2nd June
Left for airport around 9am, only a short taxi ride to the airport. Find out our flight is delayed by an hour, so settle down for a longer wait. Grabbed a bit to eat from an Asian eating place before heading to our departure gate before a large group of school kids arrived – had forgotten how loud children are!
Calgary airport is nice but still an airport, terminal gates A are located at one end of the building, gate B is at the other. We headed to gate B, and when there were told to go back to gate A for security checking there, then walk all the way back to B! Stupid, luckily we had plenty of time. The departure lounge was crowded with all the other 10 passengers, so we enjoyed an extremely empty flight! Pat was waiting for us in Toronto and with a sign thankfully as we had only met her once when on the ship over 4 months ago! It was about 40mins to John and Pat’s house, which is in a nice quiet area out of town. John has just come out of hospital so had to take it easy and not talk too much, but is doing very well. We picked him up and went to a great local restaurant with affordable well cooked meals – finally more normal food! Back for a catch up and an early night before bed.
3rd June
Up at 7ish, took a shower and had breakfast with John and Pat. Today they had planned a full day of sightseeing with us. Pat had even taken a day off to join us. We drove across the Niagara Escarpment and down to Niagara Falls. They really are quite impressive, especially from the Canadian side. We thought we would go for a ride on the Maid of the Mist first while it wasn’t too busy. The weather was behaving but only just as it was very overcast and threatening rain. Didn’t matter much as we found out, as we were right at the bow of the boat we got completely drenched by the tremendous amount of spray created by the falls. We were very impressed with where the boat positioned us at the falls, and it seemed very close to the main falls. The ponchos supplied were good, but we all suffered from a Marilyn Munroe moment multiple times while trying to force our eyes open to see the falls. Back on shore we made our way back to the truck and headed to a cable car over the whirlpool. This was ok to go on, and gave a different view up the river and over the large whirlpool. The hydro plants vary the amount of water the use, and of course do not use much during the day so as to keep the tourists happy – I suspect it is the hotel and tourism people that are more happy, nevertheless, the water level changes by 20 feet from night to day. This apparently has the effect of changing the whirlpool direction! The pool didn’t look too forbidding, but we were told it was extremely dangerous etc. We enjoyed some freshly made maple fudge and also chocolate and peanut fudge before heading to a restaurant called Kettle o fish. Had a fish and chip lunch which was very filling. From here we made our way to a butterfly garden where Sandy could surely spend entire weeks, so wandered around a couple of times taking photos of course but also enjoying the vast array of fluttering colours. A walk around part of the surrounding garden grounds highlighted the fantastic public areas Canada has for everyone. Next on the list was to see a large floral clock, something a bit different, and then onto Niagara on the Lake – a very rich area, perhaps the highest in the area. It was all still in the old style of building and was full of art and craft boutique shops. Very similar I guess to Parnell. This was about all we had time to see, and John was getting tired – we are amazed how well he is doing and have to insist that he takes it easy. (Just had half a lung removed due to cancer – all is looking good so great to hear) After thanking John and Pat for a fantastic day we checked into our hotel. Our room is on the top floor, and just misses out on a view, but not to worry. The room is large enough to play a game of baseball in so can spread out and relax – well not really. Decide to go for a walk and find a place to eat and perhaps the internet as it is not complimentary in this hotel either. Strange that it was in so many hotels in South America that I am sure cost much less! We find an internet Café (with no help from the reception staff) at an Inn nearby, it also has a coin laundry – yay! Our laundry has accumulated once again so we trotted back to the hotel to get our bags and computer to fill in the time. The guy at the Ritz Inn was great, after seeing us with a laptop he gave us free internet access while we were waiting for the laundry to finish! Far better service than the stupid hotel. Oh well, enough griping at the big sardine style money grubbers. After dropping off our clean clothes it was definitely time for dinner so we to a TGI Friday’s. Typical diner with a wide range of food, still fairly highly priced, especially after adding 3 lots of tax and gratuity… Canada also has a GST tax like NZ. The falls are lit after 9pm, so went and got a camera and walked down to the rivers edge. Nearly 2hrs later we returned rather wet but had a great time with night photos. The lighting is pretty good but it is hard to keep the camera dry especially when using a 30 second exposure. Repacked our bags and went to sleep – have to be up at 4:45 to be at the train station by 6am. Have no idea how far the station is so figure we could need up to 30mins to get there.
4th June
The sound of the alarm was not welcome this morning, but were in the taxi just after 5:30. The train station was only 10mins away – again useless hotel staff had no idea! Never mind, got our bundle of train tickets – all tickets for the next 5 days, and proceeded to board the train when it arrived. We pass through lots of horticultural areas and then industrial areas. The land around here is very flat for the most part with lots of water crossings. Switched trains in Toronto for a 5hr trip up to Montreal.
Arrived in Montreal and had to haul some very heavy bags up to a cab – so Sandy realised exactly how much crap we had been carrying around! Checked into the hotel after going through a heap of traffic on the way. First on the list of things to do – send home some stuff, after sorting through everything – i.e. pulling the bag apart. We found the closest post office which happened to be around the corner from us and sent home close to 9kg’s of stuff! Yay! For lighter bags. However they didn’t take visa so Sandy got her afternoon run by trying to find an ATM. Got back just in time to find out I didn’t even need to go as it only cost $90. Decided we needed a walk and wondered around the streets close to our hotel, found the cinemas and decided to go watch one. Found that sex and the city was showing in 10 minutes in English so headed for that one. Really funny and enjoyed the movie, probably the first movie we have watched in over 8 months! Back to our hotel via some shops – yip Sandy is filling the bag already! Found a place to eat across the road from our hotel, Vietnamese and was just about to close, mind you it was nearly 10pm. Burn’t some DVD’s and played on the internet for a while.
5th
Next morning we wandered down to the pier about a 20 minute walk to catch our cruise of Montreal. A few homeless people around but generally a very clean, beautiful city. Our cruise departed from the Jacques-Cartier pier in Old Montreal and took us along the river past La Ronde amusement park and up to the view of the biodome. On the way back we managed to see where they were holding the Montreal Grand Prix this weekend. Unfortunately we will be leaving tomorrow which is when the practice sessions start L Some interesting architecture, especially the block of flats/condo’s that are all boxed at funny angles apparently designed in the 1960’s but still look really modern. A really hot day and I have caught a bit of sun on the boat, so went to go and find some water. Wandered around Old Montreal and saw all the different parliament buildings, cathedrals and the miniature version of Notre Dame. Found a camera store and couldn’t resist so went in for a look, surprisingly didn’t come out with much other than a new camera bag that would hold our documents as well as the camera and that could be wheeled – for Sandy J Also got a wireless remote so we can take more photos without touching the camera and causing shake. Decided to take a taxi to the botanical gardens as it had been recommended to us on the boat. Walked around the botanical gardens and Insectarium for a while, really feels good to do some walking. Got very dehydrated though so had to find some water. Left the botanical gardens and walked across the road to look at the biodome, decided against going inside. There was a metro right next to the biodome so we caught the train back to town after figuring out where we were and where we wanted to go J Back in town, and we walked back down to Old Montreal for a thai dinner near the water. Then slowly made our way back to the hotel, Chris had a bit of a nap. I wanted to have a look at a couple of the shops so we walked down about 8 blocks to a mall and wandered around for a while. They had a display of one of the BMW grand prix racing cars so decided to go and have a look. Pretty impressive car! The frame seems insignificant to the wheels. Nearly lost each other when Sandy tried something on in a shop and Chris couldn’t find her even after his strict instructions of staying in the same shop – I did he just didn’t find me J So after that little panic we slowly walked back to the hotel stopping for an orange juice on the way. Lots of sex shops that seem to appear at night J In the hotel, Chris was sorting out photos while Sandy played with the camera trying to figure out how to get a nice night shot of the city. Watched a bit of TV and finally went to bed – been a long day!
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