Canada: Lions & Tigers & Bears, Oh My!

Hola! I'm currently enjoying a few days of almost-laziness in Hamilton, about an hour from Toronto. I figured I've been on the go almost non-stop since I left the UK nearly 6 weeks ago, so I should probably just slow down for a bit. Hamilton's a fairly quiet place and the hostel I'm in only takes 10 guests, so I have the place almost to myself. Very nice.

Anyway, I should probably get back to updating what I've been up to since last week, shouldn't I? Yeah. That's probably a good idea.

The sparrows are up to something...

Having just said that I haven't really stopped since I left the UK, I must admit that's a little bit of a fib, since I spent most of last Saturday sitting in Queen's Park in Toronto reading. It was a lovely sunny day, much too hot to be doing much walking around, so I took myself and my tablet to the park and spent a few hours reading and people watching. Really peaceful, although I did feel oddly guilty about not doing any exploring. How strange.

Stuff the Panda, Save the Salamander

Fortunately, any annoyance that my travel brain might have had with me for not exploring was made up for on Sunday when I went to the zoo. This first meant I had to negotiate Toronto's public transport system, helped by the friendly man at the subway station who gave me very clear instructions as to which trains and buses to take.

Nearly 2 hours later, having taken a bus that very much felt like it was a "local bus for local people", I arrived at the zoo. What else to say? I spent all day there, somehow managed not to get sunburnt or dehydrated and generally squee'd at all the animals. Like this Panamanian Golden Frog, a species that might be extinct in the wild (but I'm not going to rant about that again...)

I also saw an otter (species not remembered) which I'm pretty sure was exhibiting stress/boredom behaviours. Y'know, swimming around the same circuit again. And again. And again. Much to the delight of the other visitors, much to my concern.

Also a beautiful lion pride. These guys are a white colour morph - they're not albinos, it's just a variant. Like having blonde versus brown hair. Beautiful colour and this guy was just asking to be photographed.

Orangutans are a favourite of mine and my dad's, so just for him, here's the really cruddy photos I managed of the rangy tangles.

I also got the pleasure of seeing one of the keepers doing training with a Sumatran Tiger. The tiger, called Harry, managed to do sit, down and up, but seemed to be having trouble with "open". I wondered if it was a new command he was learning and if the crowd hadn't been so huge, I wanted to ask the keeper about it. Ah well.

Aaaaand, that has helpfully not turned the right way. You might need to watch it sideways...

What else? The zoo's pretty huge and there were so many amazing animals I'm not sure what to include here. Especially since half of the things I find interesting, most people don't. Like that frog up there.

Oh, this grizzly bear trying to eat an apple. Because it made me smile.

The only things I don't have photos of that I think others might have liked are the pandas. I don't expecially like pandas. Yes, they are threatened by habitat destruction, but they're also an evolutionary dead end - seriously, they are bears that exclusively eat a plant that even herbivores would struggle to digest. Toronto Zoo currently has a panda pair and they've recently had cubs. I'm sure they're very cute, but I wasn't willing to spend an hour and half queuing to see an animal that I have such a bad opinion of. There are other animals just as deserving of the amount of money ploughed into panda conservation that don't get it because they're not appealling. Like that frog up there. Again.

Rant over. I think that's quite enough about the zoo now, don't you think? Oh, I should point out that the "stuff the panda, save the salamander" comment is from the brilliant zoologist Lucy Cooke, also known as the Amphibian Avenger and founder of the popular Slothville blog.

I'M ON A BUS! AGAIN!

The next day I had yet another bus trip to look forward to. I'm getting good at these. I'm even getting good at dealing with the irritation when the bus is delayed for an hour. How very dare it? Especially since I spent that hour standing in the yard at the bus terminal in 30 degree heat with a whole load of bus exhausts being grotty around me. Eww.

Anyway, the bus finally arrived and I made it, somewhat later than planned, to Niagara, on the border with the US. According to my notes, I spent a large part of the evening laughing at the angry man who the front desk refused to check in because he had no ID. Evidently, this was an uneventful day. That's the problem with all these buses - I get on the bus thinking I'll do some exploring when I get to my destination. Then I get off the bus and I just want to sit down with a cuppa  and a book and then go to bed. I don't know what they pump into the air con on those things, but they make me sleepy.

It's like Blackpool but more interesting

Lethargy was out of the window the next morning, no matter how much I really wanted to stay in bed. I've been to Niagara before and I know how busy it gets, so I planned on getting into town fairly early before the crowds got too mad. First stop, the classic boat trip into the mists at the base of Horseshoe Falls.

Very quick geography lesson: the Niagara River forms the border between the US and Canada in this area. Horseshoe Falls are on the Canadian side, American Falls are on the US side. Horseshoe Falls are the bigger of the two and the one that all the boats focus on. Because the Canadians obviously have the better falls...

Anyhoo, here is me in my snazzy red mist poncho waiting to get on the boat. I should mention that it was already pushing 30 degrees at this point (about 11am) so those plastic ponchos are like being in a greenhouse.

Fortunately, almost as soon as the boat sets off, you get attacked by spray and mist, so all is good. Here we are in the mist at the base of the falls.

Hard to get a sense of scale on that, so here's one I took from the top later in the day with another of the boats for scale.

And here's American Falls looking stunning.

I spent about an hour after that sitting in the cafe behind the dock, people watching. Most relaxing after spending so long standing in the queue myself. Nicely chilled and rehydrated, I headed a bit further along towards the falls to re-visit another attraction, the "Journey Behind the Falls". Basically, when the town was first building up, someone thought it would be a great idea to dig a tunnel so that you could see the falls from behind. Turned out to be awesome, although the original tunnel now opens out into a viewing deck next to the falls because the river has eroded so far back in the 100+ years since the tunnel was built.

Pretty awesome being able to stand that close to such a huge torrent of water. Anyway, they've dug some more tunnels since then, so you can still go in and see the back of the falls. Not that there's much to see.

Nice wall of white you've got there. The noise is incredible though, and hey, I had to show off the snazzy yellow poncho I got to replace the red one from the boat. I totally have not kept the yellow poncho. Nope. Definitely not...

Having somehow managed not to get too soggy, I made my way back to the surface and further along the river away from the crowds. Found myself a nice peaceful spot to have lunch.

Right next to the first Canadian owned hydro-electric plant on the river. It looks like a stately home. They should open it as a museum or something - I'd love to see inside there.

After the hour or so walk back to the hostel and a leisurely tea, I headed north out of the hostel to see if I could find the whirlpool area of the river. Which I did, but the undergrowth next to the path is so thick it's hard to get a good view. And no, I was not willing to pay nearly $20 to take a ride on the Aero Car which would've given me a great view. Niagara is expensive and I figured I'd already spent enough for the day on the boat and the tunnels.

You can still just about make out the whirlpool in the bottom left. Plus the walk was lovely. Following the walk up to the whirlpool, I grabbed my Gorillapod from the hostel and headed back into town. Both falls are lit up every night and I wanted to see if I could get some good shots. I succeeded.

I'm so proud of that photo. I think it's probably my favourite of the trip so far. Shows what I can do when I actually think about the settings on my camera instead of just pointing and clicking.

Overall, I think I made the most of my one day at Niagara!

Relaxation? What's that?

Good job I did, because the next morning I had to get a horribly early bus to my next destination. I still don't remember why I booked such an early bus. Maybe it was the cheapest? At any rate, I was back on the bus at 7:50am, a bus which was by some stroke of luck running on time despite having come across from the US and therefore presumeably having to stop at the border.

One change of buses (seriously, why did I book this bus? There are direct buses from Niagara to Hamilton...) and about 4 hours later (seriously?!) I arrived in the city of Hamilton, which is between Toronto and Niagara (and thus makes it ridiculous that I had to get a bus back to Toronto to then get another bus to Hamilton...)

It was much too warm in Hamilton and after such a long day in Niagara the day before, I decided I was going to relax. Which meant planning the next steps of my trip and freaking out about accommodation in Yellowstone. Fortunately I also decided to treat myself to some cheap donuts and Coke (I've pretty much just been drinking tea and water since June...). It is ridiculous how much joy I got from that.

My travel brain is guilt tripping me

Having had a look at what there is in Hamilton, I've decided to take my dad's advice and use the couple of days I have here to just chill out for a bit. I couldn't stop entirely though, because for some reason my brain likes to make me feel guilty if I just sit around for a few hours doing nothing travel related. So yesterday I visited Dundurn Castle in the afternoon having spent the morning catching up with random bits of news and finishing a book. And writing most of this post.

Dundurn Castle is, I suspect, one of the oldest surviving buildings in Hamilton. It was completed in 1835 and was, at the time, the largest home in the city. It's not a castle. It's more like a stately home.

Harold had to dive in there and hide the annoying crowd of people in the corner. Anyway, it's certainly trying to be stately. The interiors have been restored to what they would have been like in 1855, which means fancy wallpaper and plush furnishings upstairs.

I was more interested in the downstairs areas and that's totally nothing to do with the free food on offer down there... Definitely not.

So many preserves! And there were nice fresh veggies on offer in the kitchen for dunking. And pickled beetroot (which is one of my favouritest things, oddly). I discovered kohlrabi is actually quite nice. Mm. Hey, I'm on a budget - I'm not going to turn down free food, even if it is just nibbles.

After my guided tour of the house I went to check out the kitchen garden, which is absolutely beautiful but made me really miss my own garden, so I had to run away.

I finished my visit with a quick trip to the Hamilton Military Museum. Fascinating little place and I really wish I'd spent more time there. As it is, I rather rushed round. Ah well.

At least with my urge to explore satisfied for a while, I managed to spend the rest of the day chilling out at the hostel.

I'm on a boat!

Today, on my final full day in Hamilton, I have once again failed to do nothing all day. Instead, I had a lazy morning and then went down to the bay to explore HMCS Haida. Haida's the last surviving Tribal-class destroyer out of the original 27 built. She saw service in the Second World War and then again in Korea.

It cost me less than $4 and you get to see pretty much the entire ship, including the engine room which just had way too many things I wanted to touch...

Fortunately I resisted the urge to work out how to make it go (which clearly wouldn't have worked even if I'd tried...). On my walk home I spotted this excellent sign outside a church.

I agree - it is too warm. I think I'm getting used to it though. It's pushing 30 degrees again in Hamilton today and yet I didn't feel too disgusting after walking around for an hour.

I am also making slow improvement on my social skills - staying in hostels helps, because you're almost guaranteed to end up talking to one of your fellow guests. This is great, because it means I now have even more suggestions of things to see and do on my trip. Hurrah!

I've also been taking part in Camp NaNoWriMo again this month and I've taken these last couple of days as an added bonus to get more writing done. I wanted to see whether I would have the time to take part in the main NaNoWriMo event come November. Well, I've written over 25,000 words so far without even trying too hard, so I'll take that as a yes. Roll on November and yet another attempt to "overachieve" - that is, to write more than the 50,000 word standard goal.

Yes, I have weird life goals. I don't care.

Anyway, on Saturday I'll be boarding a train bound for Winnipeg. I'll arrive there on Monday, spend a few days recovering and exploring, before re-boarding the train to Edmonton. After another few days there, I'll get back on the train for a final time to take me to Vancouver.

That makes it sound like my Canadian adventure is coming to an end. No worries - I've got until the end of August yet! 

Canada: Don't panic!

Woo, I've survived another week. It's been an interesting one and for the first time in a few weeks I've been in more than 2 cities over the week. Here's what's been going on.

The museum overload continues

Following a week where I pretty much went to a different museum every day, I went to a few more, beginning with the National Gallery of Canada. There, I started with the very small section of comtemporary Inuit art, given that the main Aboriginal art area was closed for refurbishment or something.

Some of these bone carvings are amazing. I mean, look at this.

Little bit in love with these things. Out of the rest of the gallery, I think the most amazing part was the reconstructed interior of the Rideau Street Convent Chapel. The gallery on the whole was pretty quiet, but I got this little gem to myself for at least 10 minutes. So peaceful.

From the National Gallery and intent on making the most of my museum pass, I headed just round the corner to the Royal Canadian Mint and took a little guided tour round the factory. They only make investment and collectable coins here - the main mint operation is based out in Winnipeg (maybe I'll see if I can visit that one in a week or so). Huge rolls of gold and silver were spotted - the silver rolls were worth about $20 million if I recall correctly or was that the gold? I should have made a note.

Unfortunately no photos allowed, presumeably for secutiry reasons. I also managed to really show up my Englishness when the guide got onto talking about which way round the monarch faces on coins - i.e when we get a new monarch, they face the opposite direction to their predecessor. Everyone's there going "oh, yeah, right, interesting" and my brain just goes, "you're missing someone. Why are those two facing the same way? Ohhh..."

At which point the guide goes "have you noticed anything strange about these faces?" and without thinking I pipe up "You're missing an Edward" and immediately go bright red for no apparent reason. Of course they're missing an Edward because Edward VIII abdicated before the Canadians had a chance to mint any coins with him on. But they kept with tradition so George VI is facing the same way as George V because Edward VIII should have been facing the other way.

Rambling over. Mint tour completed, I took a nice long break at the hostel before heading out later in the evening to see the light show at Parliament.

Very cool.

A potted history of Canada in about 30 minutes told through some amazing projections. And commentary, of course.

Lest We Forget

The following morning I took a stroll along the river path on my way to the Canadian War Museum.

Gorgeous weather and some lovely views. The museum also proved to be awesome. It's very in depth, covering the history of Canada's wars all the way from the first evidence of tribal warfare some 5,000 years ago right up to peacekeeping missions today.

The Memorial Hall was also lovely, although it would have been ever better if I hadn't walked in to two girls having a casual natter in it. They clearly weren't pleased that I'd interrupted them and I really wanted to make some comment about it being a memorial hall, y'know, for remembering and not for nattering. I resisted.

I spent the evening having a very long and rambling conversation with my dorm-mates at the hostel, courtesy of the WiFi being down. The WiFi needs to be down more often - people are so much more likely to talk to each other.

No worries - I set it off in the other building too...

I spent my final morning in Ottawa taking a couple of tours of the Parliament buildings. Very interesting, lots of history but I managed to set off the metal detectors in both of them. This is because I was wearing my walking boots which have metal fastenings. I would have worn my canvas shoes, but they were all packed up ready to take the bus to Kingston that afternoon. Bad move.

So, East Block houses some rooms decorated as they would have been in 1872. Lord Dufferin, the then Governor-General's office.

John A. MacDonald, the Prime Minister.

And George-Etienne Cartier, who was in charge of all sorts of important things, but on his untimely death was implicated in a massive bribery scandal to do with the Canadian-Pacific Railroad. As demonstrated by this cute toy train on his desk.

Centre Block is the building currently used by Parliament. More shinies, such as the library which was the only part of the block to survive the 1916 fire which destroyed everything else. I want this library.

And then there's the view from the Peace Tower, built as a later addition after the First World War.

Aaaand, then I had to go and get on a bus again. Uneventful bus journey was followed by a rather more eventful first night in Kingston. See, I booked an AirBnB. It would have been my first AirBnB stay. I hadn't received any communication from the host, which I thought seemed a bit odd, but figured maybe that's just how it worked and she'd meet me there.

I turned up at the address, knocked repeatedly, called the host and still couldn't get in. I also had a quick peek in the mailbox (and, as it later turned out, missed something important). No chance of getting in. Somehow I managed not to panic. Right, says I. What do we do now?

Find a Tim Hortons, says my brain.

Shut up, says the rest of my brain. I am not going to spend the night crying in a 24 hour Tim Hortons. I am a mature and responsible adult and I will find a way round this crappy situation. At which point, wandering towards the downtown area, I spotted a Holiday Inn. Great, I'm going to have to pay a stupid amount of money, but at least I'll have somewhere to sleep, I think.

So I go and ask the guys at the desk if they have anything available. I mention in passing that I'm asking so late at night because my AirBnB has gone tits up. The guys exchange a glance.

How much was your AirBnB? They ask.

Pretty cheap, I reply. To which, much to my surprise, they tell me that yes, they do have rooms available, but that I'd get a better deal round the corner at the Confederation Place Hotel. They even checked the price for me. I nearly cried at that because they could so easily have just charged me the higher price at their own hotel.

So I pootled round the corner to the Confederation and explained my predicament to the chap at the desk. Technically, he explained, they were fully booked for the night but they did have a room available that was for "emergencies". I have no idea what sort of emergencies they had in mind, but it suited my emergency just fine. He even let me check the room before I took it.

Huge room ahoy!

OK, it cost me about 4 times as much as my AirBnB room, but at least I had somewhere to sleep, free WiFi and breakfast was included to boot.

Bobbing along

I made the most of said breakfast the next morning before firing off a few messages to my mysteriously absent AirBnB host and another to a different host who looked to have a room available for my second night in Kingston. Second host got back to me within an hour, despite not normally taking same day bookings.

Achievement get: AIRBNB BOOKED.

I spent the morning enjoying the sunshine and taking a boat trip to the Thousand Islands which sit in the St Lawrence River which runs past Kingston.

Even got a glimpse of Lake Ontario in the distance.

Getting off the boat, I got to spend another hour sitting in the park enjoying some free live music. Celtic punk. Oh yeah.

I then had a late lunch at Morrison's Restaurant. I'm pretty sure this is the place I visisted with my parents the first time I was in Canada and it had amazing milkshakes. The milkshakes are still pretty amazing and so are the chips. Yum.

Proper milkshake. The sort you can stand a spoon in.

Aaaand, then I headed for my replacement AirBnB. Bryan, my host was there when I arrived and very welcoming even though my booking had taken him a bit by surprise. I didn't see him again after he left, but I did have his cat to keep me company.

Very fluffy, very demanding and very much in love with my boot laces. Having arrived so early, I wasn't sure what to do with myself all evening, so I took myself to Tim Hortons for the free WiFi at which point I found that my previously mysterious host from the night before had been in touch and was very apologetic. Looks like an email she normally sends guests to let them know how to get in, hadn't got to me. On top of this, if I'd taken a closer look in the mailbox, I would have found the key to the property and been able to let myself in and probably work out where I was supposed to be sleeping. Fortunately, she agreed to refund me, so all is sorted now. Yay.

All in a small town, Napanee

All this meant I slept very well in my nice private room, a first since I've been away. It even meant I was nearly fully awake when I got on the bus the next morning to head south to Toronto, passing Avril Lavigne's hometown on the way. I have no idea why I remembered that.

Toronto is... big. Very big. But it's also not as hectic as you'd imagine a city this size to be. Unfortunately, despite arriving quite early in the afternoon, I spent the rest of the day sitting in the hostel feeling sorry for myself having come down with a disgusting cold. As I write this, I am onto my fourth packet of tissues in 24 hours. Urgh.

Land of screaming children and sharks

I made up for that wasted afternoon by starting the next day bright and early. Although, I must admit that the early part was rather due to my disrupted sleep - woken up at 2am by the guy in the bunk under me crawling out of bed and throwing up. On the floor. Right next to my bag. Ewwwww.

Anyway, I dragged myself out of the hostel intent on exploring the city. It was pushing 30 degrees, so I decided against wandering around too much and instead tried to find somewhere indoors. I settled on the CN Tower.

Great views, but absolutely rammed with tourists. I did manage to get a photo through the glass floor, diving in for a minute as soon as there was space. I don't remember it being this busy last time...

It still being horribly hot when I stepped out of the tower, I headed next door into the aquarium. This was both awesome - they have sharks.

And cool jellyfish.

And I got to stroke both a very small bamboo shark and a horseshoe crab.

However, it was also rammed with screaming children. Urgh. Looks like everyone had had the same idea as me for avoiding the heat. Yuck.

After the aquarium, I thought it was probably a good idea to book my train tickets and promptly nearly had a heart attack at the cost. I'm so glad I budgetted for this, because I think I would have taken a bus otherwise, however long it took.

Fortunately, I then had a lovely evening chatting with my fellow hostellers about random crap. Hostels are awesome places - how often are you going to get English, American, Swiss, German, Lithuanian and New Zealanders all chatting together?

Pottery and dinos and minerals, oh my

I have spent today in the Royal Ontario Museum. I only meant to spend a few hours there and it turned into nearly 7. The museum is huge and covers a huge range of areas from anthropology and social history through to natural science. It's hard to pick highlights, but Harold was rather concerned that I was going to feed him to the Allosaurus.

Other interesing sections included a small selection of Ainu artefacts. The Ainu are an indigenous people from northern Japan and the Kuril Islands and while I've heard of them before, I don't think I've ever seen anything about them in a museum.

Oh, and I just about resisted the urge to sing Treguna mecoides trecorum satis dee at every single suit of armour I walked past. There were more than I expected.

Also, that particular chap had a pretty cool Mughal period recurve bow. Not that I have an unhealthy interest in medieval warfare or anything. It's just good research for fantasy writing. Like that makes it sound any better...

Basically, I had a great day geeking out about all sorts of things. Plus, I saw some black squirrels in the park on my walk back.

I still have a few more days in Toronto. After that, I'm heading down to Niagara, then Hamilton before embarking on my epic train ride across the country to Vancouver. Would you believe I still have over a month left in Canada?

Maybe I'll squish in a few more museums before then?

Canada: Museums galore!

Bonjour! Although, really, I should be back to saying hello now, since I'm back in anglophone Canada. To be precise, I'm in Ottawa, Ontario, capital of the country. It is disgustingly gloriously warm and sunny. I also have no more problems with language barriers. Hurrah. Here's what I've been up to since last week.

I'm English! I'm used to it!

In stark contrast to the current weather here in Ottawa, my time in Montreal began with rain. Lots of rain. Rain which just didn't stop. For about 24 hours. It drizzled a bit in the morning and I thought, this is fine. It's just drizzle. I'll go to a museum for a bit until it dries up.

So I went to the Chateau Ramezay, which is one of the oldest surviving buildings in the city. Very interesting. They have the first registered car in Quebec, with the helpful reg number Q1. See - that's how you know it's the first.

I also overheard an excellent conversation between an English couple in which one had completely messed up his French. Or rather, misunderstood something relatively obvious. OK, so there's a little display about medicine in part of the museum and the game is to try to match the cure to the illness. One of the illnesses was epilepsy, another malady was menstrual cramps. Yeah.

The English chap had clearly muddled the two up and thought he was being super clever in telling his girlfriend that, to his amusement, a French term for period was "grand mal". "Haha," he says, "they call it the big bad." Technically, yes, I suppose that is what grand mal means. Unfortunately for him, grand mal is also a type of seizure. It had nothing to do with the woman on her period. I wondered if I should tell him, but he clearly thought he was being super smart and I was sort of enjoying smirking at his misunderstanding.

Random aside aside, the museum was great. Unfortunately, by the time I emerged from it, the rain hadn't stopped. In fact, it had got heavier. Fine, I thought. I'm English. I can deal with a bit of rain. So off I went, striding out into the downpour. This isn't so bad, I thought, just a bit more drizzle.

I wasn't in such a good mood by the time I made it to Pointe-a-Calliere. I was dripping. Actually dripping, to the point that there was a small puddle on the floor around my feet by the time I paid for my ticket.

Fortunately for me, Pointe-a-Calliere is a pretty big place. It's the museum of archaeology and history in Montreal and includes some exposed archaeology in the basement. Said exposed areas include the earliest cemetary in the city, dating back to the time of the first settlement there.

The museum also currently has an excellent exhibition of equestrian related things, courtesy of Hermes in Paris. Yes, that's Hermes who make the bags, but they began (and continue) as a saddler and as such have a huge collection of horsey things. Very cool.

And then, finally, it stopped raining. I had mostly dried off by then and I figured, instead of risking staying out and getting soaked again, I'd head back to the hostel. Woo. I live such a thrilling life.

What on earth is he doing to that goat?!

My second day in Montreal was dry, much to my relief. I spent a large part of it at the Musee des Beaux-Arts, at the suggestion of Renee who I met a couple of weeks back in Digby. They have the most amazing Pompeii exhibition on at the moment. Plenty of interesting bits, including this egg pan.

Yep, the Romans got there first. This rude statue, which was in a little room with a lot of other equally (and some even more) rude things.

Yeah, that was probably at the less rude end. There was a big statue in the middle of the room of Pan copulating with a goat. Yup. Romans.

Anyhoo, the exhibition also has some of the body casts. Pompeii has been on my bucket list for a while, but I figure seeing these guys will tide me over for now.

Although, it's probably not great that my first thought on seeing them was "holy crap, Weeping Angels!"

The museum also has a great section dedicated to African and Islamic art. They're not huge collections, but there were some beautiful pieces. Like this bowl from... Iran? I think?

I love the colours. And in the African section, this odd statue made by the Dogon people of Mali.

I see trees of green. Red roses too...

The next day was also beautifully sunny. I had initially planned on walking up Mont Royal and taking in the views of the city, but... I had a 3 day pass for the Metro and I figured I might as well make use of it. So instead I headed up to the Botanical Gardens.

The Gardens are right next to the 1976 Olympic Stadium, but I wasn't really interested in that. I figured I'd spend a few hours roaming the gardens and then head back to the city for some more exploration.

I ended up spending all day there. The gardens are huge and there was so much to see. First stop was the Insectarium which, yes, is like a miniature zoo for insects and other creepy crawlies. Spot the stick.

Then I had a wander through the trees and found a beautiful little clearing with some nice warm rocks to sit on. I spent a while enjoying the quiet and while I was there, this little guy joined me.

He seemed to be quite content to warm himself in the sun while I farted about with the camera trying to get something approaching a decent shot. Unfortunately, as I got up to leave, a little bird swooped on him. I think I saw him fluttering away and the bird took up a perch nearby, apparently not eating anything. I hope.

I was evidently in the mood for a lazy day, because a few minutes walk further through the gardens, I found a pond and spent another 20 minutes or so soaking up the sun before my knees felt like they were burning through my trousers and I moved.

After that, I wandered the arboretum and found some beautiful trees, like this pine of some sort which looks just like those Christmas trees with the fake snow.

On the other side of the garden, I found the tiniest little poison garden. A friend gifted me a book about poisonous plants a few years ago, so I thought this was fascinating. Fortunately, I am sane enough to know not to touch and moved on to the most amazing veggie garden. I want a garden like this.

Made me miss my veggie patch.

Only the greenhouses left after that. Highlight was probably these beautiful penjing trees. Penjing is the Chinese form of bonsai and actually predates that Japanese art.

Pretty good day all round. Plus, no sunburn courtesy of slathering myself in factor 30. I'm getting good at this.

Tourist Central

My final day in Montreal began with a trip to Notre Dame Basilica. I might not be religious, but I find churches fascinating and this one... wow. We don't really have churches this brightly decorated in the UK (y'know, what with it being mostly Anglican etc).

I spent a good hour or so in there, mostly just sitting and watching other people. It was very good for people watching.

After the relatively tranquility of the church, I braved Rue St Paul, otherwise known as Tourist Central (at least to me...). Quaint little cobbled streets, crammed with cafes and tat souvenir shops.

Not entirely to my liking. So I headed out to the Old Port complex, which also had little to keep me interested, but at least there were green spaces. And the river, of course.

Then I managed to be very organised and spent the evening booking accommodation and transport for the next few legs of my trip. This means I've managed to get a nice little AirBnB room booked in the small city of Kingston, because said city does not appear to have a single hostel. This is great because I now get to have a room to myself, even if it is only for a couple of nights.

I'm English. I don't do warm.

The next morning it was time to get back on a bus and head to Ottawa, capital of Canada (as I'm pretty sure I mentioned above...). My bus days seem to be becoming somewhat regular and also seem to leave me lethargic once I get to my new destination, which means I did nothing once I got to Ottawa.

This may have been at least partly due to the heat. I'd thought it was warm in Montreal. On stepping off the bus in Ottawa it was like stepping into a sauna.  Urgh. This was not helped by the relatively short walk to the bus stop to get to my hostel. The bus driver fulfilled the stereotype of "friendly Canadian" and helpfully told me a) when to get off the bus and b) directions to the road the hostel was on from the bus stop. Lovely chap.

Unfortunately, as soon as I stepped off the bus in downtown Ottawa, the heavens opened. And I mean, opened. It was a 5 minute walk at most to the hostel and by the time I got there I was dripping worse than the incident in Montreal. Water had got into one of my bags, so my favourite book (the only one I brought with me) now has slightly squiffy pages.

Land of Dinosaurs and Obnoxious Children

On the plus side, I'm lucking out with hostels so far and aside from not providing breakfast, this one is great. Yesterday, it being so very warm still and not wanting to get drenched again, I spent a large part of the day in the Canadian Museum of Nature. I am a massive science geek. This is well established. Surrounded by dinosaurs, stuffed critters and assorted madness, it should have been bliss.

And it was, save for the hordes of screaming children. I'm sure every single holiday club in the city must have brought their kids to that museum yesterday. Fine, when they're actually engaging with the exhibits. Not when they're just running around getting under my feet and generally being obnoxious.

I know. I'm being grumpy and unreasonable, but I like to enjoy my museums with a bit more peace. I found said peace in the Earth Gallery because small children have no interest (it seems) in rocks. I, on the other hand, do. Especially when they look like this.

Or this.

Or when they glow in the dark like this glorious lump.

Yup. Geekery ahoy! I also discovered, to my glee, that the special exhibition on the top floor was nearly deserted. Possibly because it was an extra $10 to get in, but I can deal with that when there are interesting dinosaurs galore and I have the place nearly to myself. This one had a mouth that looks like a vacuum cleaner. Don't ask why. Apparently it might have eaten low growing things. I'd say grass, but grass came after the dinos.

And this is Giganotosaurus, T rex's bigger, badder South American distant cousin. Oh, and me, because I'm told there are not enough photos of me being included in these things.

Having complained about the children on the lower floors, I made the most of them not being on this one and had great fun collecting all the stamps for the kids' "Dino Challenge" activity. Because I am cool like that and have no shame when it comes to museum activities even when security are giving me funny looks as I gleefully stamp my card yet again...

Ahem. Moving on.

It still being dry once I'd eaten, I decided to make the most of the National Gallery's late (and free) opening on Thursday evenings. This meant I got about an hour and a half browsing the galleries, which was great, plus it was a lot quieter than the museum earlier in the day. Some really gorgeous pieces, including a few Canalettos.

I love Canaletto. I don't really know why. There's just something about the way his work looks so... real, I suppose. I spotted that one from the other end of the gallery, peeping through the little archway. Then, to keep my sister happy, I went in search of some Pre-Raphaelites. I nearly walked past this one, before something in my brain went "I've seen that redhead before."

It's a Rossetti, who seems to have just painted the some redhead over and over again. I'm not sure which of his muses this one is supposed to be. My sister might be able to tell you. I think I was more amused that an artist named Dante had painted a scene from Dante's Divine Comedy.

[Google tells me the model is Jane Morris, by the way]

And then I found this bust of Nietzsche, which made me laugh purely for the ridiculously huge mustache.

Finally, outside the Gallery is this sculpture of a giant spider. I remember this from the last time I visited Ottawa nearly a decade ago. Still sort of creepy now.

I had considered walking back up to Parliament Hill for the light show, but the heavens opened once again and we got hit by an insane lightning storm. I tried and failed to take any photos of this. Well done me.

Did he just faint?

I did, however, make it to Parliament Hill this morning, where I got to watch the Changing of the Guard ceremony. Of course, this is something that happens in the UK as well, but hey, I'm a tourist and it's fun to watch.

I'm not sure it was as fun for the guards themselves in those heavy uniforms and ridiculous hats. Especially the young lad who had been second from left before I took this photo.

You might be able to see there's a gap in the front rank there. That's because the poor guy second from left fainted during the inspection. I saw him fumble with his rifle a minute before and then he just pitched face forward onto the grass. Poor bugger.

Anyway, having fulfilled my duty as a tourist and an English one at that to go and watch some weird English tradition being continued in Canada, I headed across the river and back into Quebec to visit the Canadian Museum of History. Another place I visited on my first trip here, although it was called the Museum of Civilisation then.

It's still amazing. This is the Grand Hall, which is pretty much the first place you go once you get in.

Totem poles galore. The museum presents a history of Aboriginal Canada, which stretches back thousands of years. I was intrigued to find that some of the West Coast cultures made use of nephrite jade tools, a similar material to the pounamu used by the Maori in New Zealand.

Oh, and I had lunch overlooking the river, just before it chucked it down with rain again.

Glad I spent most of the day inside again! Having piled my brain full of random facts about Aboriginal Canada, I moved on to the special exhibitions. Three of these on at the moment. The first is about carriages. I'm pretty sure I've seen Sherlock Holmes using one of these.

That is of course, the best Holmes, Jeremy Brett. Moving on. The second is about the gold rush in British Columbia in the mid 1800s. Some beautiful artefacts from other gold-mining areas, including this gorgeous, well made necklace of cast frogs from central America.

The detail on it is amazing. According to the scales on the way out, I would be worth over $2,000,000 if I was made of gold. Ah well.

And finally, an exhibition about Napoleon and his relationship with Paris. Some interesting drawings, none of which came out very well in my photos.

I resisted the urge to go in the Children's Museum, partly because it was pretty much only kids in there and apparently I do have some shame and partly because it was only about an hour until closing and I didn't fancy rushing it.

Well, I think that's everything up to date now. I have a couple more days in Ottawa and then I'm heading to Toronto via Kingston.

Someone point me in the direction of interesting Torontonian things.