Ontario, Canada

Montreal across the St Lawrence River
Montreal
Ottawa City Architecture

Chipmunk in Back Yard

Enjoying Lake Huron

After we left Quebec City we drove past Montreal and were amazed at how large the city appeared from the opposite bank which was our vantage point across the St Lawrence River. The metropolitan population is around 3.6 mil, which is less than the population of Melbourne, Australia, but for some reason the city skyline seemed larger.

We then spent 5 very enjoyable days with our friend Judy who lives on the outskirts of Ottawa. She has a huge paved driveway beside her home where we park the RV within a few steps of her back door. We connected to water and electricity and just used our RV to sleep in at night. The US Open Golf was on for 4 days of our stay, and while Murray spent many pleasurable hours watching the golf (for those hours it wasn’t washed out with rain in New York), Judy shared her time between watching the golf with Murray, and teaching me some new beading techniques – she is the person who got me started on beading in the first place! She also took me to one of her monthly Beaders Association meetings in Ottawa which was very enjoyable – each member brings along something she has beaded to share with the group. You get some really good ideas that way. One of the members has a bead business and brings along her wares – she has a wonderful selection of tiny seed beads and sold quite a lot that day…say no more! She also took me to a few of her bead haunts – why am I so attracted to those small shiny round beads?? We had beautiful spring weather each day of our stay – there was one day we had a few spits of rain, but nothing to write home about. I had many pleasurable moments watching the birds and chipmunks frolic in her freshly mowed, lush, green back yard .

Westward ho! Time to check out western Ontario and roads we have not travelled before. The roadside was peppered with beautiful wildflowers including colourful lupins, and there were numerous lakes and rivers to keep the drive interesting and our views spectacular. No deer or moose to be seen, but we did see a fox scamper across the road plus a small family of 5 baby brown furry animals clustered on the edge of the road – it looked as though the mother was killed in the other lane, and the babies were hovering about. We couldn’t work out what they were – like a baby wombat, but dark brown. Hmmm?? At the time we came upon them, there was a police car that had been sitting on our tail for miles and was finally overtaking us, so we had taken our eye off the road scenery right at that crucial time and just saw the animals at the last minute.

We are now at a campground on the banks of beautiful Lake Huron. It is the second largest of the five Great Lakes of North America (the largest being Lake Superior) and is bound by Ontario and Michigan. The water is so clear, and cool and not as cold as I expected it to be. If it was a really hot day, I would have been tempted to go for a swim. Although it had been 32C earlier today, by the time we walked along the lake edge at 4.30pm, it was already a pleasant 26 C. Needs to be above 30 C for me to go swimming – well, except for the day Joe Bill, Sandy & I ventured into the surf in Bondi Beach, Sydney!