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Family Catch Up

June – July 2025
  • Simon Hillman
  • Annette Eyre
LA to Banff to Toronto Read more
  • Simon Hillman
  • Annette Eyre

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Bicycle, Couple, Family, Nature, Sightseeing, Sports
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  • Family Catch Up
    1

    Day 19

    June 17 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    The.fire damage in the National Parks is enormous, 81,000 acres of burnt trees with only the trunks of the trees standing. Being pine there is no regrowth so the land looks like an apocalypse has occurred. Believe they are still trying to decide what to do.

    Mariah showed us where her staff lodges got burnt to the ground. The staff lodges are 3 storey log cabins, amazing how the ones next to hers escaped with not even burn marks, the photos with security fencing were where her building used to be.

    We did a 2hr boat ride on Lake Maligne which is the Jasper Nat Parks largest glacier fed lake and they took us out to Spirit Island which is very small with only 23 trees on it. However its very significant to an Indian Tribe.

    The island is a spiritual place for the Stoney Nakoda First Nation, who believe mountains are physical representations of their ancestors. The fact that Spirit Island is surrounded on three sides by the same mountain range is very rare and makes it particularly significant to the Stoney. They still visit it to perform certain ceremonies.

    Like clock work, on the way home we got to see more Canadian Wildlife a big female moose, they look quite odd and i think big G should have given them a tail. Finished the day off with a nice swim in the hotel heated pool    Read more

  • Family Catch Up
    11

    Day 20

    June 18 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 9 °C

    Hired some bikes today from the hotel......yes ..... electric pedal assist, pretty expensive $100 each for half a day. Annoyingly the damn seat post kept slipping when i went over bumps. They had too much graphite grease in the frame down tube.

    Anyway we did about 22 klm first into Jasper where u could see the hit and miss effects of the recent fire. Had a nice salad for lunch after pedaling around town. Then we peddled to Lake Annette where annie insisted on stripping off to her undies and had a swim in the cold lake there.

    To finish off our day Chris arranged with his mates at the hotel for us to borrow a 2 seat canoe and then a peddle cat and we explored the lake at the resort which like most of the lakes here is fed from underground springs.    Read more

  • Family Catch Up

    Day 21 what a day

    June 20 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Time to leave the resort and the Rockies today, the place is stunning and if it wasnt for Mariah's 50% staff discount we couldn't have afforded to stay there.

    We had a 410 klm drive today to Edmonton Airport to catch a flight to Toronto to see my sister. Then a near disaster struck, we had allowed time for the drive to the airport with 2hrs to spare. In shutting the boot on her Ford Explorer, Mariah got her finger caught in the number plate and nearly cut the top of her finger off..

    With the clock ticking we rushed into Jasper to the hospital hoping it wasn't busy at that time of the day. The finger had to be x-rayed, her nail cut off and stitched. All up this took 2hrs i.e. all the time we had allowed. Really looked like we would miss our flight.

    Mariah insisted on driving and sat on 120kph all the way. Parked her car and we all ran into the airport, there was no one at the gate and it turned out we were the last passengers to check in before they had to close. We then had to rush through the airport to board the plane.

    We flew with a mob called Porter Airlines, almost new jet nice food and wine and in glass not plastic. It was a 3hr 15min flight and there was a 2hr time diff so we didn't get to the hotel till 11.30 pm    Read more

  • Family Catch Up

    Day 22

    June 20 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 21 °C

    Big sleep in, yet another lovely hotel The Fairmont Royal Oak, in the centre of Toronto opposite Union Stn. We are on the 12th floor and u can see Lake Ontario.

    Its a huge old hotel built in the 1920s with 1347 beds and it was totally booked out. Many famous people have stayed here over the yrs including the Queen and hubby. Another staff booking deal thanks to Mariah's employer, tell u what the Fairmont Group really provides fabulous staff incentives.

    Big brekkie then arranged to meet my sister in the foyer who i haven't seen in 4 yrs. We walked down to the harbour front and around a bit of the city. Very modern and where we are staying is the financial district, banks galore.. Great tram system and 3 huge sports stadiums close by, very much like Melbourne with a pop of 3 million.

    The hotel is a big supporter of the LGBTQ movement and there was an amazing floral promo display in the hotel foyer sponsored by Absolut Vodka. Had a nice family dinner in one of the hotel's restaurants then turned in after washing our clothes in the shower.... The hotel wanted $8 per garment and being a business district there are no laundries for miles. So our room now looks like a Turkish Laundry    Read more

  • Family Catch Up

    Day 23

    June 21 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 19 °C

    Took a taxi to The Beaches a suburb on the lake and near where my sister lives. It's sort of a beach but no sand just gravel down to the lake side with life guards on duty. Apparently there are nasty under currents. There is a broadwalk along the lake that goes for miles. The main street is Queen St and it's a short walk from the lakeside. Its hip kind of street old buildings lots bars cafes arty shops with a tram line down the middle that runs into the CBD. You would think u are in Melbourne.

    Spent a while exploring the area then headed back into the CBD to go and watch an NBL game at Rogers Stadium, the Toronto Blue Jays vs the Chicago White Soxs.

    It was a 45,000 seat stadium with a retractable roof the crowd was near capacity. They started with the roof closed and they opened it about an hour into the game to reveal the CNN Tower, very special. First time i had ever been to a pro baseball game and being an ex softball ball player, Annie had to help me understand the rules. Food and booze were aplenty there and of course we had to have a huge hot dog with the lot. Unfortunately some of the mustard on Annies dog ended up on her new dress. The size of the dog made handling it difficult.

    It was a good game with Toronto coming out on top and we loved the theatre of the show they put on. A short walk back to the hotel then nurse annie had to change the dressing on Mariah's finger and then shopping trip for some warm weather clothes for Annie going to be 33c tomorrow    Read more

  • Family Catch Up

    Day 24 strangers in the night

    June 22 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 31 °C

    Put our bags into storage in the Royal York and checked out to head to Niagara Falls. Will be back at the hotel Monday night. Hopped onto our coach to Niagara from the Union Station which conveniently is just across the road.. Its 128klm and should only take 90min on the freeway there. Turned out it took over 3hrs. I swear the coach driver never got out of 1st gear for 100klm. The 6 lane freeway was bumper to bumper which they reckon it always is on the weekend.

    The coach company has to pay a $65 toll to drive and stop in Niagara each trip. So rather than do that he stops on the outskirts of town at a disused car park that a local bus company does free shuttles into town from. To catch up some time mariah got us an Uber which came in 3min and that took us to our Airbnb about 2klm from the falls. We had the basement in this nice old house, all fully refurbished with 2 bedrooms

    We had the ferry ride to the falls at 5pm so we walked down to a nice old restaurant overlooking the falls and had some lunch. Then off to the boarding area and picked up our plastic ponchos. Very busy and the ship takes 700 passengers every trip at $50 each its money making machine. The ladies loved the ferry ride and we all got pretty wet as it gets very close to the falls.

    Had a walk around town then headed to our lodgings. Dinner time beckoned and mariah ordered a lovely Indian meal for us delivered to the house. We tried to watch a movie but the landlord had activated parental control so stuff it we started watching Nemo... The 2nd odd event was at 10.30pm the landlord has set access to the internet to close down....

    Pissed off but tired we turned in. At about 11.30pm and in bed we heard someone coming down the stairs into our lounge. Long story cut short it was a family coming to stay as there was a date stuff up. The bloody landlord doesn't change the back doors key code between renters. Not sure who was the most surprised.

    Mariah sorts this out and we finally turn in again.    Read more

  • Family Catch Up

    Hotel pics

    June 23 in Canada ⋅ ☀️ 23 °C

    The Fairmont Royal Oak was a lovely old building with so much history. However the lighting in the main foyer, the restaurants and the 8 lifts was very poor, a deliberate approach to mimic the mood lighting of the 1920/30s period. There was lots of beautiful detail in the timbers and ceilings that made it very difficult to see. Or read the damn menus, sorry its a pet hate of mineRead more

  • Family Catch Up

    Day 25 feeling thirsty

    June 23 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 30 °C

    Did a nice winery tour today to celebrate Mariahs 28th birthday with a few other tourists The Niagara Lakes wine district has 53 operating winery's. I never even knew Canada had such a well developed wine industry.

    The small coach picked us all up at 10am and dropped us off at the location we had to catch our coach back to Toronto at 5.15pm. We got shown 4 wineries which we toured, had charcuterie brunch and a very nice Alcarte lunch. Each tasting included 4 wines.

    Annie mentioned to the restaurant that it was Mariah's birthday and they did a quick birthday dessert with a candle and the rest of our tour buses tourist all sang her happy birthday which was very nice of them

    Was impressed with the standard of their wines. Have never seen any Canadian wines for sale in Oz, must admit in future I will be looking out for them. The hwy was much quieter so the trip back to the hotel only took 2hrs approximately.    Read more

  • Family Catch Up

    Day 26 last night in Toronto

    June 24 in Canada ⋅ ⛅ 32 °C

    Had a swim in the hotel plus annie did some weight work in the gym. Spent the rest of the day with my sister showing us around. We walked down To the Distillery a very large old whisky distillery which has been turned into an up market shopping and eating precinct art galleries etc..Was a beautiful old brick building with timber floors

    Then went to the Eaton Centre as Annie wanted to buy a case with wheels and some clothes. Came back on the subway they have a very good system called Presto, super easy to download and top up. U have to use it exclusively for the train the tram, buses and subway. Then had a wonder around the stn to familiarise ourselves with how to catch the airport train.

    Saw my sister off and started packing our bags to head off Wed morning. Had our last dinner in the hotel and probably had a few too many cocktails    Read more

  • Family Catch Up

    Day 27 up up and away

    June 25 in Canada ⋅ ☁️ 27 °C

    Up early brekkie in the hotel and across the road to Union Station, been shorts and tee shirt the whole trip so far and Toronto was in the 30s the whole time so been really lucky with the weather.

    Annie under the weather this morning, one cocktail too many. Nice train to the airport. Runs every 15min only has 2 stops, tap on and off with presto app on our phones and it takes u right into Terminal 1

    Very modern airport luckily we struck a quiet day. Walk to Terminal 6 not too far. We had been pre warned Air Canada has 3 gates for international travellers and a dedicated gate 3 for travellers to the US. For some reason all the security checks to get to our boarding gate gave annie a real hard time. At one stage they even took her boarding pass and walked away with it. Must have known she trying to smuggle kids toys out of canada. The customer guy asked so many questions, thought we might be having to stay for awhile.

    Turns out the staff on this gate are all American and paid by US customs. The really great news is u dont need to be checked by the LA customs just walk to pick up your bag...yippee.

    Air Canada have a great baggage system that i reckon all airlines should adopt. We got sent a msg to confirm they have received your baggage and then as its loaded u get another msg confirming its been loaded on the plane. By sheer luck we were sitting front row at the gate and saw our bags go up the baggage ramp into the planes hold and as soon as the bags past what must have been a scanner, the very next second we got the loaded msg.

    20min taxi ride to my sons house $28.. Limos taxis uber luft vehicles cant do pick ups at arrivals. The airport runs a free shuttle bus service to the perimeter of the airport to any area dedicated for them, takes about 10min.

    Took a pic of an airport tug for Harlan to see as the maker is Harlan    Read more

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