Dinosaur Park

We awoke after an excellent night's sleep in the rather comfy Airstream bed to witness a glorious day. On the way to the showers we passed a few small RVs parked up:

Yup, for we Europeans the size of the North American recreational vehicles is rather unworldly .Just cannot imagine threading one through the back roads of Cornwall. We hitched up the truck to the Airstream all OK, emptied out the waste tanks and headed off. The crew was navigating and the captain was trying to remember that things were now a little different to the trip back from Calgary airport the evening before. We had a "Silver Bullet" hanging behind us. 

Google maps let us down big time, taking us towards the main road out of town but not mentioning that the road we were on was closed. We ended up in a new build housing area on a dead end road. Perfect introduction to manoeuvring the trailer within 10 minutes of departure. Wonderful. Luckily the Canadian roads are way bigger than ours and so we managed a U turn with no drama. Thanks Google maps. 

The rest of the trip was fine, heading East along Highway 1 (the Trans-Canada highway) we were astounded by the lack of traffic. Coming back to the UK and fighting along the congested motorways was going to be a serious reality check. After our "first night in an Airstream and first experience towing one" the captain had another first. Yes, the one road stop around lunchtime had a small Esso filling station to quench the thirst of the big V8 motor whilst towing and a Subway store. So, the captain enjoyed his first Subway lunch. How on earth did he get to this crazy old age without having one before?

Our destination for a couple of nights was Dinosaur Park:

We had a wait to check in to the local government run camping area but it was well worth it. All of the pitches were so well spaced and surrounded by trees, it felt as though we were pretty much alone. We had a "pull through" spot so no tricky reversing was needed for our first experience of setting up the Airstream:

We had power, water and drainage on the pitch so we were totally spoiled. Handy though as it was hot so the aircon was needed. We soon settled in:

broke out the barbecue and celebrated our arrival.

Exploring the area, we reckoned that the scenery was an unworldly combination of rock strata, dried river beds, ancient trees, fossils and much much more. It felt as though we were in a film set but it was all for real and not man-made:

The view from our "spot" was lovely too, plenty of wildlife to watch:

and an uncluttered view out through the trees:

We had to time our walks to fit around the high mid-day temperatures so we had early morning views of the Hoodoos:

What on earth are they - look at Wikipedia link for a proper explanation. The park has plenty of old trees around too and the shapes they leave when they decay are impressive and almost haunting sometimes:. 

Of course, the place is all about dinosaur fossils and as you can see, there are plenty of them:

We were a little open-mouthed when this rig drove into the park. This video gives you a flavour of the size:

and of course it was towing a tiny little car behind:

The Canadians tow a Jeep, in Europe the Jeep would be the tow car. We chatted to the owner later on and he said that as far as he was concerned, Trump had done him one favour - he could now park in Walmart car parks. (Yup, the Canadians are less keen on buying things in US owned stores). Every cloud has a silver lining and all that.

During the hotter part of the day, we had to try out the little on-site café place for an ice-cream. Our mistake was ordering two scoops. That ended up as about 6 UK scoops:

It took the crew 24 minutes to consume it with a nice brain freeze as a result. Mind you, it was very good ice-cream. So much so that we had to try a couple of different flavours the following day.

For our first camping location and experience trailing the Airstream around behind the Tonka Toy tow truck, it was all pretty wonderful.

Calgary bound

Our flight to Calgary had to be delayed of course, only not too badly:

Westjet told us in advance that the plane (one of those 737s that gained a bit of a reputation for crashing) was not to their usual standards as it had transferred when they took over another airline, Sunwing. We had visions of a Freddie Laker style "pack 'em in and fly them to the sun" kind of interior, with no legroom for anyone bar pygmies. Actually it was OK for the 4 hour flight. We had quite a bunch of Costco store managers around us, all chatting to each other after one of those corporate meetings that the captain so misses attending. When they talked about the bigger stores having 400 employees, the crew had some flashbacks to her time as the UK HR Manager for Toys R Us. It was so good to just be a spectator.

Why on earth were we flying to Calgary you might well ask? A low rise boring kind of place in the flatlands. Well, that is thanks to Martin and Inge, the prior owners of Malaspina, another Nordhavn 47.  They live near Comox on Vancouver island and told us that we should visit them, borrow their brand new Airstream caravan and tow truck for a trip through the National park, then spend some time staying with them. That was such a tricky decision - should we accept or????  In amazement at their generosity (or should that be stupidity?)  we accepted of course. They collected us from the airport, w had dinner and a catch up before we overnighted in a Hampton by Hilton airport hotel. For info, never ever go there. It had the most disgusting breakfast ever. Nothing like the UK Hampton offerings and really inedible. We were so glad to check out the next morning and be collected by Martin who took us to the camping site they were staying in for a rapid teach in about the Airstream and loads of local advice:

As you can see the Airstream is rather splendid. Yes, Martin and Inge were truly demented letting us borrow this. There is a kind of "not only but also" thing to report though. The tow truck was a proper North American boy's toy. A Dodge Ram:

Just a little 5.7 litre V8 petrol (gas) engine to haul the Airstream around with. That ought to be enough we thought. Thank heavens for Canadian fuel prices. We felt that a green "Eco" light coming on when you drive it gently was a little bit odd though.

Martin and Inge flew back to Comox from Calgary and there we were, alone with their truck and trailer in a campsite at Cochrane ready to hitch up the following morning and venture off. What could possibly go wrong?

More Ottawa and the Parliament

One of the surprises we found was the colour of the squirrels. We are well used to the grey interlopers that have taken over the UK.  Also the red ones that survive on the Isle of Wight. Black was a whole new thing:

and rather unusual for us. That picture was "borrowed" from Wikipedia and look them up there if you want to know more about squirrel genetics, the advantage of being black and their distribution. Alternatively just enjoy their colouration from the picture and pour yourself some wine. You are not likely to get a black squirrel question in any pub quiz.

Ottawa has some great "ad-hoc" decorations that work very well, like the painting on the risers of this flight of outdoor steps:

We had a good wander around the city centre, some great coffee and snacks in a bike café, watched the army guys play the bagpipes at the war memorial

and generally had a great time. It was topped off by a visit to the Houses of Parliament.  Like the UK version in London, their House of Commons needed serious refurbishment. Unlike the UK the Canadians decided to get on with it. A ten year long renovation is underway as you can see:

The surrounding buildings are equally impressive:

So the members had somewhere to meet, they undertook a 7 year building project to prepare a new meeting chamber that looks like this

If you are thinking that the walls look like exterior stonework then you are most observant. Basically they built a roof over the quadrangle between some existing buildings, installed the seating and technology for the meeting chamber and it is now in use until the original building is ready again. An excellent tour around explained the history and how it closely follows the UK parliament in processes. We just hope it is better at taking grown-up decisions and making them stick than ours....

Of course, all the Prime Ministers have to be remembered by a portrait that hangs in the parliament building. By convention they can choose where they are portrayed and their attire but they are not allowed to add in another person. Brian Mulroney wanted his family included and it was refused of course, so he placed a picture of them on the furniture behind him for the artist to capture:

Proper sneaky / clever politician thing to do. 

We really liked Ottawa and packed plenty into our brief 3 day stay there. Being at an airport hotel we arrived back to the airport itself early each evening to catch the hotel shuttle bus. We realised just how small the airport is when the only place to get  a drink was a tiny Tim Hortons concession. For the UK folks, that is a bit like a small Greggs store. The following night we arrived after 7pm and that was shut - no coffee whilst waiting for the shuttle bus. Not quite like Heathrow.

Sometime it would be fun to travel along the Rideau canal in a hire boat. However the hire charges for a week or so there are wildly high. If you have an idle few minutes have a look at the Le Boat website but make sure you are sitting down before you see the prices for even pretty basic hire boats.

Ottawa is simply a great place to visit.

To Ottawa - testing the trains

After the fun of Montreal (and the fun of adjusting to the new time zone), we had to move on to sample pastures - or even cities - new. Ottawa was our chosen target and the challenge had been a simple one. How to get there? A flight with someone like Air Canada costs a small fortune and lasts no time at all. A one way hire car did not seem appropriate so we'd opted to test out the Canadian trains to see if they could be as unreliable / uncomfortable as our recent UK experiences. The trip was only 185Km and around 2 hours but was not friendly price-wise if you wanted to take luggage. Kind of Ryanair style ticket pricing. As the posh Business class ticket cost little more than an economy version with bags, we opted to go posh. It gave us a lounge to use whilst waiting (that was handy as in true UK style boarding was delayed) and lunch on board. We were at the end of the carriage and the best meal options had run out by the time they got to us. However, the crew managed hers manfully - or should that be womanfully?

The train was comfy enough but we were surprised at how rough the ride was for much of the trip - the permanent way certainly needed some attention. Way worse than on most UK mainline services. This little video shows how the coat hangers danced to the tune of the steel tracks, not the music ones:

Despite that, it was a good trip with a chance to seem some proper rural locations on the way too. Watching the freight trains pass us by,  often with 100 wagons in a rake, was quite something compared to the "baby" train stuff we are used to at home. The only trouble on our arrival was finding our way to the public transport links as we arrived in Ottawa.  Poor signs and location maps. The good bit was that they have a new metro system called the O Train and it links to the airport. We were staying in an airport hotel so we bought a nice cheap transport pass and headed out there. The second of the trains we used reminded us of the Edinburgh trams - painfully slow! However, it all worked well.

We kind of fell in love with Ottawa. Friendlier than Montreal (less sniffy about English language use too), a small city centre with a great mix of old and new buildings. This reflection of the parliament estate buildings in the windows of a new block kind of sums it up:

Following on from the last cathedral experience, we had to see the Ottawa offering. Less "visitor friendly" but equally beautiful:

with another glorious interior:

The museum opposite was suitably futuristic as were the sculptures outside. The sort of thing that you would not want to bump into on a dark night after a couple of drinks:

The point on which the museum was build showed the link to the "First Nations" people - something that we became more and more familiar with:

It also had good views back towards the Rideau Canal entrance and government buildings:

Being boating types, we had to walk along the canal and admire the flight of locks at the entrance:

The canal is a UNESCO World Heritage site, have a look at this Wikipedia link for more information on it. We noticed real similarities to the Caledonian canal in Scotland - not a surprise as both were constructed by the UK military to give safe passage to their ships. The hooks used in the lock chambers for transiting craft to pass a rope around were pretty similar in shape to the ones we'd used in Scotland:

One huge difference of course is the number of petrol (gas) powered boats using the waterways compared to the UK / Europe where diesel is king. This sign in the locks: 

made sense - avoiding nasty petrol vapour explosions when boats are restarting their engines after locking through. Once boats have transited the lock flight things were comparatively quiet and pretty weed infested too. Some folks seemed to find paddleboarding exhausting:

The anti-Trump feelings were pretty clear from the pavements:

and the signs in many shops:

We quite understood why. 

More Montreal

Montreal had some "interesting" arty constructions, like this odd circle affair in the rather prosperous looking downtown area linking two office blocks but for no obvious reason:

The city also has some strange looking and controversial housing that was built for the 1967 Expo. Well worth having a look at the website  Habitat 67 website  - here is a distant view from across the river to give you a flavour of it:

The concept of modules linked in a way so that they all had serious amounts of privacy was pretty clever but a little like Marmite for the local inhabitants. The waterfront hosted a couple of large marinas, old grain stores and the Jacques Cartier bridge:

which for the terminally bored is apparently the third busiest bridge in Canada. The joys of building a city on an island....  We have to question some of the city planning decisions though. This church tower looked a little out of place, or should we say that the things erected around it are very out of place?

No such problem with the cathedral. Truly amazing place. Stunning architecture and attention to detail within, emphasised by clever, atmospheric lighting:

The enormous balcony area dedicated to the organ was quite something. The instrument has over 7000 pipes so must sound quite amazing. Our visit wasn't at the right time to experience it though: 

After all that culture (the cathedral was one of those rare places that just makes you stand and stare for ages), we did the proper touristy thing and took a boat trip. Yes, we were missing the boating fix. Our craft was less than elegant:

but gave us views of the old Olympic stadium and the massive dock area. Miles of alongside berths, mainly empty at the time we visited. The trip was shared with three ladies from Chicago who bemoaned the weather and possibility of being shot in their home city. Mum was enjoying her trip and as a 90 year old was setting a great example for older folks:

After the rather sedate trip, we walked the length of the waterfront and admired the bungee jumpers - the larger framed ones only just avoided a dunking before they were hoisted skywards once more. The little dinghy that was used to rescue them from the bungee line and ferry them back to the shore once the oscillations had stopped was amusing. It looked way more dangerous being released into the dinghy than actually doing the jump:

Montreal was great. Cheap public transport with only one major drawback - the airport which is pretty busy, is only served by road at the moment. The bus service was OK but the traffic around the airport was manic. Roll on the train link they are constructing. We enjoyed a wonderful Indian fusion meal, some good coffee and cake stops and learning more about the city in general. So far the trip was going well.

Going Canadian

Whilst Martin and Inge (the ex owners of  Malaspina, a Nordhavn 47) were staying with us earlier in the year, they told us that we had to visit Canada. They then suggested a couple of must do things which we could hardly refuse. You can learn about those in later posts. Suffice to say that we ended up at Heathrow for a BA flight to Montreal. We chilled in the lounge before the flight, amazed at how miserable / distracted some folks can be:

Her face never cracked - not once. The crew on the other hand, had the serious business of organising some food and a glass of fortification to keep her going until she got fed on the plane:

BA had a deal going on - pay for premium economy, get a business class ticket. It felt like old times for the captain, settling into the nice pod seat, having dinner then enjoying a snooze in the flat bed it converts into. For the crew,  it was a first experience of "turning left" on a plane and it has created a monster. Future longer haul travel is unlikely to be at the back of the plane. The BA boarding process was a mess (as usual). Why they consistently get it wrong after so many years of practice is beyond belief. After a nice flight with OK service, we then spent 40 minutes taxiing around Montreal airport trying to get a gate. The BA pilot announced that it was his record time spent circling an airport too. Luckily for us, it really did not matter much as we were staying in an airport hotel and had no need to rush around the following morning.

Our first experience of the Montreal area (crew hadn't been to Canada before, the captain had only been to the Toronto district)  showed that some Canadians have poor automotive taste:

The Cybertruck looks even worse in the metal than in pictures by the way. We headed into the city, wandered around enjoying the architecture:

and wondering if we had landed in Paris by mistake:

The "you don't speak French" thing was quite noticeable until people realised we were English when it became more acceptable. The crew, despite many hours refreshing her French language studies on Duolingo, stuck to English too. We were blessed with wonderful warm weather allowing some great walks around the city centre and waterfront. This preserved old tug just looked so much like a bathtub toy:

We enjoyed an excellent first lunch out in a restaurant that seemed to serve the "business lunch" folks - we were rather casual compared to most diners and our conversation was way less employment focussed. However, not all of the locals were that worried about work:

It didn't look too comfortable though.