Sault Ste Marie, one of our last stops in the U.S, & a visit to Soo locks, a must do for me, being an ex mariner, to see the shipping passing through from Lake Huron to Lake Superior. These locks are maintained by the Army Corps of Engineers & are supposed to be one of America’s finest tourist attractions complete with viewing platforms & visitors centre. These locks allow shipping to overcome the 21 foot difference in height between the two lakes. Again being the Jell late winter tour, the visitor centre hasn’t yet opened but the viewing platforms are, & we are lucky enough to visit as an ore carrier passes through, one of the eleven thousand ships that use the locks annually.
Crossing back into Canada, is the smoothest border crossing so far, a few pleasant questions about the weather and we are through, only one border crossing left to do now and that’s the one back home, so I’ll expect we will join the queues then. We look to camp beside Lake Erie, on our way to Niagara Falls, we are still struggling to find sites that are open, mid May seems to be the time when everything starts up. But we spot a sign for Knights Beach resort and decide to take a look, we are greeted by Suzi Quatro’s twin or could this actually be her, with the prices she’s quoting, she can certainly afford the lifestyle. We are her first campers of the season and so that supposedly gets us a discount, a basic tent pitch (we are sleeping in the back of the car after all) and use of the toilet & shower, comes to a staggering $55.00. This you have to bear in mind, comes after a night where we paid $52.00 for a motel room in the U.S with TV, WIFI & ensuite. We tell her that we are surprised with the price and no thanks, she then says she made a mistake and charged us for water so it will only be $44.00, $11.00 for water wow!!!! We still decline, then she comes back with her final price of $25.00, which is what it should have been in the first place, oh well I suppose she’s got to be able to afford those guitars somehow! this could have been a very expensive bit of grass.
It’s only a short hop the next morning to Niagara Falls, this is something we have been looking forward too, and are not disappointed, although they are not that high compared to some falls we have seen on this trip, the width and volume of water going over them is truly spectacular.
We took the walk down through the tunnels that take you behind the falls for another perspective, the only way to get closer than this is to go over them in a barrel, and Jan certainly wasn’t up for that, even if there had been a barrel big enough (for both of us).Spot what the well dressed woman is wearing!!!!
The only downside to the whole experience is the surrounding area of the falls which consists of artificial attractions, casinos, cinemas and hotels a sort of large scale Blackpool in Canada, something we can definitely do without. We follow the Niagara River down through the gorge to Niagara on the Lake one of the best persevered 19th century towns in North America a complete contrast to the tourist tacky falls area only 20km south. We are now on Lake Ontario and it is here at St Catharines that the Welland Canal emerges some 27 miles after leaving Lake Erie at Port Colborne. This canal allows shipping to bypass Niagara Falls via eight locks rising some 165 metres in height over 27 miles through Canada. At least now it’s May and this visitor centre is open so we spend a very nice day driving alongside the canal and watching the locks in action.
As we head off towards Toronto we notice how the roads are getting crowded, over half the population of Canada live in the provinces of Ontario & Quebec, it’s starting to remind us what the roads back home are like or at least used to be when we left just over two years ago. The GPS starts showing delays of twenty minutes ahead on the road, things to look forward too (deep joy). Once we actually get into Toronto we are surprised on just how empty the city appears, they must spend all day circulating the suburbs much like the M25 back home.
The one thing on our to do list is the CNN tower, the tallest free standing building in the world, now we have done several tall buildings in the world most in the southern hemisphere, but this is the tallest & the glass elevators and glass floor viewing deck make it quite an experience. Even Jan enjoyed the 50 second elevator ride to the top, something that before this trip she would never have done.
Our last stop in Ontario is Ottawa, the Canadian capital and the houses of parliament. We visit on the day that the general election takes place at home, let’s hope the new coalition government at home make more sense than the debate that we listened to here. Because Canada is a bilingual country the debates here go on in English & French with one MP speaking in one language and another answering in the other, very confusing, fortunately the public gallery has listening devices that interpret as the debate goes on, perhaps we could do something similar back home, although we might all speak the same language it’s always been difficult to understand exactly what a politician is saying!
The next province after Ontario is Quebec or is it France?, we thought we had just arrived at Calais, with all signs on shops, roads & billboards now in French, & the first language being spoken is French, it’s hard to believe that we are still in Canada. Although we met a few people who were more understanding of English speaking people, the vast majority were very unhelpful even when we did attempt a few sentences of French we would be laughed at or just get a shrug of their shoulders as if they didn’t understand. This was more the case for the younger generation who we would like to think had been taught both languages in school but it certainly didn’t come across that way during our travels. Even though France lost the battle on the plains of Abraham in Quebec city in the 18th century and handed over New France as it was known to the British, they still carry out daily re-enactments of the battle with school children in Quebec city, perhaps some form of therapy might help them get over their history and then they could move forward and actually try to become a part of Canada, instead of trying to be more French than even France is. It’s a shame if we were in France we would expect to speak French and struggle through, when we have been in France our French has always been sufficient to get us through, but in Canada you would think that English should be a perfectly acceptable language to use, definitely not in Quebec or rather New France as they like to be known!!!! Montreal the quaint cobbled streets of the old city mix nicely with the newer tower blocks in the 16 hours of rain and cold weather that greets us during our stay there. We were going to camp for two nights, but after checking out the weather forecast we opt for a motel room, and a good job too as temperatures plummet and the rain starts to fall. When we arrive on Friday afternoon it’s nice, so we quickly check out the old city making the most of the weather before Saturday’s constant rain, roll on summer!
Saturday’s a day for either the umbrella or in the car and we drive across to the island called Ile Notre Dame. This island was formed from 15 million tons of earth and rock excavated when the metro was built and is home to the Canadian F1 GP circuit which I wanted to get a look at it. We were pleasantly surprised to find that this circuit is open to the public year round apart from when the race is on of course, and then it will cost you a fortune just to get near it. The track is divided into two lanes with cones, the left hand side being for the use of runners, cyclist and roller skaters. While the right hand side is for cars, mind you there is a strict 30kph speed limit enforced to stop Lewis Hamilton wannibes from trying to set new lap times amongst the skaters!!
We put the explorer through its paces, with the weather conditions playing right into our hands and the 4wd carries us nicely through the puddles and flooded corners of the circuit keeping the speedometer nailed on the 30kph mark, even if it took us the same time to complete a quarter of a lap in which a race car would have completed the lap at least Jan didn’t tell me to slow down. Leaving the circuit we can accelerate off to the French capital of Quebec. I last visited here in 1980 during my days in the RN, this is the berth we used all those years ago amazing how some things don't change!!!!!
although on this trip at least I manage to get beyond the bars to see the sights of the old city & parliament buildings,
with the constant battle re enactments going on outside the old city walls by school children learning about the past and probably the way it’s going to be for the foreseeable future!
We are not impressed with the province of Quebec at all, we felt quite unwelcome throughout the whole province and it’s a nice relief to cross the bridge over into New Brunswick after driving around the Gaspe Peninsular at the head of the St Lawrence Seaway.
A QUIET DAY BY THE ST LAWRENCE SEAWAY
BREAKFAST VIEW OVERLOOKING ROCHER PERC'E
Yes we’re now back in a province where they actually speak English, or should I say “Canadian” no more shrugging or blank looks just good old friendly Canadian hospitality. We head off through New Brunswick following the St John River valley, getting off the trans Canada highway to enjoy the scenic old Hwy 105 passing through small villages & towns. Stumbling across the Mc Cain frozen fries factory at Florenceville, back in 1957 McCain’s frozen fries began life here, now there world leaders in chip production. I never realised that I share the same birth year as the frozen chip, perhaps which accounts for my wafer thin figure!!! The world’s longest covered bridge is in the next town of Hartland and at some 390 metres in length I think there probably right, they also say it’s very photogenic but I’m not so sure!!!
We finish down on the Bay of Fundy coastline where the highest tides in the world take place, the highest tide ever recorded anywhere was 16.6m and that was here in the Minas basin.
It was while we were driving along here that we passed through the hamlets of Economy, Upper, Lower & Middle Economy with their own Economy Fire Hall.
Note the economic opening hours, hopefully this won’t become a sign of the times back in the UK with the harsh public spending cuts that are probably about to happen!
We celebrate yet another birthday for Jan while we are here, her third during our twenty six months of travelling; she certainly knows how to cram them in. While I’m not allowed to say how old Jan is, fifty was the starting figure when we left! To celebrate we book into a motel and enjoy a nice meal and live music in the bar until one o’clock in the morning, which means the following morning has a slightly slower start than usual!! Prince Edward Island emerges in front of our fuzzy heads the next day, crossing the 13km long Confederation Bridge which is the longest bridge across ice covered water in the world.
I’m pleased to say that there was no ice about when we crossed I think that finally the Jell winter tour is slipping into spring, about time. PEI has some lovely scenery and beaches, which at this time of year we can enjoy all by ourselves.
A different story in the short summer season though when thousands of people descend on this place filling the huge car parks that at the moment only have a couple of cars in them. We camp at New Highlands Camping & Cabins, the best camp site we have stayed on in our twenty six months of travelling. This is how all campsites should be, well laid out, with clean facilities, and even a comfy lodge with wood burner, & cooking facilities inside, for those cold evenings (and we’ve certainly had our fair share of them across Canada). Just one more province left on our road trip across Canada, Nova Scotia & Cape Breton Island.
The weather is improving all the time and again we get the National park all to ourselves, so there are some pluses from travelling this early across Canada.
All our wildlife viewing has been done from the car as Jan’s reluctance to do any trail walking has only intensified as our trip has gone on and the bear stories have become more frequent. But whilst checking out the map by the side of the road we looked up to see the hind quarters of a moose, which had just crossed the road in front of us, unfortunately by the time we had dug out the camera he was well gone.
LAST CAMP ON THE TWO YEAR TRIP
Well we have now arrived in Halifax, with two weeks of our trip left & a car & camping gear to sell. We have driven 13,000 km’s across Canada through snow, ice wind rain & some sun. It has been a great experience and we have certainly learned that the Canadian winters last a lot longer than the British ones. In hindsight it would have probably been better to leave later in the year and drive across, although saying that they have just had another winter storm go through Calgary only two days ago, so who knows! This timescale fitted with our plans and we have seen a lot of the country, sampled a lot of the culture, and apart from Quebec enjoyed everywhere that we have visited. Now there’s a car clean & sell to do, and a flight to catch before the final instalment of jellssomewhereontheglobe. Something that twenty six months ago seemed a lifetime away. But as they say time flies when your enjoying yourself, and for us that certainly has been true of these last two years.
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