Thursday August 5th

As unbelievable as it is, we have almost finished our time here in Toronto, so before we head west to Vancouver this afternoon, we will give a quick outline of our activities here since arriving from New York last Thursday.
It has, of course been wonderful to again spend time with Kate and Derek and to take advantage of their very pleasant apartment to catch up with boring things like washing! The weather has continued to be fantastic, maybe a little too humid at times for Heff, but perfect for those of us with a touch of lizard. It is certainly a far cry from the weather Murray experienced here during his visit in January.

Kate and I last week decided that given our limited opportunities to stumble across a Polar Bear, Reindeer or Arctic Wolf in the areas we will all be visiting on our respective trips around Canada and further, given our very limited sightings of moose and grizzly bears (just as well probably!)to date, a trip to the Toronto Zoo was warranted. We were of the view that seeing in them in this environment was better than not seeing them at all. The three polar bears at the Zoo are all rescued, orphaned cubs so we did our best to ease our consciences about the ethics of zoos and headed off with Derek and Murray for what turned out to be a very long trip to the Zoo via subway, train and bus. The Polar Bears and Grizzly Bears were truly beautiful animals and we were lucky enough to watch the Polar Bears swimming from the underwater observation area and what superbly graceful animals they are in the water. We did, of course, take loads of photos, so here are a couple of our favourites. As you can see, Kate and Derek also watched one of the Grizzlies playing in the water:

Murray and I continued exploring parts of Toronto we had not yet visited, such as The Beaches, an area east of the city which has an extensive beach area along the shores of Lake Ontario. Given that the weather continues to be very hot here in Toronto, it is understandably popular, although for those of us who have been spoilt by the beautiful beaches we have access to at home, the water looked less than inviting. In fact when Murray headed off with the swimmers, Kate told him "I wouldn't swim in Lake Ontario!"
The highlight of our time back here though has been a two day trip Kate, Murray and I took up to The 1000 Islands (Derek had to work so he could not join us) on Monday and Tuesday.We hired a car and drove the 270kms to a little town called Gananoque, from which we took a two and a half hour boat cruise around the islands. There are really about 1,800 islands despite the name, located in the St Lawrence River (or Seaway as it is called in some parts as large, ocean-going ships are able to negotiate parts) between Kingston and Brockville. It is an amazing area, with many of the islands (some of which are very small) being privately owned and having incredible holiday homes and boathouses built on them. The US/Canadian border runs along the St. Lawrence at this point, so the islands are shared about 50:50 between the two countries.

 

One of the most amazing 'homes' is Boldt Castle, a full size Rhineland castle with its own incredible boathouse, built on Heart Island by George C. Boldt, millionaire owner of the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in New York as a display of love for his wife Louise. Construction began in 1900, but was sadly brought to a halt by Boldt when Louise died suddenly in 1904. He never returned to the island and the castle is now owned by the Thousand Island Bridge Authority.

This would be a magical area to explore over a week or two on your own boat. Dreams! Dreams! Dreams!








So now we are about to fly away to the other side of Canada. We are, of course, very sad to be leaving Kate and Derek, but they have some exciting trips coming up, so the timing is perfect. Kate's best friend Claire arrived last night from Australia and they are off to New York for a few days next week, before meeting up with Derek in San Francisco for some adventures on the US west coast. We will look forward to seeing Kate and Derek back home at the end of the year, by which time we will all have seen and experienced many more wonderful places. Enjoyed our last night together at a lovely French restaurant close to where Derek and Kate live and we managed to eat one of the native animals (elk tenderloins, which were very tasty indeed and brought Murray a little closer to his desire to eat a moose!)