Sylvia and Ray (Audrey and Murphy) only stayed for a couple of hours for a quick chat with coffee and cakes before they set off to their holiday cottage 4 hours away.
The setting for their house is in a quiet neighborhood backing on to Sugarpine Park, a large park with plenty of tall Maple trees which make an effective wind break for the sheltered back yard.
Unfortunately there were no bears or wild animals in the park as the park is too small with too many people walking their dogs.
You can hear the woodpeckers in the evenings and there are a few brown and black squirrels but not very friendly, too many dogs in the area perhaps.
Kitchener and Waterloo town centers are within walking distance of each other. They have made attempts at amalgamating the councils in the past but those attempts have failed. Obviously logic did not enter those discussions. The area is often referred to as Kitchener-Waterloo and has a combined population approaching 400k.
Niagara Falls is less than 2 hours drive from Waterloo.
Ray has a GPS in his car and I doubt that the drive would be as easy if you did not have a GPS as there were a few changes in roads. I was also lucky in that most of the traffic seemed to be going in the opposite direction to me.
Once at the falls you have the option of seeing the falls from the Canadian or USA side.
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| Niagara Falls from the USA side |
I had a quick drive around on the Canadian side and once I realized that the parking was bad I decided to drive across the border as it is always greener on the other side as the saying goes.
I was lucky to find a park within easy walking distance of the falls and once I saw that the sun was behind me so that I would not be taking photos into the sun then I knew I made the right decision to go to the USA side. I also decided to walk back across the bridge to take some photos and also to experience what it is like for pedestrian access crossing the border.
The border crossing both in the car and on foot into the USA was easy and only took a few minutes.
The border crossing back into Canada by car was a lot longer as a result of more people being stopped and checked for duty free shopping since a lot of things are cheaper in the USA.
More of the falls can be seen from the Canadian side of the falls and if I was to visit the falls again I would want to see the Canadian side.
Cambridge is a small town 30 kms away and during my stay there was a Folk Festival. It started on Friday evening and ended dramatically on Sunday evening during a big storm. It was not cold and all Sunday I was in shorts but at about 9 pm the outside venues were transferred indoors and 30 mins later the sever rain came.
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| Cambridge Folk Festival |
Toronto is only 1.5 hours away and well worth exploring. It has a wonderful lake shore and I spent and enjoyable day here.
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| Toronto Lake Side |
Music: With all music in my system, initially from the Fun Festival in Montreal, then the following week the Folk Festival in Cambridge, and with the Blues Festival in Kitchener next week I was keen to hear some good old fashioned Country Music.
We'll sort of Country Music ... Blue Grass band they called themselves, perhaps the Country will have to wait until I return to the USA.
Ray and Sylvia recommended the Commercial Tavern in Maryhill as that is where they often go on a Thursday (open stage) night. But I was not quite into the Thursday night "open stage" entertainment where the patrons get to join in and sing along. I will plead that I still had a stuffy nose which is the reason my singing would not be appropriate, but in reality there would always be an excuse for not singing along... It's my funny accent or more importantly my lack of ability!
The entertainment was good and well worth the 17 km I had to travel.
Even though I have mention Kitchener, Cambridge, Waterloo and now Maryhill, they are all very close and no more than 30 mins apart.
Ontario: When touring around the countryside it can be seen that Ontario and Ottawa are very fertile productive farming land and ideal for all the crops in the area. The one thing that I do not see here, that I would see in NZ, is all the large water systems sucking the river dry.
The Grand river is reasonable big in this part of Ontario but it also long and it would not survive if irrigation was not controlled.
Canada is a vast country that varies greatly with each region.
It's been good to visit the Eastern provinces and to see the extra complexities to manage them compared to Australia which is not too dissimilar in size (area).
I now just need a reason to visit Saskatchewan and Manitoba to almost complete the picture. I doubt that I will ever get to the Yukon or Northwest Territories and New Foundland but would not rule it out as I do like adventures.
I have future trips planned to Canada and so I need to resist the urge to see everything at once. I enjoyed the side trip to Nova Scotia and the quick stay in Quebec and would love to return to both but first would need to work on my French for Quebec.
