‘Too right… too left… too high… Tulo!’ This the crowd chanted as Troy Tulowitzki of the Toronto Blue Jays stepped up to the plate. Bases were loaded as the Red Sox pitcher wound up. He threw a fast ball (I think. It could have been a ‘slider’ or a ‘changeup’. It’s hard to tell from the top deck) which whizzed through the air at close to a hundred miles an hour. Tulo rotated at the hips, shoulders following as he heaved his bat.
Moments later an ever so pleasing ‘tock’ raced up to greet the ears of 47,000 Blue Jays fans. The ball arched forwards and upwards, sailing clear over the head of left outfield and clearing the fence. Anthony and Jill (Emma’s cousin and her husband) and Emma and I leapt to our feet screaming in delight. So did the rest of the stadium with the exception of Amy and Oliver who were I think still trying to work this baseball thing out. The players below jogged their victory lap and the game lurched on, the Jays once again in the lead.
Anthony explaining what just happened
The commotion died down and Anthony brought me another beer. Amy and Oliver were counting them as they kept coming. Maybe it was the beer talking, but live baseball was fantastic fun. Especially when the game mattered and the whole city had come out to show its support.
From our seats high above the field (the only ones we could get for less than a king’s ransom) the view was awesome. The field of the Toronto Skydome (aka the Rogers Stadium) was laid out right at the foot of the 457-metre-high CN Tower. It was a cultural experience, right down the to the yellow food groups on which we dined.
Perfect day for a ballgameThe CN Tower from our seats (the crowd is still arriving)The Blue JayWe wondered why most of the Red Sox didn’t have red socks…mmmmmmCulturally appropriate yellow food – alas there were no crackerjacksToronto Subway all the way to the ground and back
The Jays lost in the end which disappointed me greatly. I expected a similar reaction from Anthony who surprised me by shrugging with an, ‘eh, it’s just a game’. I expected the loyalties of a city resident would be stronger than my own brand of temporary ‘blowin through’ support.
For ‘blowin through’ is what we were doing in Toronto. We always intended to visit but according to our original schedule, not until the end of the year when we hoped for a white Christmas with our Canadian relatives. The Canadian Department of Immigration and Citizenship however gave us cause to reconsider our plans.
One fine day back in Europe somewhere Emma had been researching the visa requirements for Australians visiting Canada and discovered that they had changed the entry requirements for dual citizens such as herself. The upshot of this was that when we planned to return to Canada later in the year they would not let Emma in on an Australian passport. Emma had to renew her Canadian passport or risk being stopped at the border.
I find this hilarious. Let the Aussies in no worries but don’t let in the Aussie who is also Canadian! Of course getting a passport is never a straightforward business, especially when you don’t have an address in the relevant country. With Jill and Anthony’s assistance however and documentation sent out from home Emma had soon dotted the ‘i’s and crossed the ‘t’s.
She took the paperwork in on a Thursday morning and picked up her new passport on Friday afternoon. Remarkable turnaround time – almost enough to forgive the fact that they had made rules which would have let us in and kept her out. I am now afflicted by a serious case of passport jealousy. I feel just as Canadian as Emma. I want one too!
Feeling relieved
As a result of the politics of international travel we spent five days all up in Toronto, but it was so much more fun than passports. Jill and Anthony are wonderful hosts. You can’t stay at their place without having a good time and feeling totally relaxed and at home. When they weren’t at work they were taking us out for flaming cheese on ‘the Danforth’, or hanging out with us in their cosy basement watching CNN coverage of the US presidential race, the Blue Jays or the Fantastic Mr Fox, or sitting around helping us plot a passage through the USA and the remainder of our year.
Harry the cat was such a great helpHe eliminated whole parts of the country for us
Oliver and Jackson (Jill and Anthony’s son) could mostly be found up on the third floor playing the Playstation or in the back yard attempting to master the ‘rip stick’ – a skateboard like contraption, but there was also chess and ping pong on the dining room table. Emma’s Aunt and Uncle also dropped by for a long lunch and it was great to see them.
So much better to photograph than Playstation gamesNote the ball boyStrawberry shortcake
While Jill and Anthony worked we explored the Canadian big smoke, including spending exorbitant amounts of money summiting that iconic Toronto building the CN Tower. It is a big tower. For many years, and right up until sometime in the 90s, it was the tallest building in the world. The glass elevator whizzed us to the top in exactly 58 seconds. I know this because they told us multiple times. The views from the top overlooked the massive Lake Ontario and entire Toronto city area. It was summery and green and quite a contrast from the winter view I remembered from when Emma and I were last here many years ago.
View from the CN Tower
Still better than all this was the new addition to Jill and Anthony’s household. Rosco the dog. I’ve never met a more instantly lovable beastie. We’d already been discussing the possibility of getting another dog when we eventually make it home. Now it’s more a question of where can we find a breeder that makes dogs like Rosco?
Rosco and Amy at the market
So Toronto turned out to be so much more than a bureaucratically driven stopover. We had a ball and are really looking forward to returning for Christmas. A huge thanks to Jill, Anthony and Jackson for their hospitality, generosity and for showing us a great time.
Our time in Nova Scotia was awfully interesting. I found it to be fascinatingly different from home in many ways, yet not so different in so very many more. Having said that there was nothing that occurred in the days in which we toured around that makes for a terribly fascinating story, no dramas or hiccups and no adrenaline pumping events.
I therefore find myself in the rather unusual position of having had a wonderful and stimulating time but without a whole lot to tell. Still, for the benefit of anyone who may be interested in what we did and what we saw and what we enjoyed by all means read on. If you feel otherwise, then this is your chance to walk away from your computer, switch off your phone, or tablet and wander outside and enjoy the sunshine.
We left Lockeport with some regret. Ten days of lounging around, reading, strolling, swimming, taking photos and watching DVDs was seemingly over before it began. Still, it was over so we piled into our Buick Encore and set off.
More opinions than horsepower – the Buick Encore
The Buick Encore, by the way, is a terrible car. Don’t get one. I hate cars that tell me what to do and the Buick Encore never misses an opportunity to tell you what to do. Don’t have the seatbelt on? Bing, Bing, Bing! Open the driver’s door without fully removing the key from the ignition? Bing, Bing, Bing. It drove me nuts.
Emma remarked that my capacity to continuously get annoyed rather than alter my behaviour made me less trainable than a dog. I wasn’t sure if that was a complement or an insult so chose take it as a complement. I think I just derived some pointless satisfaction at shrieking frustration to the uncaring universe.
In any case, we drove north in the car with more opinions than horsepower. Nova Scotia was substantially larger than I had anticipated. It was a three hour drive up to Peggy’s Cove, one of Canada’s most photographed sites and ‘an icon for the Maritime Provinces’. It’s pretty. Really pretty. A white lighthouse perched on a domed granite outcrop sticking out into the sea.
On the landward side is the pretty little cove itself, although that superlative doesn’t seem quite enough. Lobster boats take shelter moored beside rustic pastel coloured sheds and jetties. It’s idyllic. We spent a good two hours in the tiny village leaping about the granite boulders, eating ice cream and adding to the incalculable number of photos already taken. Unfortunately, our laptop died on us a few days later, before the photos had been uploaded to the ‘cloud’ and so we lost them.
This upset me. At one stage I took about 20 photos of the one same scene, adjusting the zoom and angle just so, to make sure I captured exactly what I was looking for. The light was good, the boats sitting just nicely, the granite boulders presenting themselves in just the right way. I got over it, eventually, but have nothing to show for my efforts so you’ll just have to use your imagination, or google up any of the other 3.5 billion photos that are likely to be available on the web.
From Peggy’s cove we drove to Halifax, to visit the Mountain Equipment Co-op store. Emma and I decided boots would be needed for our impending trek of the often times excessively muddy West Coast Trail on the opposite side of the country. So boot shopping we went. Oliver got over it quickly and made up his own little song of silent protest. It went something like this…
‘Here we are at the camping shop, the camping shop, the camping shop. Here we are at the camping shop and here we’ll stay all day’.
He sung it to a nice little ditty and in just a low enough voice and with just enough legitimacy to the sentiment to avoid my wrath for impertinence.
New boots in hand we piled back into the Buick Encore which infuriated me again for having a navigation system which wouldn’t allow you to enter a destination address. The icon was there, you just couldn’t click on it half the time. Fortunately, Emma is unusually talented in the ways of Google and associated maps and with thanks to her and not the Buick we made our way over a bridge over Halifax harbour and were off to the north. We stopped for the night at a very pleasant camp site nestled in amongst the trees. It was great, if eerily quiet. It was just us. Where was everyone?
The next day we made Cape Breton and camped at a campsite with a power outage, before making it to Baddeck and the start of the Cabbot Trail. All of Nova Scotia has been packaged up into tourist trails. We chose the route that headed around Cape Breton as our preferred trail up which to linger. We visited the Alexander Graham Bell National Historic Site, learnt about his invention of the phone, hydrofoils and obsession with tetrahedral kites. Afterwards, for lunch, we experimented with powdered hummus and decided it was pretty good.
Camping near Baddeck
A little further on we made it to the Cape Breton Highlands National Park. Here we took a walk, Emma and I in our new boots, out on Middlehead – a thin peninsula jutting kilometres out into the ocean. We spotted bald eagles and the cutest looking squirrels. Squirrels are, I suspect, to North Americans what eastern grey Kangaroos are to Australians – a dime a dozen. I however still think they are quite gorgeous.
Amy and I looked patiently through our lenses through the thick undergrowth and were very pleased with the outcome of our photographic endeavours.
Aren’t they cute!!
Along the way I also came to the somewhat upsetting realisation that I had purchased the wrong sized boot. ‘Well really, what kind of a fool buys boots a size too small’ I thought to myself as part of a thorough self-flagellation.
When we were underway again in the opinionated Buick, Emma decided it would be good to listen to an Anne of Green Gables story ahead of our visit to Prince Edward Island, home of Lucy Maud Montgomery and setting for the Anne of Green Gables tales. Amy was pleased, she has and had been listening to all seven of the audio books over and over again and was only too pleased for all of us to share her beloved tale.
To my surprise, I got right into it, although I think deep down I am a little jealous. With apologies to the literati out there and English teachers who will no doubt know far better than I, the remarkable thing about Anne of Green Gables is that it is thoroughly engaging yet very little actually happens. The language employed, the characters and the passionate description of the place in which they live is however more than enough to compensate. I was rapt.
Oliver less so. I think I heard a little ditty similar to the one from the camping store emanating from the back seat before he dived quickly back into an audio book of his own involving owls, magic ones of course.
We interrupted our story to eat lunch hereClimbed up a waterfall from the beach
It rained for two days solid as we rounded the top of Cape Breton. We camped at National Park HQ, attended the nightly ranger talks on geology of the area and coyotes. Apparently the rift valley that runs through this Park is the same rift valley between tectonic plates that we visited back in Iceland. Who would have thought? That was a nicely personalised experience of just how connected the world really is.
Life through the car window…
Between (and sometimes during) showers and down pours we went walking in the hills. On the sparsely wooded plateau of the Skyline Trail Amy was the first to spot the mighty antlers of a browsing moose. It was a little intimidating with no fence between it and us, but fortunately it had no interest in anything other than filling its belly and didn’t so much as flinch as we passed by.
Rain and backlighting aside – he is pretty coolSkyline viewsAmazing light on the waterStriking a poseCape Breton Highlands National Park
Prince Edward Island was next. We were a bit over making and unmaking camp each day by now, so decided just to spend three nights at the one place over on the ‘Green Gables Shore’. We continued our now well practiced routine of having a camp fire each evening and indulged ourselves in the North American delicacy called s’mores.
A s’more is a lightly toasted marshmallow sandwiched between two graham crackers and adorned with a liberal slathering of choc chips. You get the choc chips between the crackers by rolling the half toasted marshmallow over a plate of choc chips before completing the toasting process.
We did it without the choc chips the first couple of times before our North American cultural advisors, aka Peter, Andrea, Sydney and Tobin, informed us via pointed text message that it was an offense to Canadians everywhere to leave out the chocolate. They had a point. It was good without the chocolate, but it was significantly better with it. Obviously they are called s’mores because you always want s’more… obviously.
Cool National Parks beaver fire placesS’more!Not a tidy treat
I loved Prince Edward Island though I struggle to say exactly why. As Lucy Maud Montgomery once lamented
‘I had always a deep love of nature. A little fern growing in the woods, a shallow sheet of June bells under the firs, moonlight falling on the ivory column of a tall birch… all gave me… feelings which I had then no vocabulary to express’.
I still have no vocabulary to express, hence the afore mentioned jealousy. If you haven’t already, read Anne of Green Gables and you too will perhaps fall in love with the lovely island. It’s not mountainous, it has no spectacular ravines or tumbling waterfalls. It is rather a patchwork of forest and field, babbling brooks and lakes, red beaches, estuaries and sand dunes.
PEI sceneryEven the hay was interestingLaneway in the PEI National ParkPEI National ParkRed sand at sunsetCavendish beach sunsetCavendish beach during the dayView from Cavendish beachTrying to recreate a photo we took in Aus 5 years ago
When we weren’t eating s’mores we visited all things Green Gables including ‘the lake of shining waters’, ‘the haunted wood’ and ‘lovers lane’ and of course Green Gables itself which Emma’s cousin Jill later described as a ‘frumpy little house’. I guess it was really. Still, it inspired a tale which made Lucy Maud Montgomery a person of national significance and that somehow makes it rather special.
A carriage ride with Mathew around the Lake of Shining Waters Everything about LMM is celebrated and made into a tourist attractionGreen GablesLovers LaneThe Haunted WoodMeeting Anne was a highlight for AmySomeone had to do it!
We packed up after three nights at PEI and piled our stuff into the back of the Buick Encore. At least we did after I cursed and swore at it again because the boot wouldn’t unlock at the same time as all the other doors. You’d think I would have adjusted to that after ten days, but apparently not.
We drove straight to the Halifax Shopping Centre and on to the Apple store where we proceeded to spend the next three and a half hours. Oliver, Amy and I played all the various sample games on offer on the various MacBook’s, iPad’s and iPhone’s while Emma did serious techie stuff with the serious techie people. I dropped by occasionally to make unhelpful but well intentioned interventions, before disappearing back to the games again.
With another ‘good’ Andrea at the Apple Store
Amy and I also snuck out for a while to explain to the people at Mountain Equipment Co-op how it was that I had managed to buy a size nine pair of boots when I really needed a size ten. To my surprise, and great relief, this apparently was not a problem. I swapped them for a larger pair and we were on our way again.
To summarise, Buick Encores stink, moose and squirrels are good, Peggy’s cove is gorgeous but we can’t show you the photos, s’mores without chocolate are an offense to Canadians everywhere and I’m jealous that Lucy Maud Montgomery became of person of national significance by writing a story in which nothing happens.
Yep that about sums it up. Thanks for sticking with me. See you next time.
I read recently that the probability of my existence has been calculated, by those with the capacity and curiosity to do so, at one in 102,685,000 (give or take an order of magnitude). I also read that if the fundamental laws of physics including the ‘strong nuclear force’ and the ‘electric force’ (which governs the energies required to fuse and stabilise all the various compounds and elements), were varied by just 0.5 and 4 percent respectively then all the carbon and all the oxygen produced in every star that ever went supernova would have been destroyed within the instant of its creation.
Given we, and every other living being that is or ever was, are made from Carbon, this means that if the laws which govern the behaviour of the universe were tweaked, even a fraction, the very fabric of our being wouldn’t exist. Isn’t that incredible!
Do you see what happens when we stop running hither and thither looking at stuff and just slow down for a while? Put us in cosy little cottage, in a sleepy little town (Lockeport, Nova Scotia, Canada) with virtually no desire to go anywhere or see anything and this is what happens. Before you know it you’re absorbed within the mind of Stephen Hawking and contemplating the magnitude of the improbability that you should be sitting anywhere contemplating anything at all.
Of course a little down time does not affect all of us the same way. Amy’s response to unexpected leisure had nothing to do with existential dilemma. It was rather a far more practical and delicious embrace of all things domestic. She seized on the existence of an oven and ingredients and was soon baking happily. Emma found a jigsaw puzzle which she tackled with unbridled enthusiasm while Oliver oscillated between absorbing stories from his Kobo with those from the healthy supply of DVDs on offer.
….mmmm cookiesReadingEating inside at a table – quite a change from camping!
For our first three or four days in Lockeport I don’t think we left the house before 2.00 in the afternoon. When we did, it was only to wander aimlessly through the pretty little town or to sit on the beach and doze in the warmth of the sun or to build sand castles. Amy and I also went on little photographic adventures, snapping pictures of lighthouses that adorned the rocky outcrops of Nova Scotia’s endless supply of coves, bays and inlets, lobster boats, historic houses and kitchy yard decorations.
On our walk to the beachDecorativeGarden decorationsLockeportLockeport harborBirds on the beachSunset in Lockeport
At various times during our stay we visited the local library whose WiFi worked whether the library was open or not unlike the Rogers phone network mobile coverage which only worked in the nook by the window on the second floor of our cottage when the wind was blowing the right way. Across the road from the library was a shop called Becky’s Knit and Yarn which Emma and Amy visited when it was open. They came away with balls of wool, crochet hooks and knitting needles which soon replaced the baking and the puzzles to fill time in their days.
The nook with connectivity
Amy crocheted three beanies in four days endearing herself strongly to Becky of Becky’s Knit and Yarn in the process. Becky wrote about Amy on her shops Facebook page and not long after the shop keep at the general store recognised her as the young girl from Australia that made the beanies. Amy was locally famous! An overnight sensation.
Becky holds a knitting session once a week which Emma and Amy figured they might as well go along to for a while. Oliver and I had to go in search of them when they hadn’t returned hours later. We found them firmly ensconced in a circle of ladies chattering away while knitting needles whirred. We’d been in town only a week but were already feeling like locals.
Famous Amy!At Becky’s
We did manage to awaken ourselves from our lethargy for a day here and there. We visited the Kejimkujik National Park (isn’t that a cool name) with Peter, Andrea, Sydney and Tobin who instantly made good on promises of fun things to do in Canada by showing up with canoes.
Together again, we paddled across gorgeous tea stained lakes surrounded by spruce forest and lined in the tidal zone with bright green aquatic grasses. All the while blue sky sat far overhead, stretching far further than usual in this flatter than usual landscape. Fluffy white clouds made the scene picture perfect.
We explored forested islands and rocky coves, swimming and picnicking in the sunshine. It felt very… Canadian. We bid the Douglas Grants another fond farewell at the end of another gorgeous day. This good bye was a tough one. It will be four months until we see them again.
The mums with the boysThe wind picked upSo Canadian!Pretty Swinging through the ‘jungle’ on ropesPhoto courtesy of AmyNot a care in the worldThe gang together in our 8th country
Days later we drove north of Lockeport to Lunnenberg a World Heritage listed preserve of colonial Canada more or less as it would have been back in the day and home to the Blue Nose, a fishing schooner that was the pride of Canada for decades because no-one could beat it when racing gave way to fishing.
Fun in a Lunnenburg park
As we drove we soaked in the nuance of house, home, yard, cars and lifestyle that make one place different from another. In some ways Canada is so like home. Canadians after all are just versions of us living half the planet away. Still place shapes people and people shape culture and the people and the place here are a unique thing all of their own.
One thing you notice is that the whole province seems to have got the memo about how to build your house. Weatherboard or shingles are the order of the day whether that day be past, present or future. Houses should be well spaced apart. This is a big country so there really is no need to go crowding your neighbour. The coast bends and wraps and twists and turns so much that even water views need not be vied for with any sort of enthusiasm.
Exploring ‘Sand Dollar’ Beach – no sand dollars though
Gardens seem to be oddly absent with houses sitting amongst sprawling lawns, by and large unencumbered by the fences found in most Australian suburbia. Gardens are perhaps impossible due to the heavy blankets of snow which lingers here longer than might be preferred or just redundant due to the gorgeous natural environment outside of nearly everyone’s front door.
Gorgeous scenery (and ice creams)
Lobster pots abound, stacked as they are in the yards of most every house. It’s tough to be a lobster in this neck of the woods. Seems to me that if you live in Nova Scotia you’re either plucking lobster from the depths, harvesting trees from the seemingly endless forests or serving said lobster to visitors such as us. My methods for determining the foundations of the local economy are of course not particularly thorough.
It was with some regret that our time in Lockeport came to an end. Ten days contemplating the improbability of my existence (and the related question of the existence or otherwise of an omnipotent creator) was over before it began. Long term travel does have a way of warping your perception of time and how much of it you dedicate to what. Alas there is more to Nova Scotia than our sleepy little village and we four unlikely beings were off to make the most of the improbable chance we have to see it.
8 itchy feet 