Quebec and Parc Omega

The coffee king in Canada is Tim Hortons – it’s everywhere, more than McDonalds which I didn’t think was possible in this world. It’s actually not too bad (I'm stretching myself here) so we tended to stop and get our caffeine fix at Tim’s. One stop on the drive to Quebec provided a funny moment which kept us laughing for a few days. We walked out with our coffee and pastries to the car when an older guy came up to us and the following conversation was had.

Guy – Do you work for the US? (Deb’s reckons he said ‘in’ the US).

Deb – (very slowly) yes….

Guy – Well I wanna share something with you on Kim Jong-un?

(we all looked at each other thinking WTF)

Guy – Don’t you work for the CIA?

Deb – arrh, no, we’re Australians.

Guy – yeah but are you CIA, you got special car rego plates?

(my sister has jumped in the car and locked the doors by this stage)

Me – no, we’re not CIA, we’re tourists.

Guy – you’re what?

Me – we’re on holiday, from Australia, vacation, you know?

Guy – yeah but your plates look CIA?

Me (trying not to laugh) – I don’t think CIA would be advertising themselves but no, we’re only Austalian’s on holiday.

Guy – hmmm, ok well you just look like CIA.

He then walked away to his car and we jumped in our spy car and laughed. My brave sister was disappointed we didn’t ask him what he wanted to tell us about Kim Jong-un.

Now onto Quebec. This is one of the loveliest cities I’ve seen, up there with Prague. It’s a historical city with significant history to Canada. It is one of the oldest European settlements in North America. The ‘old city’ is also the only North American fortified city north of Mexico whose walls still exist. The French founded and established Quebec but the British later conquered it and ruled for a long period. It was interesting to learn how the French were able to convince the British to retain the French culture and language.

The old city has many buildings from the day such as the citadel, the armory, churches and of course, the fortified wall. We took the hop on/off bus tour but it was fairly average. However, we did a 3hr walking tour which was excellent and the guide provided an extensive and interesting history of old Quebec. We enjoyed walking around and exploring the city and survived on our fairly non-existant French speaking skills.

 

The night we arrived in Quebec was a bit late. We unpacked and then went our for a quick feed nearby. When we drive home, the main road was blocked and we could not turn into our street - they were resurfacing the road for a kilometre or so. Our house was about 100m from the turn so it was just there behind about 5 bollards!! We tried to explain to the road worker and ask how we get into there but she said …I don’t speak English (very clearly). We tried again, but got the same response. I guess that was the only English she actually did speak. So we drove around again until we could do a right turn but ended up going in a 4km loop back to the start. We tried another worker who spoke more French. We were frustrated and kept pointing into the area of our house, pointing to our phone with a map and shrugging our shoulders as if to say…how do we get into there if the road is blocked at every right turn? Imagine 3 women trying to talk and tell each other to ssshh at the same time. He kept saying SAN CHAR, SAN CHAR. We gave up and pulled over to look at google maps – we were all trying to work out what SAN CHAR meant. It was like a maze at night trying to find a road to our house from the other side of the suburb. We drove off and found Saint Charles road – so this was SAN CHAR !!!  Left, right, right, left, right, left, left…and on it went and after about 5 minutes of winding around the suburb, we popped onto our street. It took us 10 minutes to get to the take away shop and then 35 minutes to get home again.

After Quebec, we headed to Montreal via a Canadian safari park called Parc Omega recommended by our work friend in Ottawa. This was a a few hours detour for us but it was well worth it. It is just outside the town of Montebello and is a huge natural parkland that you drive your car through to see native Canadian animals in the wild. Although most are enclosed within huge wired areas, they are relatively free in their natural habitats. The deer and pigs roam free and are very comfortable being handfed carrots (that you buy at the park office). It was simply awesome. 

We saw deer, coyotes, black bears, white arctic wolves, buffalo/bison,  and finally a MOOSE. The moose were laying down in the distance but we could see them easily and were amazed how big their antlers were. The deer would stick their head right into the car and were super friendly.

 

 

 

 

How 'bout a kiss?

ahhhhhh

Ottawa

 Ottawa is such a beautiful city. - I could easily live here. I have been before many years ago on a work trip and was glad to see it again. Canada is celebrating its 150 year anniversary of its independence from the British. We stayed in an Airbnb house about 10 mins walk from the Byward Markets which was another 10 mins walk from the city. Once again we ventured onto the hop on/off bus for a good exploration of the city. There is lots to see and do but time was limited so we agreed to check out the Canadian History Museum. I like Canada and Canadian people. We have a similar British heritage and an indigenous people. Canada also has a strong French heritage and it was interesting to learn how these empires ruled the land, New France. We later met a friend from the Australian High Commission for dinner and caught up on a lot of goss.

The next morning we were up early to line up for a tour of Parliament which was excellent. It was great to see the historical artefacts and the library was impressive. The Library of Congress in DC is gorgeous but I have to say, this library is a very close second. Canadian Government is similar to Australian with its two houses and Governor General. The Senate was about to commence sitting for the day and they mark this occasion with the Leader of the Senate being escorted by the Sergeant at Arms through the building to the Senate chamber. It was a lucky score to see this brief procession. We took the elevator up the Peace Tower which provided a fantastic view of Ottawa. The flag flying at the top of the tower is changed each day and the replaced flag is sent to a Canadian citizen who has put their name on a very long list which takes about 70 years for your name to get to the top of the list. The new flag each day symbolizes a New Day everyday for Canada.

 

 Deb took the opportunity to briefly visit the High Commission and then we drove out to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) horse stables or the Musical Ride Centre. The RCMP is comprised of uniformed RCMP officers who have at least 5 years policing service before they can apply to the RCMP horse division. The RCMP don't do law enforcement don't do crowd control like Australia, rather they are a performing function where the RCMP (mounties) do military drill to music, thus called the Musical Ride. The mounties spend 2 years here and then post out to another policing role. The Musical Ride is currently touring Canada as part of the 150 year celebrations so we didn't see the Ride. However, we took a tour around the stables which was fantastic to learn about the RCMP and the horses. There were new trainees learning so we at least saw them in action.

We stopped in for a visit to Jacques Cartier Park where a horticultural exhibition was being hosted - Gatineaux 2017. Check out some of these incredible sculptures with plants.

 

A traditional food in Ottawa and some other parts of Canada are Beaver Tails. It's not what you think so check out the photos to see what I mean. It's a deep fried sweet pastry covered in a sweet topping such as maple syrup, cinnamon, sugar, lemon, chocolate or banana. 

It was a full afternoon drive from Ottawa to Quebec so we enjoyed some sleep in the car and interesting scenery as we made our way to one of the nicest parts of Canada.

Niagara Falls and Toronto

It’s that time again where we packed the car for a long road trip. Our trip took us up to Niagara Falls on the US and Canadian border and then across Canada, back down into the US at Boston and home again. Our route map is below.

It was an 8 hour drive up to Niagara Falls and we arrived late Saturday afternoon. We stopped at a placed called ‘Duffs Wings’ in Buffalo on the US side. This turned out to be a very ‘duff’ idea. We were recommended to go there by some other tourists when we were in Yellowstone Park earlier this year, as this was the best wings on the planet, apparently !! Nothing to see here.

The border crossing was relatively quick, only about 30 minutes. We were immediately overwhelmed by the falls – they were just there in front of us. I admit I was expecting them to be higher but they were impressive just the same. We checked into the hotel and went walking along the waterfront as it was light until about 8pm. It was quite busy and being a weekend added a few extra visitors. The town of Niagara itself is quite ‘cheesy’ or tacky really, reminded me of the Gold Coast in Australia. It is a tourist trap of amusement venues and trashy places made just for the tourists and mainly families. But I couldn’t find an ice cream shop which was both suprising and disappointing. We walked for a while and it was truly beautiful. The water was running so fast, so furious and there was so much of it. It was like ‘wow’.

Deb and I went running the next morning and it is one of the most scenic runs I’ve ever done. There are attractions on the US and Canadian side of the falls so we had to cross back over to the US for half a day to see some of the falls and walk across the huge viewing platform. I was excited to do the Cave of the Winds steps walk which is a very wet walk up steps to the base of Bridal Veil Falls. This was spectacular and it is the smallest of the 3 falls that make up Niagara Falls. You get issued with a yellow poncho and sandals because you just get wet from the spray from the water pounding down the waterfall. It was very powerful. Batman appeared and got soaked thus the cape had to dry off later on my backpack. For Melissa McCarthy fans, this is at the end of the movie ‘Tammy’ when her and her mother make the bucket list trek to see Niagara Falls.

 

 

We took the mandatory 20 minute cruise into the base of the falls and got soaked again in our red-issue poncho. The falls are much bigger when you’re at the base amongst the crashing water and I have to imagine steering that boat in that strong current is no easy feat.

Our dear friends (P&AH) had thrown down the challenge to do the zipline so, we headed off to take that challenge. It was late in the afternoon, the line was long and my patience was thinner than usual. So we decided to do it the next morning before we headed off. While many others had the same idea, we were up on that platform within 20 minutes getting our ropes and harness on and watching others zip off the edge into the air. We all launched together and I took the lead, screaming. But it wasn’t long before Deb and my sister zoomed passed me towards to the end – probably because they had a bigger breakfast than me. My sister wins the best starfish pattern award and I dare say that was largely fear induced. We had a blast to say the least and managed to catch a glimpse of the falls as we zipped down the line. At the end of the line, there is a brake that pulls you up with a sharp stop and your legs swing up and forward but we each watched the end approaching and hoped to God it would stop us else we would be splat in the huge padded cushion at the end. I would recommend doing the zipline to anyone at the falls – it’s different and loads of fun.    

 

500 photos later, we loaded up the car and headed towards Toronto via a lovely little place called Niagara on the Lake – a street full of quaint little shops and places to eat set in an English period. We raided the lolly (candy) shops, tested the ice cream shop and bought some bakery treats to enjoy with our cup of tea later. 

 

  

Toronto was very busy city. We only had one shortened day there to explore so the hop on/off bus was our best means to see a lot in a short amount of time. I have since renamed this bus tour to the stop-stop bus because it took so long to finish the full loop due to the extensive road works and construction and narrow streets. We were so glad to get off at the end. We planned to go up the popular CN tower but learned that it was $40 so we ditched that idea quickly. Instead, my sister confessed she wanted to see the Bata shoe museum. Well this was interesting. Not somewhere I would normally visit but we did see the worlds largest and most comprehensive collection of shoes. The one pair that grabbed my attention was the high heeled shoes belonging to Gene Simmons of KISS. I had secretly hoped there was a pair of Batman’s boots but no such luck. (My sister seemed to photograph many of the shoes and I"m yet to understand why?) We finished with lunch at one of the food markets and then started the long drive to Ottawa. The drive out of Toronto was horrendous to say the least. The traffic was busy, slow and made more frustrating by the road works. We were glad to get to Ottawa albeit late.