25 July
We left early in the morning, as we knew we had a long day of driving ahead of us. This time we headed west to go stay with Zach (a good friend who is still in Korea but was back in Canada for the holidays) and his family in Port Elgin.
On the way as a nice mid-drive break we stopped off just outside Shelburne to visit one of Virginia’s friends from high school (Denise). They hadn’t seen each other for about nine years, and really enjoyed being able to catch up, if only for a short hour or so.
From there we continued on west. The drive is a beautiful one. The further you go the more the landscape that surrounds you transforms to amazing farmland, that stretches further and further to the horizon. One of my favourite things about these farms is the giant old barns, either painted bright red and white as seen on TV) or collapsing… both charming in their own way. Indeed, it’s a good way to describe the entire area, charming.
I mentioned before that wildlife can and does appear everywhere. Not necessarily the big wildlife of South Africa, but in some ways it is more obvious in Canada that a tiny bit of the country is settled, while the rest is vast wilderness. The appearance of small animals in people’s gardens throughout the holiday was astonishing… these ranged from chipmunks to squirrels, to ground hogs and raccoons. Shortly before arriving at Zach’s we stopped the car to watch a small snapper tortoise cross the road (or more to it, so Virginia could wave traffic – a single car – around the tortoise while vehemently pleading with it to cross more quickly).
It later turned out that Zach’s dad keeps tortoises, which is where we learned it was a snapper.
We arrived in a scary small town called Tara (otherwise renamed by us to something like Doug and Thugsville), gave Zach a call to come rescue us, and proceeded to giggle at the unfortunate people that drove past us.
They stared so hard at us newcomers that they nearly drove off the road, and we joked about the likely-hood of inbreeding, their possible need to break things after a good game of smacky-pucky (Canadians play ice-hockey; these people I decided delighted in the joys of smacky-pucky… by the way never joke about hockey while with a Canadian, it provokes glares… oh and while I’m at it, I once asked V whether Canadians play hockey hockey, and I got a blank stare told that hockey is what happens on ice, and that there’s no other kind). Anyways, the people put me in mind of Cletus from the Simpson’s.
Zach, feeling the same way, but having gone to school with some of these people and learning their particular and peculiar small mindedness first hand, practically sped off in a bout of tyre squealing (after having arrived and run up to us to give us a hug hello).
We spent the evening relaxing at his folk’s giant farmhouse, overlooking 150 acres (?) of farmland, and a 150 year old barn, with Zach’s family who’d all gathered for his grandmother’s birthday, and were fed in the most glorious of ways, with deliciously rich farm-cooked food… lots and lots of it. Mmm peameal bacon (best new food discovery ever).
26 July
I think Zach made it his mission to take us to every lovely spot around his area, and this we spent the entire day doing. It was a day of relaxing and photography, lakesides and stone skimming, looking closely at flowers and animals and scenery, and picking fossilized pebbles from beaches. It was one of those perfect sort of days.
I’ll tell you where we went and then let the photos tell the rest.
We started off by heading through to South Hampton beach on Lake Huron (the third of the great lakes we saw) where we wandered around on the jetty and at the marina for a long while.
Then we were off to Port Elgen beach (also on Lake Huron). On the way we stopped to check out wild flowers, a pond and a lighthouse.
Then some stone skipping, pond peering, and fossil finding.
We also went for a wonderful lunch at a tiny cafe where Zach’s friend works, and then onto a little Museum in Port Elgin (where we '”canoe spotted” and also saw the Monarch butterfly pictured above).
And to round off the day we headed out to another lake (river?), where we watched a dog play on a jetty and poked around in the water for a while, watching insects do interesting things to each other.
As I said, a perfect day.
To round all this off we were taken on a historical tour of Zach’s barn when we arrived back. It was actually fascinating… the thick beamed barn held hundred year old implements, ancient cars, and even a contraption to haul the manure out by pulleys; all inside the walls of a falling down, hole riddled, dead looking building.
Zach and I took the opportunity to be all arty with our cameras.
We were lucky to have such a great tour guide, for the entire day.
Oh! The evening we spent chatting with Zach and his folks. Just before packing up for bed, we saw a strange moth with a very definite skull on it’s back. It filled us with exactly zero sense of foreboding.
That’s it for now… I’ll let V take over and tell you about the next few days. We’ve gotta get the Canada posting done before we leave for the Maldives you see :D
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