It’s Sunday night so we’re at the end of our first week in Canada. We’re staying in Ottawa with cousins of Pip’s, and as well as a spare room, they have wi-fi, so I may blog.
We flew from Heathrow last Sunday on an 8:30 a.m. flight, so the girls were exhausted and slept on the flight. Air Canada were much better than their call centre suggested, and weren’t fussy about the number of car seats we had, didn’t make us check the buggy into the hold, and didn’t insist on the tyres being deflated. They didn’t fine us $50 when Indie sat up in the basinet, although she didn’t get a seatbelt, as warned, and we had to hold her tightly whenever we felt the plane might crash. The eight-hour flight actually went very well, the girls were perfect, and by the time we arrived Indie has trained a couple of rows of people to tilt their heads on her command.
We picked up a car at the airport and drove West to Niagara. We unloaded at a lovely little B&B in Niagara-on-the-Lake, then drove on to Niagara Falls in time for the illuminations and the 10pm fireworks. By then we’d been up over 24 hours, it was 3 a.m. UK time, and we were so spaced out we sat in the car for 15 minutes waiting for a rain shower to pass, before we realised we’d parked under the fallout from the mist-plume, and we just needed to walk five metres to the dry.
Anyway, the falls are great, although the town is horrific, like a low-rent tawdry Las Vegas, if that’s possible.
Having successfully beaten jetlag (four hours sleep in 44 and anyone will sleep for eight hours) we returned to the falls in the morning so I could take Laurie on the Maid of the Mist boat into the spray. Highly recommended if you’re anywhere nearby.
We then turned and started the 1,700+ mile drive East to Novia Scotia. Toronto is a great place to see why building bigger roads doesn’t reduce congestion – we hit the evening rush-hour, which starts at 2:30 p.m. and which gridlocked the 16-lane highway both ways!
We then spent four nights at Cousin Julia’s place in Brighton, with its own private beach on Lake Ontario. This was a really good time and we ticked off most of the Tengs, with Julia, Kathy and Toivo in Brighton and Bonita and Mike further East. We even managed a night out on Julia’s birthday.
On Friday we were back on the road to Ottawa, via a fairly unexciting boat trip through the Thousand Islands from Kingston. I’ve decided the back-country, with its gentle green hills dotted with lakes, clapboard houses, red barns and silver grain silos, is endlessly beautiful, but the big-ticket tourist attractions can underwhelm. No more boat rides for us. Also much cheaper that way!
We’re staying here with Tom and Kyna and their kids, and spent yesterday looking round Ottawa with Geoff and Tanya. In the evening we had dinner with our hosts plus Roshelle & Bud and Uncle Ed & Valerie. That was all the Williams done!
Today was lunch in Kanata with John Muggeridge, his wife, and three of their six kids. Our two both fell asleep there as they’ve seen and done so much recently. Indie also sucked into my lap as it is Fathers’ Day.
From lunch we drove out to Carp for a picnic with Ed, Valerie, Geoff, Tanya and Roshelle, swam in the river and floated down the rapids for a couple of hours. Then back to Ed’s amazing property for a barbeque and tour before the girls finally flakes out completely and we has to bring them home and carry them to bed.
Tomorrow we have our longest drive, six hours to Quebec City. The forecast is sunny and 29 degrees.
I’ve not got many photos to show you on my iPhone, but this is Laurie after her incarceration for asking which day was Children’s Day.
