Thursday July 29

We arrived back in Toronto today just before midday after 3 glorious days in New York and we are sitting out on the balcony of Kate and Derek's apartment relaxing after a long walk, hence the opportunity to update the blog.

We flew from Halifax to Newark airport and decided we would 'test' the public transport system. As it turned out it was very simple, fast and relatively cheap. The Amtrak train delivered us to Penn station and since we had our bags we decided against the subway and caught a cab to our hotel on the upper west side. 77th W just off Broadway to be precise. For those visiting NY I would recommend this location as it is a short walk to Central Park, away from the major tourist areas but close enough by subway and you get to mingle with the locals.

We did all the tourist things including taking a horse and carriage ride in Central Park, the double decker bus ride around the downtown area, a Broadway show (The 39 Steps, which we had missed in Melbourne and was just terrific).

 Also rode the Staten Island Ferry (the queues to get the ferry out to the Statue of Liberty were horrendous and the view from the ferry is almost as good).

It seems this trip is turning out to be a gourmet tour as much as anything else and besides a brilliant Japanese meal we had on the sidewalk one evening the highlight of the gastronomic experience was lunch on the balcony overlooking the Central Concourse at Grand Central Station, for not only was the location terrific but the meal was outstanding -tuna tartare, Soft Shell Crab, which neither of us had eaten before .

The weather was just perfect for the 3 days, hot but not humid. The only time it was really uncomfortable was in the subways but fortunately we never had to wait long for a train. The nights cooled down a little but it was very pleasant outside, which added to the enjoyment.

I introduced Heff to my favourite store in NY: Zabars (near 79th street on Broadway). It is an old fashioned deli/kitchen ware store absolutely jam packed with cheese, meats, precooked meals with every imaginable kitchen implement upstairs. This stop is a must do in any visit to NY and one that doesn't appear on any tourist trail. We frequented it for breakfast in the mornings, joining the locals who were mostly gobbling bagels and cream cheese. We were much more boring and had frozen yoghurt with fresh fruit, something we have become very fond of here. Importantly, they also sell excellent coffee at a reasonable price.
Whilst one would never want to live here full time it is a lively and vibrant city and certainly one as described in the lyrics of that immortal Frank Sinatra song, that never sleeps. Nevertheless, a short spell working and living here, as our friend Gerry de Vries is doing, would be a great experience.  For those of you who know Gerry here he is outsde his office building in Park Avenue.

 We did, however, find ourselves thinking about the disadvantages of bringing up kids on Manhattan Island when we walked past the fenced playgrounds which are dotted around the city. For country folk such as us, the thought of growing up without grass to run around on and kick the footy on at will just doesn't seem right. The scene which completely cemented that view was watching the kids playing in the pond around the fountain in Washington Square - fun alright, but not quite what we would want for our kids.

Tuesday July 27th

As promised, here is a quick account of our last couple of days in Nova Scotia. It is all a little out of whack seeing as we are already in New York, but this way we can give an overall report on our three days here after we leave on Thursday morning and return to Toronto.
After our wonderful Puffin tour, we travelled to Baddeck on the huge Bras d'Or Lake, which was a beautiful spot - very picturesque and even though it is quite touristy, it was not at all unpleasant, as you can see:

Just one night in Baddeck and off to Halifax, retracing some of the highway we had driven on to get to Cape Breton Island. Arrived in Halifax city just in time to get caught up in the traffic mayhem of the Gay Pride procession through the city streets. For unwary travellers who were not at all familiar with the place, it seemed that every way we went to try and escape the traffic jams got us even more deeply entrenched. Finally managed to get down to the waterfront area after the parade had passed by and very pleasant it was too! Had an explore, then a late lunch come tea in a very nice Portugese restaurant and tracked down our bed and breakfast place.
Next day dawned cloudily ominous, but with hope in our hearts we set off early along the south coast for Peggy's Cove, hoping to beat the tourist buses, as this is one of the most-visited fishing villages and lighthouses in Canada. Arrived at about 9.15 and immediately discovered why it is so popular - the most beautiful and well-preserved wooden buildings making up this tiny village perch atop a stunning area of huge granite boulders called 'erratics', remnants left 10,000 years ago by receeding glaciers.

The lighthousewhich no longer operates, sits on the edge of the granite shoreline and dominates the landscape. About 50 residents still live here, earning their living from the sea and no doubt now supplemented by the odd tourist dollar.

As we walked back down the hill to where the car was parked, the rain which had been threatening became a reality, so we were a bit lucky - had managed a lovely walk around before both the rain and the tourist hordes arrived (funny how you always think of yourself as some special type of tourist when you are travelling!). If you put these two photos together, you get some notion of the view across Peggy's Cove from the road in:

From here we decided to take the much longer coastal route to Lunenburg, another much larger historic fishing community and we were so glad that we had, despite the rain. We drove in and out of so many beautiful sheltered villages with lovely old houses and shanties, white sand beaches and bays with rugged shorelines and innumerable islands that we were just amazed. This certainly provided the pictures of Nova Scotia that we had imagined!

We passed through Mahone Bay, another historic seacoast town and what a collection of magnificent old wooden houses and churches, then continued on our way to Lunenburg. Here is the view across Mahone Bay to the town with its three wooden churches:

 

By the time we reached Lunenburg the rain was more persistent and the pesky tourists had arrived in their droves - coachloads of them! We drove around the town, which is the South Shore's largest historic fishing village and certainly had plenty of brightly painted old buildings, but the number of people everywhere, the rain and the very 'touristy ' feel of the place made us decide that Mahone Bay was much more our sort of place and below are a couple of the absolutely gorgeous houses the town was full of:

Off we then drove the short distance back there for a walk around, a remarkably good coffee and our usual picnic lunch at the harbour. Luckily, the rain stopped while we were doing all of these things, so we were even more impressed with the place. From here we took the faster highway route back to Halifax, whereupon the rain started yet again and to add insult to injury, it became very foggy. Never mind, we thought - off to New York in the morning and the forecast for there was fantastic!

Sunday July 25th

Time for an update before we head off to New York tomorrow morning, where we are assuming we will be too busy for such pursuits.
Just to go backwards for a bit before I go forwards! Our first night on Cape Breton Island on July 20th was just incredible. We stayed with a lovely lady at a tiny place called Creignish on the west coast, who had converted a former school into the bed and breakfast and it was an absolute treasure trove of art work, found stuff from the beach and, more importantly from our point of view, she was a real environmentalist and attracted a great range of birds and animals to a feeding area (we know - this is not really the proper thing to do, but it did give us a close look at some things we would otherwise not have seen!). As soon as we arrived we spied a couple of Red Squirrels and didn't even make it inside before Sandra came out and we had great discussions about what was around.

She also had Chipmunks (a lovely surprise for us) which came sliding up out of the profusion of plants surrounding her house.

Then there were the birds! A family of Blue Jays entranced us with their beautiful colours and patterns and were such busy, busy birds.

Even better were the Red-throated Hummingbirds. What a delight - those wings are just a blur and they dart around like tiny jet fighters. It is almost impossible to believe that each winter these tiny birds fly all the way down to and then across the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean.

Finally, we saw a Common Grackle - what a great name! This was another beautiful bird, with a fabulous purple sheen all around the throat.

What a night and thank goodness for the Lonely Planet and their recommendations!
Just to continue the biodiversity report, on Friday we did an Atlantic Puffin tour on a converted lobster boat from Englishtown. As Murray pointed out in his last post, when I was a kid Puffins were my favourite birds so I was very excited. We travelled seven nautical miles out to the Bird Islands, through some fairly lumpy seas and as soon as we arrived the Grey Seals popped up to check us out:

At first we saw lots of Sea Eagles perched in overhangs on the island, which was pretty exciting too.

There were lots of Puffins and Razorbills on the sea, which didn't afford us too close a look as they were very wary of us getting too near, but I took loads and loads of photos anyway, hoping a few would come out and did manage to get one of a Puffin floating and one flying which were well-focussed enough to crop. so here they are. I was amazed how tiny Puffins are - only about 150mm tall. Their wings are very short too, but beat at an amazing 300 beats per minute, which is why they can fly at some 85kph.
Murray also managed to take a photo of a Bald-headed Eagle too, so here that is as well! We have to tell you all about our trip down to Peggy's Cove and Lunenburg too, but that will have to be a new blog as we have discovered that if we try and write too much, it all gets very difficult to correct the text and insert photos without doing a lot of swearing and unpleasantness so in the interests of family harmony, I'll finish here!

Thursday July 22nd

I'm sitting at the breakfast table trying to think of what to write and all the time my eye is drawn to the view of White Point harbour, which is directly in front of us. How I'm supposed to write anything at all, let alone anything sensible when faced with scenes like this, is incomprehensible!

I don't kow what I expected to find in Nova Scotia, but the southern part was not much different to New Brunswick. However, that all changed fairly dramatically once we entered the Cape Breton Highlands National Park, on Cape Breton Island, as you can see from this photo taken just after we started travelling along the western part of the park - you can see the road winding up the side of the mountains.

 Most of the beaches are rocky, beautiful with round reddish rocks interspersed with small, sandy beaches.
Another surprise has been the temperature of the water. It is a hell of a lot warmer than Melbourne! I expect this is just a summer phenomenon, as I can't imagine the water being anything other than freezing in winter. Still, I took advantage of it and had a lovely swim. Apparently Leatherback Turtles frequent these waters in the summer, although I didn't come across one - there were quite a few large, purple jellyfish though.
Whale watching is very big business here, although it's a little early for humpbacks yet and the operators appear to be doing a roaring trade taking folk out to see minke and fin whales. Lobster fishing is by far the major industry on Cape Breton Island and every small bay has a jetty and a small fleet of lobster and crabbing boats.
On the way to White Point we stopped and did a couple of walks, one along a highland peat bog trail, which had heaps of beautiful wildflowers, including lots of large insectivorous Pitcher plants. Heather informed me that you can buy these plants at home but she had no idea that they originated from areas such as this - she assumed they were more tropical.

 I also spotted a large Green Frog (its proper name!) sunning itself on the edge of a small pond and it obliged our photo-taking mania by staying put whilst we changed lenses on the camera, so here is the evidence:

Not far from here we saw our first moose, which fortunately didn't charge our car - it was much too busy eating the new growth on the bushes along the roadside.  We could only really see its head, but I risked life and limb to get this shot for you all!

Interestingly, all of the major highways in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick that we have travelled on have extensive moose fencing as they are a major cause of road accidents and deaths and in fact today's news has reported the death of a farmer who collided with a moose. Apparently they crave salt and in the winter time come to the roadsides to lick the salt that has washed off after it is applied to reduce snow and ice.
Today brought an end to the dream run of weather we have had to date. Yes - it actually rained nearly all day and the temperature dropped by about 10C. Still pleasant, but I suspect we will want more than just the sheet on the bed tonight. Did play havoc with our sightseeing, as we went up to the topof the island around the Bay St Lawrence and the towering cliffs and mountains dont look quite the same through a veil of rain and mist. Neverthless, here is look at Meat Cove beach:

Donned the raincoat this afternoon after our chowder and fish lunch and went for a walk along the coast of the headland behind the b and b, where I got a close-up look at two bald eagles - a juvenile and an adult. Also to my surprise, I watched some Northern Gannets diving for fish. I thought we had a monopoly on them in Australia and NZ. I terminated the walk when the track went into the bush and after about ten minutes I started to think about Bill Bryson and his stories about bears in his book, A Walk in the Woods.
The phone has chosen the least opportune to give up, for if something doesn't have scales or require a rope lashing, there is absolutely zero chance of getting it seen to or replaced on this part of Cape Breton Island.
Tomorrow is a big day for Heff. We are off on a Puffin boat tour and Puffins were Heff's favourite bird as a child, which undoubtedly explains a lot about her!

Monday July 19th

The journey continues! Left Quebec city on Sunday morning, picked up our hire car at the airport and headed north east along the southern shore of the St Lawrence River. Here ensued much discussion as I continued to exclaim about how huge the river is and Murray continued to point out that the blokes on the cruise on Saturday had called it the St Lawrence Seaway, so of course it is huge! Whatever it is properly called, it is enormous and each view across to the northern side provoked another exclamation to that effect.
At Riviere du Loup (Wolf River for all our monolingual friends!) we turned south east and began the journey towards New Brunswick, the border of which is just before Edmundston. Just after Edmundston the landscape changed as we entered the northern end of the Appalachian Mountains (I had no idea they continued this far north) and the surroundings became much more undulating and rocky, although not mountainous. Trees covered most of the area through which we were travelling so it was just a sea of different greens, with the occasional large river and lake - very beautiful.
We eventually made it to Woodstock, the oldest incorporated town in New Brunswick (1856), although it was actually founded in the 1780s. The town is at the junction of the St John and Meduxnekeag Rivers (I am sure you don't need to know that, I just love the name) and the bed and breakfast we stayed in was gorgeous - built in 1878 and restored by its present owners. Another of the old timber houses I keep being astounded by, as you can see here:

This morning we continued on through New Brunswick and travelled down to the coast of the Bay of Fundy at St. Andrews. This town is reputedly the oldest resort town in North America and was founded in 1783. More remarkable old wooden buildings - we just want to keep taking photographs! We also found some very nice coffee here - another major achievement. If you look carefully you can see me in the corner enjoying said coffee surrounded by said old wooden buildings:

The Bay of Fundy has the distinction of having the highest tides in the world, with the largest differences of 10 to 15 metres between high and low tides being at the eastern end of the Bay. At St Andrews the difference is between 7 and 8 metres and this photo Murray took of the wharf at low tide this morning shows this very graphically:

 

Next 'port' of call was St George, the 'Granite Town' into which we went to track the falls, gorge and fish ladder you can see here - very picturesque indeed.

From here we decided to go via Blacks Harbour because I pointed out to Murray that it is the home of the world's largest sardine industry and we thought we might be able to purchase some nice fresh sardines. Wrong! We found the processing plant but unlike many other things around, it wasn't picturesque, just large. We did however find a bargain 'case' of sardines in the local supermarket (along with a second hand knife and fork to eat them with) - just $10.95 for 18 cans. Murray is going to have such fun and here he is making a start on them when we stopped for lunch overlooking New River Beach:

Thought it time we made for St Martins, which we duly proceeded to do, arriving there about 4 oçlock. Found our bed and breakfast, checked in and met Barb and Mike so after moving our gear in we headed off for a look around. I had already taken some photos from our balcony to see if we could see the tide movement. Drove down to the harbour to see the fishing boats, and Murray discovered from some locals working on one of the boats that the lobster season is closed. Apart from the fishing boats, which are always gorgeous, we were entranced by the covered bridges, of which there are 73 still standing in New Brunswick.  Accoding to Barb they were also called 'Kissing Bridges' as that was the local lads took their girls for their first kiss, hoping, as Barb said, "that Daddy woudn't see them and shoot him". We aren't sure of the reason for the covering - Barb thinks it was to protect the bridge from ice. Anyway, here to finish off is a view of the harbour and the larger of the two covered bridges over the Irish River, with the pedestrian walkway with its 'windows' evident:

Saturday July 17th

A quick report from Quebec before we start our journey to Nova Scotia via New Brunswick.
We arrived here yesterday morning after a ninety minute flight from Toronto and even though we had done our due diligence research, we were totally unprepared for just how amazing the Old City of Quebec is. It was founded in 1608 by Samuel de Champlain and Vieux-Quebec (Old Quebec for you mono-linguals) was proclaimed a 'world heritage site'by UNESCO in 1985. Here endeth the history lesson, except for a couple of relevant bits of information as I go on about street after street of beautiful old buildings.
We have walked and walked up and down cobbled streets and stairs and still feel as if we have missed heaps of things. This weekend was the last weekend in teh Quebec Summer Festival so it has been even busier than I imagine it would anyway be at this time of year.
So . . . back to the beginning! Even though we like to think we undertook the necessary plotting and planning before booking bed and breakfast accomodation for our jaunts, you can never be sure! We were, however delighted to find that we had done very well in choosing Manoir Sur le Cap for our stay here, as it is in the Old City and close to Chateau Frontenac(which we knew)but it has worked out even better than we had dared hope in terms of location and ease of access. Below is a photo looking down towards the St. Lawrence River from the front door:

We are on the top floor (which was a bit of a challenge for Murray who had to lug our cases up a charming old winding staircase), with a little balcony which has a view across to the St Lawrence River. Given that there were so many tourists around, we decided to gather up the necessary wine and food for tea last night and tonight and eat on our balcony whilst listening to the music emanating from the nearby outdoor concert venue (last night we got to hear the Black Eyed Peasand I am not sure who we have been listening to tonight). Here is Murray tucking into last night's 'picnic'

Just to set the scene properly, here is photo of the Chateau Frontenac, probably Quebec's most well-known building, which was commenced in 1892 and built in seven stages between then and 1893. It was finally completed in 1924 when the central  tower was built. If you were to walk along the front of the three buildings in the foreground and then turn left at the trees, you would be just four buildings away from our bed and beakfast.

Today we went for a boat ride on the St. Lawrence River, which gave us some fabulous views of the Old City and the Place Royale. To catch the boat we had to go down from Cap Diamont to Place Royal. Down here also is Quartier Petit Champlain, to which one walks by going down the Breakneck Staircase. In 1608 this was a small portside village. The restored narrow streets are just gorgeous and the Rue de Petit Champlain, below, is the oldest merchant street in North America:

By now I am presuming you have a feel for just how much we have enjoyed our short time in Quebec City and as the next band has started playing across the way and I have an awful feeling I am going to find their stye of music a little discordant, I might finish here (to access the internet here we have to sit out on the balcony) and go inside.  Will leave you with one last image of Old Quebec and sign off.

   

Thursday July 15

Heff has finally relented and let me have a go after more than a week of pleading!

Today we spent largely relaxing and looking around Toronto. Nothing more strenuous than lunch in the old distillery district followed by a visit to St Lawrence market to secure the 'fixings'for tonight's dinner.

The weather is glorious, although that view isn't unanamous as some amongst us are finding it a bit too humid. The contrast between when I was here in January and now is nothing less than startling. Then it was bleak and freezing and everyone was huddling indoors out of the inclement weather. The exact opposite is the case now, with what appears to be half the populace either eating outdoors or simply strolling around enjoying the weather.

Yesterday we went to Niagara Falls. The morning started with the Maid of the Mist boat ride - the photo below shows the boat in under the Horseshoe Falls, which is the Canadian part of Niagara Falls.

It was hard not to think how much benefit just one day's flow over the falls would do for our rivers! The place was pretty busy but not as crowded as I had feared. Actually they are pretty good at managing big numbers of people. Kate and I visited the falls in January and not surprisingly there weren't many people about then, nor was there the amount of water cascading over the falls. I tried to replicate the photo I took in January when it was SO cold. This time we had a frozen yogurt for lunch, the last time we had soup and we didn't know whether to eat it or put our hands in it!

Later in the afternoon we had a wander around Niagara on the Lake, a very pretty and well-preserved town just down from the Falls. There were many beautiful old buildings, such the Prince Edward Hotel below. It was, of course absolutely swamped with tourists and I fail to comprehend how the locals put up with their town being over-run for the entire summer.

Since the Niagara region is a renowned wine-growing area we managed to sample a little of their wares. The reds, or at least what was passed off as cab sav was pretty ordinary, however the whites were OK.
The most famous wine from this area is the Ice Wine, which is a desert wine and is very nice.

Kate knocked up yet another very passable feed for tea, so another very successful day was had by all!

Tuesday July 13th

Here we are again in a not sunny but very humid Toronto!  We have been here two days now and we are, of course, enjoying seeing Kate and Derek no end.

But . . . quickly back to Chicago, which we enjoyed far more than we ever imagined and have decided, not entirely surprisingly, that one day is nowhere near enough to do it justice.  The boat tour was terrific and we were almost as impressed with the guide's ability to talk non-stop for an hour and a half as we were with her knowledge and the architecture itself. Many of the buildings were just magnificent and seeing them from the Chicago River was great.  This photo shows two of the most impressive - the Wrigley Building on the left and the Tribune Tower on the right, with the Chicago River and the Michigan Bridge in front.

We also spent some time in Millennium Park in which there was an arts festival over the weekend, so it was very busy with all sorts of exciting things.  An orchestra was playing in the impressive outdoor theatre and lots of visitors were enjoying the amazing Cloudscape sculpture, a huge bean-shaped mirror sculpture in which the city skyline reflects, as you can see in this photo (with Murray carefully positioned in front!)

Now, back to Toronto! It is very hot and humid here, so Murray is thriving.  We have had a bit of a look around - wandered around Chinatown yesterday and today we visted the Art Gallery of Ontario, where our very favourite work was a series of sculptures in which the artists had carved into the timber to expose the "original" tree within.  This photo shows the best  - a pieceof tree trunk in which the inner tree has been exposed. It is truly amazing!

And here is something for my "green" friends! In the streets of Chinatown I have seen the best ever solution to recycling old cars and here it is:

And for all the rellies and friends, here is a photo of Kate and Murray in the kitchen of Derek and Kate's apartment! Tomorrow we are off to Niagara so eventually I am sure we will provide an awe-inspiring account of that trip. Murray is really looking forward to seeing the difference as he last visited there with Kate in January and things were considerably more icy and cold than we are hoping for tomorrow!