so he promised us a gentle tow back to the dock. He lied. He sped off like a gazelle and after a while we hit a wave and flipped off quite dramatically (well it must have been as he seemed quite concerned after...) i hit my head and gave myself concussion which wasn't very nice. I did wonder for how much longer can we pretend to be 21 and I think the time might be limited, I hurt so much after that!
Sunday
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THE ST JACPBS FARMERS MARKET 25 July
We decided to ditch the idea of going into Toronto as it would have been so damn expensive to go up the CN tower that it wasnt worth it. Instead we used our pennies to go to the zoo which was a great idea. We saw loads of cool animals, topped totally by the polar bears and being able to touch stingrays in a pool. The Canadian animals were not cooperating at all and the grizzly bear, moose, canadian otter and lynx were all hiding away sleeping - damn lazy canadians.... we also searched for the exhibit of the elusive mounty but couldnt see them, they really are a lazy bunch. It was a massive day though with nearly 7 hours walking around in the baking hot sun and we both felt a little bit older and stiffer by the time it came to getting in the car to go home; and even more so once we were back so we felt obliged to order delivery pizza and veg out watching pirates of the caribbean. mmmmm....
Tuesday 17 July
Yesterday we took it pretty easy with a trip to Stratford to visit the legendary Rheo Thompson chocolate
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MENONITE GIRLS SELLING PRODUCE shop for some well deserved supplies so today we got up early and went to the fire station to see the fireman and the engines and take some really cheesy pics. after all that hard work we went to visit Aunty Carole's younger brother matt and play in his pool. He stayed indoors we had a right laugh with the pool noodles and had a really nice picnic by the pool. Such a lovely way to spend the last day and I have learnt an extension to the game of "hippos" (check this out mum) Just to top it all off I got to have another fireman special meal of beer battered ribs and mashed potato - yum yum. all thats left to do now is stock up on Tim Horton's doughnuts for the train journey home and pack.
Home James!
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Jackie
non-member comment
Sooooo envious
Hi Michelle, the trip sounds fantastic and am so jealous!!!! Have a wonderful time and keep writing - its really good stuff