So here it is, the final entry of my Canadian adventure. What can I say, it's been phenomenal. I'm writing this, at home in England now, sat with a cup of tea and a biscuit. Just as it should be.
On the 14th of August, I headed over to Ontario to explore the area. Travelling with my partner in crime, Shel, I was to be based at her parents house near a town called Orangeville. Turns out it's a lovely suburban area in the sticks, rather similar to areas of Hampshire back home. Rolling hills, nice detached houses with a decent sized lawn, backing onto farmland with a similar climate and vegetation. All very pleasant really.
So the first order of the trip was to sort out wedding attire for the pair of us, as one of Shel's best friends from high school was to get married on the 17th. Shel conveniently was able to pick up a rather splendid outfit for circa $6, with shoes and jewellery provided by friends and family. I on the other hand, well I ended up having to splash out on a full outfit, from head to toe, costing close to $400. Typical. Not to mention, considering I was informed it should be colourful number as it was a summer wedding, that I was the only smartly dressed man there, looking like I'd just come from the races, to see most of the guests at the wedding all in casual wear with the wedding party in jeans, short sleeved shirts and baseball caps. Genuinely looked a knobber!
Now I must say, I'm not slagging off the wedding or saying it wasn't done nicely. On the contrary, it was a gorgeous rural wedding set on the bride's family farm, with all the lovely old tractors polished up and on show. It was just that I was a little overdressed.
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| Together we looked fine |
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| On my own however.. somewhat questionable |
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| The wedding party ceremony. Note the baseball caps. Amazing! |
After the wedding was done and dusted and the hangover cleared, Shel and I started planning on what I wanted to get out of the short time I had left in Canada. So I decided I wanted to see what the local area was like, with time spent up at her Grandparents place in the sticks, as well as booking in some trips to see Niagara Falls, Montreal and Toronto, respectfully.
So below are a few of the wee excursions and adventures around Orangeville, a stunning area. Whilst I was staying at their I had also mentioned to Shel's father, Bruce, that if there were any jobs to do around the house then I'd be more than willing to do them as a form of payment for letting me stay at his house for free. A form of payment if you like. Well, before I knew it there was a chainsaw in my hand and I was tasked with removing a large spruce tree from his front garden and, driving the quad bike, moving the logs and branches to another site down the road. To be fair, I actually love this sort of thing and was really fun being set loose with a chainsaw. My months of landscaping coming in handy. This in combination with having to cut the lawn and water the garden was a pretty fair trade for all the beer I drank and food I ate.
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| Taking in the Ontario views |
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| Front garden of Shel's house |
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| Let loose on the chainsaw - my first job at the house |
Whilst being at the house I should also mention the stunning sunsets we had. Well for those that aren't colour blind that is. Picture postcards, where we would go up onto the roof with a beer or two and watch the sun go down. (Note: as a safety professional, cleared to work at heights and following a Dynamic Risk Assessment, naturally, I deemed it safe to scramble up).
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| Beautiful sunsets |
After this, was the first of the big tourist tick boxes to be completed... Niagara Falls!
Amazingly it was actually only a few hours down the road so it had to be done. So I booked a lovely hotel, Sheraton or something, and after politely asking to pinch the mother's car, we headed to Niagara to see what all the commotion is about. Yeah, it's pretty cool.
On arrival at the hotel, whilst Shel was in the bathroom, I was asked by the receptionist if it was a special occasion. Naturally I said it was. A classic trick where hopefully they might upgrade you. Low and behold he did. An awesome room with a jacuzzi in the bedroom. Very fancy. So we headed out to dinner and a little explore of the local area. All I can say is it's a little like Las Vegas, all the lights, casinos etc.
We ended up finding a nice restaurant with local beer and had a lovely pizza followed by a few drinks at various bars ending up at one of the aforementioned casinos. With a max limit of $20, we went big. Now I'm not a gambling man, but I managed to make my money last almost 20 minutes. Shel only doing slightly better. It was fun but ultimately fruitless and quite sad to see people losing so much money all around us. The games had people hooked on them and thousands of dollars linked to special cards. These games where it's just potluck/ a computer algorithm that decides whether your going to get paid out or not. So we left after I cashed in my "winnings", a grand total of $5.50, that I cashed out before I lost everything, and headed for the hotel as the next day we had boat trips and all sorts to get through.
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| Bright lights of Niagara |
Come the next day, I was keen to get going and get on one of the ferries that go up to the base of the falls. After a delightful fly past of the RAF Red Arrows display team, we managed to don our red plastic capes and cast off to get up close and personal with the waterfall. Whilst I'm not a big fan of the touristy things, this was absolutely incredible and I'm so pleased we did it.
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| The falls in all their glory |
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| Getting up close and personal/ very wet |
In between Niagara and all my other gallivanting, I should mention we spent a lot of time up at Shel's grandparents. A lovely elderly couple Tom and Joan with a beautiful property, with it's own little island/ peninsula of land up between a river and tributary. Here we spent time on Kayaks, floats and swimming in the warm water, catching crayfish. Sometimes we just chilled out with a book and a beer, sat on a camp chair with our feet in the river. Really lovely memories.
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| River chills |
Montreal
The next destination on my plan was to hit up Montreal. The culture capital by all accounts. Now I must say I was a little hesitant about going here as my previous interactions with French Canadians had been a mixed affair. One of my good friends during the ski season was a Frenchy and had been so chilled and lovely, whilst a guy I had worked with, didn't shut up about how much better French Canadian's, specifically Quebecers, were than everyone else. It was fine, up until he started slagging of the Queen, then I drew the line. So I was interested to see what Montreal had in stall.
I wasn't disappointed. An absolutely stunning city filled with old buildings and alive with a rich, diverse history and unique culture.
We took a free guided tour and the guide was brilliant. If you are ever in an unknown city look for one of these tour company's . Highly recommend it. Get to know so much in such a short period of time. Below are a couple of the pics from that day.
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| Nelson’s Column - that's right, a solid two fingers up to the French |
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| Me in front of the rather splendid Maisonneuve statue |
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| Montreal's Notre Dame |
After the tour I decided dinner just had to be in this stunning square just down from Nelson's Column. So later that evening, with musicians playing in the background, an expressionist painter just across the road and an elderly man walking around trying to flog nearly dead roses for extortionate prices, I thought, perfect. Couldn't get any more french (Canadian) than that. So we stopped for a lovely meal and drank expensive wine that we couldn't really afford. Perfect.
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| Cute French (Canadian) dinner |
The next day we decided to tick off more of the touristy things... inside Notre Dame itself, venture over to the "gay village" that was showing the thousands of hanging balls, no pun intended, then walk to Schwartz's Deli for a Montreal smoked meat sandwich. Quite the walk it would all be, we finally got to do all three in what turned out to be a swelter of a day. So by the time I had looked inside the big old church, pic below, and arrived at Montreal's vibrant Gay Village, I was getting quite the sweat on, so casually I put my sweater over my shoulders, unknowingly fitting in a little too well and get eyed by many a man walking down said street.
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| Inside Notre Dame - stunning stained glass windows dedicated to the Big Man |
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| Enjoying the art work in the "Gay Village" of Montreal |
After the rather amusing walk down the hanging Balls of Babylon, we headed to Schwartz's. I didn't know what to expect from this place. Always intrigued as to how good something is going to be when it's been hyped up so much, but by God this sandwich was good. Arguably the best "Manwich" I've ever eaten, it's literally a smoked cow in between two wafer thin slices of bread. Bit of mustard and a whole pickle to chomp on next to it. Washed down with Canadian Dry - I felt 100% ill afterwards but also very Canadian. Job done and ready to drive the 7 hours home to Orangeville.
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| MEAT! |
Toronto
Having finally recovered from the meat feast a few days prior, Shel and I decided to get Toronto ticked off my list before it got too late.
So what is there to do in a day trip to Toronto, go big or go home, we bought the mega tourist combo ticket, including CN Tower, aquarium, zoo, castle, I mean there is a lot to do but not a lot of time, so for one day, we decided to go up a massive tower, and go under water, kind off.
As a bit of a geek I actually found a lot of enjoyment reading about how they made it, finding out that kids in the local schools were able to right their names in the antennae before it was put up, then to find out that Bruce, Shel's Dad had actually been one of those kids was pretty cool. Anyway, we went up, tried to see Toronto, which had some great views if you could squeeze past the tourists (yes I was one of them) to get a look in. At the top, there is also an area of reinforced glass you can stand on/ lay down on, and generally get vertigo from which was... um nice.
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| CN Tower ready |
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| On the glass floor many feet up with a very tight bottom |
After this, it was time to head next door and go round the aquarium. It was a little directed at kids but not enough to detract from it being a great experience for adults as well. With a brilliant underwater tunnel that had a conveyor belt on it to give everyone an equally enjoyable experience and stops tourists from stopping for ages and trying to get that perfect shot. After this, there's also a few different stalls where you can actually touch some fish and grabs etc. So naturally we gave them a tickle. All in all a well worth trip.
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| Mid tunnel conveyor belt experience |
Considering we ran out of time in Toronto and had to be somewhere in the evening, we decided to come back the next day for the zoo. By god did it take a full day to go round. Bloody thing is massive. Highlights for me are always the big cats, and a surprisingly chonky Polar bear that was enjoying snoozing in the sun. This thing was massive and ridiculously cute. Part of me just wanted to cuddle it when it was putting its dinner plate sized paws over its head, but then common sense prevailed, including the reinforced glass barrier.
Toronto Zoo Pics
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| Toronto Zoo - completed it mate |
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| This lil kitty was rolling around in the grass |
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| One chonky boy |
After the zoo, we had a few days left before I had to disappear across the pond so decided to spend it back up on the Grandparents property. Here I helped finish off the island erosion and flood defence project we had started a week earlier, moving and drilling holes into the cedar logs, as well as putting stones into place in front and behind the wall. In between doing that, Bruce got out his "home defence' for me to have a go on. Remington 870 Tactical pump action shotgun. This thing kicked like a mule but was great fun to shoot. Apparently, if you hear a noise downstairs in the middle of the night, all you need to do is go out onto the landing and cock the shotgun.. there will be a visible trail of where burglar had decided to leave.
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| Island flood and erosion defence project |
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| Remington pump action |
After spending my last few days in Canada up at the grandparents house, and on the eve of my departure, Shel and I had a nice wonder down to the river near their home. Taking a few beers, a book and a speaker, we read to each other, drank the beers and had a bit of a boogy on the old bridge as the sun went down. A perfect way to finish off my travels. Hopefully it won't be too long before I see her again. My Canadian experience wouldn't have been what it was without this one. A truly lovely girl, slightly mental at times, but someone that I'm grateful to call my girlfriend. So until either of us has the money to visit the other - it's back to Blighty and back to reality. Canada, that's a wrap!
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| My last Canadian evening down by the river. |
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