Bare Park

We had more guests arrive on Monday evening. Stephen and Anne arrived. Airport customs must have thought Anne had something stuffed up her top (she does. She’s pregnant) because they took ages. The longest of all our guests so far. We waited patiently for them having printed out a little welcome sign. We hoped that Stephen and Anne wouldn’t see the huge banner, balloons and camera crew that were awaiting someone else. With our guests taken to our flat and shown round we had a nice evening chatting and catching up on news.

We thought it would be nice to make use of Ottawa’s nice park areas and have a picnic one evening with Stephen and Anne. We went to the supermarket to get our picnic provisions. We were very pleased to have Anne with us as it meant that we could park in the expectant mother parking spot, just a few feet away from the entrance. Result. Wish we had Anne with us on all our shopping trips. On the way to the park we saw a young girl who obviously has very cruel parents. They had bought her a pair of rollerblades knowing full well that their daughter has absolutely no sense of balance. There were arms and legs flailing everywhere and she didn’t get more than a couple of staggered yards before she slowly fell to the ground. We turned the car round twice just so we could follow her. Anne nearly went into early labour she was laughing so much. We had definitely picked the wrong day for a picnic because as we drove around trying to find a scenic spot by the river, the weather turned for the worse. We ended up quite a way from the river, and by the time we had parked there was a hurricane blowing. We sat desperately holding onto our paper plates and food. Even the mad-dogs weren’t out in this weather. It was a fairly short picnic!

We take all our visitors out for a meal and on Thursday we managed to get a table at Luxe in the Byward Market. We had a nice meal (except for the slow service and Sarah getting the wrong meal), but Stephen and Anne will provide a full review shortly.

We had planned to go to the drive in cinema on Friday evening, but this was rained off so we got pic n mix from the nearby Sugar Mountain shop and settled in to watch a DVD. We saw Million Dollar Baby – it was exceptionally boring for the first three-quarters and depressing for the last quarter. We were left wondering why it won an Oscar?

Over the weekend we went to Algonquin National Park, a three hour drive away. Sarah burped most of the way there and slept all of the way back. We arrived just after lunch at a B&B near the park. It looked perfectly normal from the outside and was in a great location only a few kilometres outside the park. However, when we walked in, we quickly realise that all was not right. Stuffed animals. Lots of them. Collections of teapots, floral pictures and uncoordinated brick-a-brack from garage sales were everywhere. It was very kitsch. Stephen worried Sarah by saying it would be a miracle if we survived the night as the house was like the Bates hotel in Psycho. We dumped our bags and made a hasty retreat from our over decorated rooms.

Algonquin Park is very picturesque this time of year as the leaves are starting to turn red and brown. In the park we did a few 2km walks, including Beaver Pond where we saw a chipmunk but no beavers and Peck Lake where Sarah nearly lost her hat when it blew off into the lake as she crossed a fallen tree to an island. I was the hero because I grabbed the camera tripod off Sarah and fished the hat out of the lake before it drifted away. Luckily Sarah didn’t seem to mind that my priority had been the hat and not her! The final walk we did was Spruce Bog. It had beautiful scenery and was really peaceful, only interrupted by Stephen’s hiccupping (this was only the start for poor Stephen as he hiccupped almost continuously for the next day!).

We had an early start on Sunday in our quest to find moose (or mooses) and bears. We heard at breakfast that 30 bears were shot during the Summer as they had ventured down to peoples’ backyards. Having spent yesterday looking for bears in the park we were a bit annoyed to find out that one of the best places to see them is at the local rubbish dump. The Germans who stayed at our B&B and walked around in their underpants gave us this tip as they had spent the previous night at the dump (at least that’s what I think they said).

Back in the park we walked round Whisky Rapids and rewarded ourselves with hot chocolate and cake at the visitor centre. The brownies are a real delight. There were lots of stuffed animals there as well. Perhaps that’s why we haven’t seen any in the park itself. On the way home we stopped for a Greek pizza in Barry’s Bay and Sarah and Anne had a good sing song (until Sarah fell asleep) and then had a Greek takeaway for dinner. It was a Greek style day!