We visit Mennonite Country and the "boys" leave!!

On the Friday of our return home I took Wouter and Zu to Kitchener Waterloo to the Mennonite area. There is a favourite drive of mine through the areas where the old and new order Mennonite farms are. This circuit on unpaved roads is lovely and we saw plenty of buggies and horse drawn carriages on the road and farms with children playing in their traditional dress as well as farmers ploughing their fields with old ploughs drawn by horses - a real picture of the past. The picture below is from the web as I did not take any - notice the long dresses of the women and the men wear hats usually straw in the summer. The children usually have their hair in braids.

Here is a market scene with the men in straw hats.



The picture below is of a typical Mennonite horse and carriage -




















The "boys" left the next day after a relaxing morning catching their breath. We ended up going to Sherway Gardens Mall (our friend Barbie Doll had suggested it) and Zu bought a couple more gifts and we ate a very nice Asian Fusion meal at The Pickle Barrel restaurant. I saw them off at the Air France area around 9:00 p.m. and now the house is very quiet. It was a lovely holiday, lots of fun, laughter and shared memories. Next year I'm told it's my turn to come to Amsterdam - always a delight- and to view Wouter and Zu's newly finished basement- so stay tuned!!

We return to Hamilton and subsequent trips

Niagara Falls -


We are now home from our long trip - almost 5,000 km of driving - but worth every minute!! The day after we returned I took Zu and Wouter to Niagara Falls - a very very humid day!!
Wouter enjoying an iced ccffee from Tim Hortons - our local and now Canadian and USA coffee house of choice!! He is looking at the American Falls.

We then drove around the Niagara Parkway to Niagara on the Lake to get the usual ice cream cone!






Zu is obviously enjoying his ice cream -

Wouter also -

Ottawa is capital (pardon the pun!)

We drove from Quebec City to Ottawa and got there a little later than we' hoped beaause of all the road works - at one place we waited about 20 mins just so that cars that failed to get in line could merge!! We arrived about 2:00 p.m. and liked the location of our hotel (the Quality Hotel) on Rideau Street - great place to walk to Byward market - it had a supermarket across the road as well and we were able to drive to the Museum of Civilization easily as well from there.
The first shot is of the Bakery that Obama bought his Canadian cookies - see the sign at the left! There are huge pictures of him in the Bakery - the name is Le Moulin de Provence and it sells lovely freshly baked bread and cookies and desserts so we had coffee there - most important for my Dutch Treats!! The next picture is of the Parliament buildings from the park.

The statue is of Colnel By who the market is named after.
The next picture is of the Rideau
canal and the following picture is the view of the canal from above.






























We were delighted to see that there was a set of posters showing the strong ties between Canada and the Netherlands - here are Wouter and Zu standing by one of them.















Of course no visit is complete without a picture with a moose - here in the Rideau Centre.














The other spot that my dutch friends had to visit was The Museum of Civilization - a wonderful way to understand Canada's heritage. The following are shots at this museum.



The shot on the left is in the main entrance hall - very tall and majestic rather like a modern cathedral.










The sculpture on the left is of the Haida people of the West Coast of British Columbia - their hats look like a modified coolie hat. In fact it is thought that many thousands of years ago the Haida Native people came across the top of Asia to the Alaska and on to Canada.


The totem pole on the right is an early one carved by the Haida people of British Columbia. The Museum had an exhibit on the horse and included some of Farfand's amazing work - metal horses (he is from Sasketchewan).

Quebec City here we come

After setting out in the sunset at 6:45 a.m. (because the Digby Ferry left at 8:00 a.m.!) see picture below - We are now on our journey home and after a very lengthy delay (the Quebec highways seemed to be full of roadworks!!)we got to Quebec City around 6:00 p.m. and luckily had our dinner reservation for 8:30 at the well known old Restaurant aux anciens Canadiens. This gave us time to catch a local bus (suggested by the Hotel staff) to the old town. It took longer than we thought about 30 + minutes. .

Here are some shots of the old town












The photo above is the Chateau Frontenac a very palatial and impressive building. They also had some interesting statues tucked into corners of buildings - here are a couple - one on the left rather like a Cirque de Soleil character the other

is working with logs I believe which of course is

very much an important industry i.e. logging in Canada.

This photo is of Wouter and Zu outside our very old (for Canada)restaurant founded in the 18th Century.

We visit the South Shore!!

We decided that the last day was the best day to visit the South Shore - which is somewhat prettier than the Bay of Fundy shore in a more touristy way! It was quite amusing as wouter and Zu assumed that there would be coffee shops right by the ocean - but of course we had to drive quite a distance on Hwy 3 before we found one!! It was lovely though - at Hubbards Cove - the Dauphinee Inn. Here they are enjoying coffee and apple pie!


After we had our coffee and lovely apple crumble (which was home made!) We carried on driving around to Mahone Bay where they were having a small festival by their harbour.
















At left are oxen getting ready for demonstration - probably an ox pull which is popular in this part of the world. Then we drove on to Lunenburg a world heritage site and home of the Bluenose.



The picture below is of the brightly coloured houses in Lunenburg.













This picture is of Lunenburg harbour but the picture is not great from the same side - you have to be on the water.














We drove back to Harbourville to prepare for the first Lobster dinner Wouter and Zu had ever eaten. I also picked up Nova Scotia Scallops on the way as a treat for them both - again they had never eaten them. We had fun preparing and eating the feast and sat on he deck. Zue became an expert very quickly and helped all of us with the preparation of the Lobster.

The photo on on the left is Muriel showing the guys how to break the lobster front legs (taught to her by the pound guys at Hall's Harbour) by taking the lobster by the body and bending the legs backward! It works a treat!

The day ended with another lovely sunset.

Grayce and George visit us in Harbourville

We invited Grayce and George to lunch at our apartment in Harbourville - Zu made a lovely vegetable soup and we had fresh buns and strawberries and ice-cream - here we are eating together - it was a little cool on the deck so we ate in the kitchen.
First picture is taken by Zu and second by Muriel.

After lunch we all decided to go to Muriel's favourite place - Hall's Harbour about 30 mins away by country roads. Muriel wanted "the boys"to experience real lobster from the pound so we went and bought it cooked to take home. Notice the expressions on Zu and Wouter's faces as we carried the 3 1.5 llb lobsters to the cookhouse! Zu is proud to be carrying them and Wouter is worried that these poor live lobsters will be plunged into boiling water. While we waited for them to be cooked we had tea and coffee with Grayce and George in the restaurant.

The photo on the right and below are of Hall's Harbour where Rebecca first caught her first fish (7 Boston Bluefish) when she was 7! It has changed a lot since - now has a restaurant and is really nicely landscapted - certainly more touristy than Harbourville!!

That evening we had our second meal of the meal that Zu cooked the night before - lovely! It got a little chilly on the deck as you can see.

Below is one of the spectacular sunsets we have seen here!

Nova Scotia activities

Here is a view from the Blomidon Look Off over the Minas Basin - lovely red earth.

After we stopped we went to the Blomidon Provincial park where Wouter fought with the Edam cheese he brought from Amsterdam - for lunch.

Later we went to Grayce and George's for supper - Grayce was Muriel's wonderful babysitter for several years and is a dear friend.
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Day 3 in Nova Scotia
The weather is not great today so we are going to Halifax so that Zu can see the shops - it was a bit of a damp squib actually as Zu is used to shopping in Europe and Halifax is not the place for haute couture!! Below is a picture of "the guys"in Historic Properties down at the Harbour.






The weather continued to be very foggy and wet so we decided to return to our cottage by the sea as Zu was going to cook tonight - see the next two piccies - Zu in the kitchen and Wouter relaxing - he poor guy had the task of driving back in fog and rain!!

Goodbye Montreal Hello Fredericton and Digby Ferry and Nova Scotia shores

This trip to Fredericton was the longest - almost 1,000 km and I drove most of it - Wouter did some driving but we were all tired by the time we got to the Ramada Hotel. Montreal road signage was chaotic so we missed our turn and did a little bit of a road detour - nice but almost added to the time.


Here we are after eating our picnic!

The picture on the right is us Wouter and I sitting on the Princess of Acadia Ferry from Saint John to Digby. It is a 3 hour ride from the time you drive on until the time you drive off!

We then drove to Harbourville from Digby about 1.5 hours. We stopped off for groceries first in Berwick and then drove over the escarpment to Harbourville on the Bay of Fundy which has the highest tides in the world - up to 11kms high! Harbourville is a very small working fishing port - not picturesque in the pretty sense but interesting as you will see.

This is the "beach"area outside our house - the house is below -

Here is a shot of the boats on the dry ground with the tide out - then with the tide up.

This is the shot with the boats in the water.

These boats to the left are working fishing boats - mostly lobster I think!

The first evening was so clear and the sunset lovely - this boat is right in front of our beach house apartment.