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Jo MayJo May
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I am a retired academic and my husband and I have been travelling inside Australia since we met way back in the mists of time. Since 1997 we have also been travelling overseas regularly which we love very much. Read more New South Wales, Australia
  • TravelerCanada: from Sydney to Sydney!
    Day 40

    We made it!

    April 29 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    Dear All,
    Thank you for following our journey so far. Today we made it to Sydney Nova Scotia and the Atlantic Ocean, so our goal to go from Sydney NSW Australia to Vancouver and then drive to Sydney on the Eastern side of Canada has been accomplished. We are going to take a few days off now and rest before we head around the famous Cape Breton Trail, then on to Prince Edward Island, Quebec and finally Montreal. What a treat it has been so far! So anyway no posts from me now until the weekend. With love, him & me xRead more

  • TravelerCanada: from Sydney to Sydney!
    3
    Day 37

    Houses of the Arcadian Peninsula

    April 26 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 4 °C

    These images were taken from a moving vehicle 🚗- apologies for their quality- or lack thereof. But they are so cute, n’est-ce-pas? A larger house, say at 662 St Pierre Ouest, Caraquet will set you back $349,000 CA. Real estate here is far more reasonable than at home depending on where you want to buy. And of course you would need to brush up on your French!Read more

  • TravelerCanada: from Sydney to Sydney!
    Day 36–37

    A little bit of French s’il vous plait

    April 25 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 0 °C

    Very quickly it seemed we moved from Ontario with its English speaking population and bilingual signage, into French speaking Quebec where the signs are only in French. This feels like a different country; the language seems to represent far more than words, but a style of living that is inherently different. For a start I noticed a greater pride in surroundings. The houses were neater, there was negligible litter and almost no graffiti. Manners were practised more diligently. The coffee was still bad though!
    We spent the first night at a very nice motel at Montmagny. It was snowing again and everything looked clean and shapely under the snow’s effect. The next morning we drove along the great and historic St Lawrence Seaway. And the houses were simply stunning: so neat, so stylish…
    After a long day on the road we ended up in a place called Campbellton where we stayed in an excellent hotel with a fabulous view of the J. C. Horne bridge. We took a walk along the esplanade after breakfast the next day and then headed off to explore more francophone wonders by driving highway 11 around the Arcadian Peninsula. According to the all-knowing Wikipedia: “Most settlement in the peninsula occurred as a result of the Expulsion of the Acadians during the Gulf of St. Lawrence Campaign (1758), where British personnel forcibly removed them from their homes, mostly in southern New Brunswick and Nova Scotia.”
    Almost all of the houses on this peninsula are waterfront or have magnificent water views. There are no fences. There is no garbage in evidence, no graffiti, and the houses are each different, with a certain style nevertheless emerging. I wanted to photograph them all and create a book called “The Houses of the Arcadian Peninsula” - original huh? Anyway I have included a couple here just to give a sense of them, a following post with 10 more. White churches also abound in this predominantly Roman Catholic area. At a cafe called the Creek, we had a perfect lunch of soup (chowder for him; beef and barley for me) with fresh white rolls, and a side of excellent frites. Poor coffee the only detractor - you can’t have everything it seems. The French in France would be appalled!
    Tonight we are in Moncton. We didn’t mean to drive this far, it just seemed to happen naturally. And we saw our first moose 🫎 on the side of the road. Yay!!! Time for sleep. Be well everyone.    Read more

  • TravelerCanada: from Sydney to Sydney!
    Day 34

    National Gallery of Canada

    April 23 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 14 °C

    After a lovely day of rest where we explored the neighbourhood a bit and shopped locally for special foods to cook and eat, we went next day to the extraordinary National Gallery of Canada. We caught the 14 bus from around the corner into the city and walked the rest of the way to the Gallery along the rather grand Sussex Street. The first thing we came upon in the Gallery precinct was what looked like a war memorial but was in fact a tribute to Canada’s peacekeeping efforts called “Reconciliation”. Then in the background of this monument we spied the Gallery for the first time. Wow! The pictures in this post only give an idea of the monumental architecture of this modern cathedral to art. And as if to say, you cannot escape Louise Bourgeois (we had paid for but missed her show in Sydney before we came here because we simply ran out of time) there was her giant Mamman Spider out the front! Apparently there are nine replicas of these creatures throughout the world- just to remind us that we all have unconscious minds at work!- as if we could forget. Peace Freud!
    Because these great galleries have far too much to see in one visit we concentrated on Level 1 Indigenous and Canadian art. We spent all day at it and managed to cover the lot - although our attention was a little bit ragged by the end. We took quite a few snaps a sample of which are attached. The day ended with a crowded 14 bus home, a light dinner, thoughts of hitting the road on the morrow, and some packing. We figure we can make Sydney on the Atlantic coast of Nova Scotia in five hops. There we plan a longer stay of a full week. Meanwhile the road is our home …    Read more

  • TravelerCanada: from Sydney to Sydney!
    1
    Day 31

    Ottawa - a walk downtown

    April 20 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 8 °C

    We went for a walk downtown to the Rideau Centre on our first full day, a very cool Sunday. We had some shopping to do and wanted to have a good look at the place. It's all very impressive I must say and makes Canberra look rather pale and small by comparison. No wonder Canada was Elizabeth II's favourite Commonwealth country.

    Another Queen, Victoria, selected Ottawa as the capital of the Province of Canada in 1858. Soon after, work began on Parliament Hill via a design competition. Gothic Revival style was chosen for the parliamentary buildings because it was thought to reflect the development of the Westminster style of government as opposed to the neoclassical style chosen by the USA in Washington (and elsewhere!) to reflect its Republic. These Canadian buildings speak to a European sensibility that is more than British I think, encompassing the French as well as the English colonial and postcolonial reality of the country. With their copper turrets and lofty spires, the buildings are quite fairytale in effect.

    The city itself is very walkable, laid out on s grid both sides of the Ottawa River and Rideau Canal. Sydneysiders readily recognise some people familiar street names: Sussex, Kent, George, York, Cumberland, William … there’s even a suburb called The Glebe. Our house is in Centre Town. This suburb consists mainly two storey free standing dwellings from 1890s onwards. It reminds us of inner west Sydney and is being gentrified in the same way. Real estate is only marginally cheaper than in Newcastle.    Read more

  • TravelerCanada: from Sydney to Sydney!
    1
    Day 28–31

    Three More Days on the Road

    April 17 in Canada ⋅ 🌧 6 °C

    Well tonight we are in Canada’s capital, Ottawa. Our new pad for the next four nights is charming and I read online that it has a “walkability” score of 97%. We proved this after we arrived an hour early for our checkin and had to go for walk as we waited. Before we knew it we were at the amazing parliamentary section of this lovely and sensibly laid out city. Our journey here has been smooth but not without its challenges. I keep hearing that song by LRB (the first one with Glenn Shorrock out front) : “I remember those days on the road, trying to get somewhere …”
    https://youtu.be/600TQCG7OJY?si=ki4k5BgMp_UrIttZ

    1. WoeWoe in Wawa
    The small lakeside town of Wawa yielded up the worst motel we have had on this trip, ironically called The Alpha Inn. First we had trouble locating it because the new owners had invested in a you-beaut sign that had an elaborate slide show, only one slide of which had the actual name. Every time we passed by, the name was not showing. We thought we were going mad or had been scammed. Seeking advice we were told about the new sign which had confounded a few before. They would have been better advised to spend the money on new clean towels and maybe hanging space for their rooms. Ah well, live and learn: we didn’t so much as check out the next morning as run away! Without breakfast we headed out into the fog and the vast stretches of the Park National transversed by the Trans Canada Highway. After a couple of hours we finally came upon the Voyageurs’ Lodge, and had good coffee and one of their famous (and huge) apple fritters. Relief! Strengthened we reached our next destination, Blind River, in the early afternoon.

    2. The Old Mill Motel at the End of the Universe
    This motel was also run by a Canadian of Indian extraction and once again the office was decorated with subcontinental icons and fragrances of incense. We were heartened to be given the end room which had a marvellous picture window facing the entry of the Blind River into Lake Huron, one of the Great Lakes. The room was spacious, with a great king bed and just about everything we needed. BUT this motel is next to a sewage treatment plant that made a loud hum all night - not white noise, but blight noise. We didn’t get much sleep and were glad to be on our way, this time to decent motel at North Bay.

    3. Graham’s Birthday at Best Western, North Bay
    Once again we drove through fog on what is billed as one of the most scenic drives in Ontario. We didn’t see anything scenic but the fog had a beauty ( and a terror at times) of its own. We were happy, knowing we were having our own unique trip across Canada. And that we would be staying at a reliably excellent hotel at the resort town of North Bay, with a restaurant and bar, pool and so on. Ah the joy of crisp fresh sheets and the quiet of deep carpets! It was Graham’s 73rd birthday and we had a celebratory dinner, a lovely walk, a video chat with Chris & Stu, a birthday message from Hanna and Shane, and a fine night’s sleep. Then OTTAWA! More on this to come …

    So far the trip by road has not only revealed the truly open hearted nature of the people, but the also the beauty and flow of the landscape - the shape of the place at least along the Trans Canada Highway. From sea level at English Bay in Vancouver, over and into the amazing Rockies, through Alberta’s incredible badlands, down onto the plains of Saskatchewan and Manitoba, onwards around the northern shores of the Great Lakes, and the incredible lakelands all around them, this is a bountiful place with a hard wintery climate.
    But the skies cleared to allow a welcome sun to filter through this afternoon and there are daffodils, tulips, violets and hyacinths blooming shyly in the gardens in our boho area of Ottawa. Spring is definitely building …    Read more

  • TravelerCanada: from Sydney to Sydney!
    1
    Day 25

    Shuniah and Thunder Bay 2

    April 14 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    Tomorrow is our last day in peaceful Shuniah. The word Shuniah comes from a local Indigenous Ojibwa word "zhooniyaa" for "silver", supposedly associated with the mining of silver in the 19thC. But I think the place was called Shuniah because of the silver lights on Lake Superior here in the morning and afternoon - as Donovan wrote, here there are “diamonds in the sea”. Tomorrow we will concentrate on washing clothes, packing and generally preparing to leave early on the 17th. We will be on the road for the following four days ( three motel nights) before we arrive in Ottawa where we have an Airbnb for four nights. Anyway that’s the logistics of travelling such vast distances by road. So far so good.
    The photos in this post cover yesterday and today. Yesterday we walked to Mackenzie Point. And today we drove to Kakabeka Falls, “the Niagara of the North”. They are very impressive but nothing like Niagara! After that we went into Thunder Bay. The place was very quiet but nice to wander around the new Marine Park area and take a clear shot of the Sleeping Giant. After a little food shopping we returned home.
    Two observations by me here about Thunder Bay, which might be better called Shop Paddock. This is the most spread out city I have ever seen - you simply couldn’t live here without a car as there is very little public transport. Acres and acres of quite ugly huge shops, businesses and banks. The place does not seem to have a centre. There are many parks but they are connected by ugly passages of capitalist wasteland. Too harsh perhaps but it’s such a contrast to Shuniah! The other observation is perhaps related to not having a centre, this is that there are very few cafes. And the expresso coffee we have managed to locate is weak and without flavour. Nevertheless we have been very grateful for the lovely rest here. It’s been simply grand!    Read more

  • TravelerCanada: from Sydney to Sydney!
    1
    Day 22–25

    Shuniah and Thunder Bay 1

    April 11 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 12 °C

    On arrival at Thunder Bay we shopped for the first time at a Walmart Super Centre for our provisions. This shop was somewhat of a culture shock and we wandered around like lost pilgrims. Aisle after aisle of strange (to us anyway) food stuffs. Not knowing quite what we had bought or if it was the right quantity, we finally found our way to Shuniah. The photos for this post - by Graham this time - give a little impression of our first few days at Shuniah. Our little abode, called the Cove, is centrally heated, almost brand new, and fully equipped. We love it. We have had a chance to do our washing (so we are happy to go out again now); had a chance to catch up on sleep and rest - not the same thing but close; cook and eat a spaghetti bolognaise from scratch; and just generally be in our own space. We are surrounded by nature here at the very end of Mackenzie Beach Avenue - water at the front and bush at the side. Of course the weather is against taking full advantage of the options available here in Summer - I ain't going swimming while there's ice floating in the water! Likewise I will not canoe or sailboard. But at least we can walk.
    Yesterday we took a walk to the abandoned railway walking track as far as the old rail bridge over the Mackenzie River where it enters Lake Superior. Then today we went into Thunder Bay for the first time after visiting the Terry Fox Monument and Lookout. Terry Fox's is a remarkable story of human courage and generosity. In 1977 Terry Fox had lost his leg to cancer at 18. Galvanised by seeing the suffering of other cancer patients, he decided to walk across Canada to raise money and awareness for cancer research. We were told by the woman at the Tourist Office there that his 'Marathon of Hope' actually ended at Shuniah after 143 days of walking. Thunder Bay took this man to their hearts and they dedicated this lovely park to him and his quest. She also told us the base of the Memorial is made from amethyst, and you can see the beautiful purple crystals in it. Much moved, we also found the view out over Lake Superior and the Sleeping Giant quite stunning. But even more stunning we were approached there by a young woman who overheard in the Tourist Office that we were from Australia. She asked questions about our trip and had some advice about Ottawa which was great, but almost as an afterthought she invited us to stay in her B&B for free in Toronto if we thinking about visiting that city. Sadly we are not going via Toronto, but thanked her for her generosity, and in parting she wryly observed that there really wasn't much to see there anyway. Tomorrow we are planning to walk all the way to Mackenzie Point, weather permitting.    Read more

  • TravelerCanada: from Sydney to Sydney!
    1
    Day 20

    Three Days on the Road

    April 9 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C

    Saskatchewan-Manitoba-Ontario
    We are heading for a 6 night stay at Thunder Bay on the mighty Lake Superior starting tomorrow, 11 April. To get there we needed to make two long hops from Regina - one to just outside of Winnipeg and another at Dryden where we are tonight.

    As we moved from the vast plains of Saskatchewan, then through the similar terrain of Manitoba into Ontario, we increasingly saw small lakes beside the road, holiday encampments, places for canoeing and swimming and riding and playing in the summer holidays. The skies have become higher, and there are actual rocks now, appearing after the prairies. The long stretches of field on either side of the road, have given away to a more featured landscape, and we’ve also passed through the even black pine forests that require fire to burn them. They all burn together and then grow back together which is why they are mostly the same height. Interesting! I always thought that Australian forests were unique in being pyrogenic … so much for my arboreal knowledge! We’ll be glad to be stopping tomorrow for a little while.    Read more

  • TravelerCanada: from Sydney to Sydney!
    1
    Day 19

    Surprising Regina 2

    April 8 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 12 °C

    We headed to the Royal Saskatchewan Museum after a morning doing necessary washing duty in the hotel laundry. Thoroughly enjoyed the exhibits and we made sure we did the Indigenous history galleries first. Of special note were the diorama and static displays of arts, crafts and other material as well as excellent animal models in different types of landscapes. Lunch at Subway and a late light dinner in the hotel.
    In all Regina has been very surprising: larger and more sophisticated and historically minded than we expected. But it lacks our cafe culture and finding a good cup of coffee has eluded our best efforts. We have met and talked with a few people and one couple staying in the hotel wanted us to come to their farm and show us around their area near Virden. We gratefully declined because we really wanted to get to Lake Superior as soon as we could. Our goal beyond that is an area called the Maritimes before we have to turn back to Quebec and Montreal. Still this gives you an idea of how warm the people are here.
    Actor Leslie “Don’t call me Shirley” Neilson was born in Regina in 1926. He said: “There's no way you can be a Canadian and think you can lose it ... Canadians are a goodly group. They are very aware of caring and helping."    Read more

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