Moose, Bears & Maple Syrup - Canada

---

We arrived at Niagara Falls relatively late in the evening and checked into our hotel that we had found on the internet. It was only a short stroll to the falls so we headed down to watch a fireworks display that they put on every Sunday. Like most tourist attractions in North America, there was plenty of tacky shops lining the streets on the walk to the Falls. The obligatory Ripley’s Believe it or Not was accompanied by ‘The House of Frankenstein’ and ‘Dracula’s Den’ among hundreds of other shithouse tourist traps. We fought our way through the crap and arrived in front of the American Falls which are on the US side known as the ‘Bridal Veil Falls’. We found a spot and watched the fireworks exploding above the falls. The falls are lit up at night by some high powered spotlights of various colours which manages to create a nice effect without it looking crass - unfortunately the camera doesn’t do it justice. After the fireworks we strolled back to the hotel to get a good night sleep.

We got up the next morning, had a quick feed and headed straight up the ‘Skylon Tower’ which is about the size of Telsta’s Black Mountain Tower in Canberra, and built solely to provide a good view of the falls. Like most places we have travelled to in North America it was pretty much empty in the morning so we had the whole 360 degree observation deck to ourselves. The view of the Falls was pretty impressive and we grabbed a few photos before heading down to the ‘Maid of the Mist’. On the way down we happened to run into Chris Goodall and his wife Kate. He was one of my instructors at RMC and is now posted to the US with his family (from Fi - and you wouldn't believe it but I worked with Kate at KMart in Orange when I was at school! Very small world). He dresses his kids in Wallaby’s jerseys so he can spot them easily in a crowd - I happen to be wearing mine that day and he spotted me in the crowd (I looked like the long lost older brother of all his kids). After a quick chat we donned our bright blue ‘Maid of the Mist’ poncho’s and jumped aboard. These boats take you right into the bottom of the Canadian ‘Horseshoe Falls’ and you can really feel and hear the power of the water tumbling over the edge. The mist it kicks up is unbelievable - you cannot see the whole way around the edge of the falls, and from the bottom you can’t see the top of parts of the falls - it was really worth the trip as you get up close and personal with the power of the falls (although we did get a little wet). After this adventure we met up with Simon and Les again for lunch and enjoyed a couple of beers on the balcony of the restaurant overlooking the falls. Once we had digested a big feed we viewed a couple of other attractions around the falls such as the Niagra Whirlpool (which should have been called the Crock of Shit Pool) and a resort with an inside heated water park for use when there's snow outside before heading up to Niagra on the Lake where we stayed the night.

Niagra on the Lake is a delightful little town where the Niagara River meets Lake Ontario and just feels like what all small towns wish they could be. It is a beautifully gardened small town in the middle of Canada’s Wine Country. Its streets are lined with numerous inexpensive boutique shops and colonial style old buildings. It has some beautiful big old houses on the edge of the lake with a view across the water to Toronto and the CN Tower. Fiona and I were really quite taken with the place and would have loved to spend more time there. We stayed at a lovely little bed and breakfast and got to talking to our host Jim. Not only was he a reat cook but he gave us the good oil (I had to explain that expression to him) on what we should be doing and where to go. Consequently we changed our plans and decided to head north from Toronto up the Bruce Peninsula (see the map picture) rather than straight up to Ottowa. In the morning we started our trek around the ‘Golden Horseshoe’ of Lake Ontario (40% of Canada’s population lives on the coast of Lake Ontario between Niagara Falls and Toronto). We met up with Jacko, Jen and their parents again to enjoy a winery tour that Dave was providing. We drove through some beautifully undulating countryside covered in vineyards, but I do have to say we are spoilt in Australia with the quality of our wines. Although we found a couple of wines we liked, in the words of Jacko; ‘The wines in the this place are shit’. (from Fi - I loved it!) We also visited a Cheesery (if that is even a word) and found some great products like ‘Cabernet Sauvignon cheese spread’ which we sampled about 5 or 6 times cause we just couldn’t place the taste (it was really yum!). Unfortunately all good things must come to an end and we eventually had to leave the tour and continue onto Toronto.

Once again we managed to catch peak hour traffic, and very, very, very slowly made our way into Toronto. The Toronto skyline is dominated by the CN Tower which is the worlds largest free standing structure - this thing is freakin’ huge. It serves as a TV and radio broadcast antenna and a means to lift money off tourists. It has a number of observation decks including a glass bottom deck at about 1200 feet above the ground - pretty crazy stuff. Unfortunately we had a fair bit of trouble finding accomodation (we didn’t actually plan our trip and just decided to stay wherever we wanted), but eventually found a place in the Downtown area and enjoyed our first real Asian meal since we’ve been in the US in a little Vietnamese café. Seeing as we’d had a couple of little tiffs finding accomodation we decided we should plan things out a bit better so we stayed up until the wee small hours planning our trip - including a white water rafting adventure on the Ottawa River - more to come later.

The next morning we got up and actually went to the hotel gym. The numerous donuts, burgers, beer and fried foods (although tasty) weren’t the best preparation for the upcoming triathlons that Fiona and I have. So we did a bit of token training - nothing that would actually be effective, but at least made us feel a bit better, before heading out to explore Toronto. First stop would have to be the most interesting thing Fiona has seen since being here, and absolutely positively the most boring for me - The Bata Shoe Museum. Four Flours of mind numbingly useless and boring information about nothing but bloody shoes! ‘In the early 17th century the French were wearing a high heels which eventually gave was to a flat bottom shoe by the dawn of the 18th century…..blah blah flaming blah, who really gives a shit? Apparently Fiona does. To be fair to her we did move quickly through the section entitled: ‘Using shoes to summon animal protection for Chinese Children’, and I must admit I was a bit interested in the Armoured shoes from the Dark Ages, and Shaquille O’Neils size 20EEE shoe, but really - four floors of shoes - give me a freakin’ break. (from Fi - was something different to do and i really did enjoy it, next time I go I'm taking Sharne and Claire with me :-)

After numbing my brain into complete inoperation (I’m sure some of it melted and dripped out my ears) we enjoyed a Canadian institution - Tim Hortons. Tim Horton’s is a cross between Subway and Starbucks but really isn’t a bad spot to have a feed. We then jumped on the public transport and headed down to the CN Tower. We decided we had to make a short stop at the Steam Whistle brewery for a free beer. We decided against going up the CN Tower as it was about $35 per person and the already mentioned White water adventure had already carved a decent hole into the wallet. We headed back to the hotel jumped in the car and managed to leave Toronto with every other bloody Torontoian as they went home from work and we got stuck in traffic again. It is a good thing that I absolutely love peak hour traffic, otherwise there is the chance that I may have cracked the shits....

After Fiona skillfully navigated us out of traffic through a random selection of turns (which included about 30 mins of driving in the wrong direction) we eventually cleared the city and headed for the Bruce Peninsula. The drive was a bit more interesting than just screaming down the highway, but nothing on what was to come. Although our couple of hours in Toronto peak hour was delightful, it unfortunately delayed our trip up the peninsula and we arrived quite late at our evening destination - Lions Head. We'd managed to book a room in the Lions Head Inn which was very reasonable and thought we might join the locals for a beer. Well, because I went to the toilet and left Fiona by herself for 5 mins she attracted all the attention of the towns single men, most of whom were in their mid to late 50's and hadn't seen a bar of soap since Jesus was playing Centre Half Back for Jeruselum. I found this pretty fun and kept my distance leaving her to deal with the situation. One particular bloke (who I dubbed Ol' Drunky) was particularly fond of Fiona and also so inebriated he could barely speak and couldn't pick up on Fiona's subtle hints to piss off. In the end I had to save her and we called it a night.

Early next morning we threw on the sneakers and ran a portion of the Bruce Trail which extends the length of the Peninsula. It was quite spectacular and some amazing views, but I forgot the camera so we don't have pictures! We had a ferry to catch so we high-tailed it back to the pub, had a quick shower and jumped in the car. We arrived at Tomobery to catch the ferry across the Georgian Bay and this thing was a serious ferry - it carried 140 cars and around 700 people. The trip across the Bay we pretty nice, although for most of the 90 odd minute trip you could see nothing but water - it is an amazing body of fresh water. I could hardly fatham its expanse and it was only a short trip on one of the five lakes of the great lakes area. (from Fi - was a fantastic trip across the water...loved it!)

On the other side of the ferry was Manitoulin Island - the largest fresh water island in the world (well the island is made of land, but it's in fresh water). The island itself was quite picturesque and we stopped for a quick look at a waterfall before pushing on to our night location - Sudbury. In comparison to the rest of Canada Sudbury is shit. It is an old mining town that is literally falling apart - for those that have been there it is like a big version of Mt Isa but without any of the Outback Charm - it really was crap. Luckily we were only sleeping there. We got up early next morning and jumped in the car as we had a fair few km's to travel to get to Pembroke - the Whitewater rafting captial of Canada. I was pretty excited this day as we'd booked in to do a day of Whitewater rafting on the Ottawa River. Fiona however was fairly unimpressed (mostly cause she was worried about how cold the river would be). The drive to Pembroke was quite spectacular as we followed the Ottawa River - shallow rapids openned out to deep lakes and the pine tree lined shores rolled into mountains. It just looked as though a bear or moose could wander out of the trees at any moment.

The route to the rafting company took us well of the beaten track through some absolutely lovely little small towns that dotted the many rivers and lakes in the area. They were so sleepy yet charming it was difficult to capture on the camera. After driving through back trail and dirt roads we finally found the place which was little more than a camping spot of the shores of the river (complete with long drop toilets accompanied by appropriate odours). As we had flown in and didn't have any camping gear we managed to secure a 'cabin' for the night. It was quite basic, essentially a wooden floor and frame with a canvas cover to protect agains the weather. We slept on two stretchers with a double mattress with was quite comfortable. The location of the camp was on the fork of two small rivers surrounded by lush pine forrest. Right next to the camp was a large damn which slowly let water through creating a sound similar to that of a water fall which was really pleasant at night. There were also a couple of natural beachs to swim and play beach volley ball - a fantastic set up all round. Fiona and I decided it would be romantic to drink our bottle of Red (we bought it on the wine tour) down by the water. It was absolutely beautiful with the moon reflecting in the water above the sloping hills covered in pine trees - but then the mossies moved in. I nearly passed out from lack of blood as these little buggers gave us both a flogging - they were Ninja Mossies, completely silent....sneaky buggers, but it did make it easier trying to get to sleep that night.

Next morning we got up and headed down to the damn for a 'shower'. The water released through the walls of the damn shot out in a stream creating a natural shower - it was a little chilly but quite pleasant as it was like a massage. We quickly changed, ate breakfast and then we were ready to raft. The company we had chosen used quite small rafts as they are a bit more maneouvarble, so we had a group of six and our guide. The four boats in the tour were chained together and we were towed out towards the first rapid but the lead instructor in his tinnie. We got our instruction of how to raft, take cover from the rapids and avoid rocks when we were tipped out (notice I used 'when', not 'if') and before we knew it we were ready to go. We smashed through the first rapids with Fi and I up the front getting thoroughly drenched. We then turned back into the rapid to try to 'surf' it. This involved powering through the rapid and trying to get the nose of the boat on the wall of water crashing down - the force of the water smashing behine the boat holds it in place and you sit in one spot surfing the rapid as it crashes over the lip of the rapid. Being up the front Fiona and I had a great view of the amazing power of this continual wall of water smashing over the lip of the rapid as we powered into it - it was awesome. We smashed our way through the white water and made it onto the 'wave', but the boat wasn't quite head on and Fiona's side of the raft took the full brunt of the force. I heard a girly squeal, looked over and Fiona was gone...next minute to boat flipped throwing us all into the drink. It was hilarious. We survived the remaining rapids until the last one where I had a bit of a disaster. The plan was to go sideways into this rapid but it didn't quite work and FI and I were thrown around. Using her head a bit quicker than me, Fi stuck here arm out for support shoving me out of the boat and next minute I'm in the drink smashing through the rapid. What made it even better was that the boat managed to run me over as well. The rest of the team managed to drag me back into the boat as Fiona nearly fell out laughing at me - I was the only one out of the whole group who fell out by myself. Fiona completely denies pushing me out of course, but we bought the video of the trip so that we have documentary evidence - it should arrive in a couple of weeks so I'll post the footage on the website when we get it! Anyway, all good things come to an end and it was soon time to leave the tranquility of the Ottawa River and head for Montreal. We decided to skip Ottawa as I'd heard it was about as exciting as Orange, so we pushed through to Montreal (not really, it was just that we were running out of time - everyone knows there's nowhere as boring as Orange).

We arrived in Montreal that night and settled into our dodgy little hotel on the edge of the historic district in an area that we can only equate to Sydney's Kings Cross. Now crossing the border into Quebec, Canada's French speaking Provence, is like driving into a new country. While most people are bilinguel, French is the number 1 language and there are acutally local coucil laws preventing the posting of any signs in English (bloody French). This made it somewhat difficult for us to find a place to park! We arose early next morning and headed straight into the Old Town area of Montreal to a bike store and hired two mountain bikes to explore the city on. This was a great idea as the city has over 350 kms of bike tracks. The first stop was Olympic Park to see the stadium Fi's father John was at during the Montreal Olympics. It was a bit of a ride out of town but it was a fantastic way to see the sights and sounds. To my detriment Fiona decided it would be funny to come flying past me just as I thought we should stop for a photo - this resulted in a Tour de France style crash with me swearing and picking myself off the pavement and Fiona trying to hold back her laughter as she had jumped clear. Details are a bit sketchy as to who is to blame......

Olympic Park was quite a spectacular arena although it had seen better days. Fiona was stoked to visit the place her Dad competed (well he was actually on the river, but you know what I mean), and I got to do jumps on the stairs on my rental mountain bike - I did fall in a bush, but technically that isn't a crash. Next we headed up Mont Royale (Mount Royal) for spectacular views of the city. This has to be the most deceptively huge mountain in the world. What looked like it should be a 5 minute walk ended up as a 30 min death ride around this freakin' thing. The seat on my bike was a little bit friendly and I was having a few problems (and no I wasn't smiling), but the view was definately worth it. What was even better was the down hill ride on gravel....you didn't even have to pedal. Fiona refused to ride with me because doing skids and burnouts in the gravel was just too great a temptation for me and I was getting all sorts of filthy looks from the very serious French Canadians. After surviving the Tour de Mont Royal we headed into the Old Town and rode the cobblestone streets window shopping and people watching. The old town is just brimming with character and consists of old sea-side four story buildings lining narrow cobblestone roads. Performers are entertaining huge crowds in all the public areas and nearly every block has a boutique Ice Cream shop. Amazing restaurants, boutiques, microbreweries and galleries line the streets with both the Canadian and Quebeciose Flags (Blue and White with a Fluer de Lys in each corner) flying everywhere. The state buildings and hotels are spectacularly large and grand giving the whole place a feel of a vibrant French port city rather than the second largest French speaking city. Montreal has so much charm and character - we loved it.

After our second night in town we packed up headed off quite early to make it to Quebec City. We'd already spent more time in Canada than we'd planned so we were trying to push it along. We arrived in Quebec City around lunch time and looked for a hotel. Quebec City has a population of around 170, 000 and consists of the walled Old Town (both Upper and Lower) and the New Town. Again French is the primary language, and only 4% of the population speak English as their first language. The Old Town is just absolutely amazing - take the way we described Montreal and multiply it 100 times. The architecture of the homes, narrow cobblestone streets and fortified walls make it feel like you are wandering the streets of Paris. Boutique hotels and restaurants are everywhere, and we managed to find a relatively cheap place right in the middle of the action. It is just a great place to visit - there are no Starbucks or Tim Hortons (although Macca's has somehow worked its way in), and the town just oozes character. Horse and cart rides run continually which adds to the feel of the place.We spent some time wandering the fortifications, but then just wandered the streets soaking up the atmosphere, looking in shops and watching the world go by. Whilst there are no major individual sites to see, we could quite have easily stayed there wandering the streets for a few more days. Unfortunately we haven't left enough time for the New England part of our trip so it was time to push on.

On Tuesday morning we awoke early and got ourselves on the road. We had our last stop at Tim Hortons....was a tearful occassion and headed for the Maine border. We had a great time in Canada and particularly Quebec - it was like visiting another country. The landscape is stunningly beautiful and very much a wilderness - we were constantly confronted with scenes that could have been on television, and these were just by the side of the road. While we didn't see a Moose or a Bear, we certainly were not dissapointed.

---

Photos

Niagara Falls
Here's a photo from on top of the Skylon Tower at Niagara Falls

Road Trip
This is a map that shows you the trip we took around Canada so you can sort of follow where we were.

Maid of the Mist
Fiona and I lining up for our Maid of the Mist tour. These ponchos were just fantastic and they matched my eyes.

The Complete Falls - with Les, Simon and Fi
This photo gives a complete view of the falls. Furthest to the right are the Canadian 'Horse Shoe Falls' and the falls in the background are the American 'Bridal Veil Falls. If you look right in the background you can see a bridge crossing from Canada into the US.

Niagara on the Lakes
This photo shows the beautiful 'Prince of Wales Hotel' in Niagara on the lake. It was beautifully done up, but $20 for two beers, give me a break!

Fiona and the Fish
The B&B that we stayed in had these fish hanging in our bathroom. Fiona loved them so much she is doing her best impression - very realistic, I can hardly tell which one is the fish.....

Vineyard Ninjas
Jacko is demonstrating his supreme flexibility up the back while I am trying to perfect 'The Crane'. Fiona looks like an expert in Drunken Boxing and I don't think Jen knows what a ninja is.....

Toronto - The CN Tower
This photo shows you just how big the CN Tower is, and how much Toronto Traffic sucks...

The Bloody Shoe Museum
Here's Fiona trying on some clown shoes at the Bata Shoe Museum.

The Lion's Head Inn
Fiona with the Drongo (the car, not me) out the front of the Lion's Head Inn. It was a great spot to stay.

Beautiful Canada
This photo was taken when we stopped on the side of the road for a bathroom break. We saw beautiful streams and countryside like this throughout the whole trip.

Whitewater Rafting and the Ottawa River
This is the sun setting behind our 'Cabin' where we spent the night before Whitewater rafting.

Showering Under the Dam
Here's Fiona having a morning shower under the water forced through the Dam. It was a little chilly, but not too bad.

The Scenery
We couldn't take our camera rafting, so this is the best picture we had to show the environment we were rafting in. It was awesome!

Montreal - The Olympic Stadium
Fiona doing her victory dance on the podium in front of the Stadium.

Montreal Streets
This photo is looking down one of the historic district streets. It really felt like being in another country.

Quebec City Skyline
Here's Fiona standing in front of the Citadel with Quebec City in the background. The large building is Chateau Frontenac, a hotel built in the 1890's.

Arty Crap
Here's an Artsy Farty Photo that I took and thought came out ok. Enjoy.

Chateau Frontenac
I'm standing in front of the Chateau and the sheer size of the place is over-powering. It absolutely dominates the old town skyline and is very impressive inside.

Fi & Dan
We don't have many photos of us together so I thought I would just throw this one in for the sake of it.

Comments

[the legend]

Hey! Give the over 50's a break ! Many a good tune is still played on an old fiddle!!!!!!