Day 29 - Sudbury without Dan. Today we decided it was best for Dan to hang around at the unit by himself, with his leg up on the couch, while I went out with the kids.
This, of course, meant I had to drive to places by MYSELF! Luckily it wasn't raining today, and both Alex and Abi were very helpful in the car, calling out what they could see on the in-car navigation screen.
Our first stop was a fairly-easy-to-get-to movie theatre, where we watched "Elemental", a really sweet Pixar movie. After the movie we went to Moonlight Park, which was a beach on the lakeside. The lake itself was very shallow, and there was even a lifeguard! Alex and Abi enjoyed playing in the water, and I enjoyed sitting in the sun watching them, until they went too far out and I couldn't distinguish them from to other kids who kept going under the water's surface...
Following the beach/lake, we headed to the Jane Goodall Reclamation Walk. Sudbury did lots of copper and nickel mining, and managed to destroy the ground in the process. Trees were chopped down for various reasons, and the smoke from the chimneys generated acid rain, which killed anything else. In the late 1970s the mining companies went "oops" and initiated mining reforms as well as a massive replanting. They limed and seeded the land with grasses, and then after a year they piled heaps of phosphate on the land and began planting trees. About 9,000,000 of them.
The Jane Goodall walk had viewpoints to some hills where you could see the striking difference between an area that was 'healed' and an area that wasn't. The black rocks are the result of staining from the smoke and chemicals - not even rocks escaped the damage. It was crazy to think that one generation destroyed the land and the next generation brought it back to life!
Day 30 - Sudbury to Toronto. And just like that, we have been on our trip for one whole month! Dan had an early start to the day, around 4am, when he discovered Alex and Abi awake in bed with Alex on his chromebook. Needless to say, we are seriously contemplating sending them back home on the next available flight! They just don't learn. Alex is the instigator about 90% of the time, and Abi just goes along with it.
It was a four and a half hour drive today, and we were going to let the kids watch a movie on their Chromebooks, but after last night's behaviour that idea was thrown out the window.
Dan was happy to drive, so I got to do some research on what to do in Toronto, as we are staying there for five nights. Of course, it's now going to be five days of Dan sitting on the couch, and looking at photos of what the kids and I get to up to.
We stopped for lunch at another lakeside beach in a place called Parry Sound, and it was just as lovely as all the others! As we got closer to Toronto, we watched the rain clouds come in, and I was glad Dan was doing the driving this time, through all the narrow country roads Google took us to avoid the toll road.
Our accommodation in Toronto was what we affectionately called The Box. It was an underground basement, with a 50cm squared window in the kitchen area, and a 15cm by 50cm window in both Alex's and Abi's rooms (yes, they finally had their own rooms!). That's it. And the 50cm window was shielded by a curved corrugated iron sheet; we don't think it was for our privacy, we think it was so we couldn't see the house owners (who lived upstairs) when they were in their garden.
Day 31 - Toronto sightseeing. While Dan opted to stay in The Box to rest his leg, I ventured out with the kids to sightsee Toronto. Dan dropped us off at the closest train station with just nine minutes to work out how to buy a ticket when there was no ticket booth...
Our first stop was the Flatiron Building, which has a fantastic mural painted on the flat end of it.
Following that, we walked about 1.5km to the art gallery only to find out it was shut on Mondays, and so was the museum. 'Helpfully' the art gallery receptionist then told the kids the aquarium was open, which I had been trying to avoid since we'd already been at both an aquarium and a zoo in the last four weeks!
I managed to prolong the aquarium by saying we could do it after the Bata Shoe Museum. Both Alex and Abi complained they didn't want to go to a shoe museum:
"It's a museum about SHOES!"
"Who wants to look at shoes?"
"This is going to be so boooooooring."
We were there for almost three hours.
"Wow, this is so awesome!"
"I got to try on these really cool spring shoes for aerobics and some clown shoes!"
"Did you see the boots made for Shaquille O'Neal? They were MASSIVE, and they were even TOO SMALL so he gave them to the museum!!"
The museum had four floors of exhibits, ranging from ancient Egyptian and Greek, right through to Chinese footbinding and moon boots. They've got over 13,000 items they rotate, so I could easily imagine returning here on numerous occasions to see them all.
This seemingly torturous shoe is for nothing more sinister than shelling chestnuts!
By the time we'd finished at the museum, it was too late to go to the aquarium (oh dear, such a shame) and it was starting to rain. We negotiated the subway back to the train station and headed home for Dan to pick us up. I say negotiated, as there are no maps on the concourses telling you which platform to go to, so we were running up and down stairs a lot as well as asking passers-by.
Day 32 - Wet'n'wild! Dan and I had discussed last night that the kids haven't really had any 'fun' things to do. Most of the sightseeing we've done, while interesting if they actually read the signs, was not really up their alley. So, off to Wet'n'wild we went!
I admit, I was rather apprehensive as to how Abi, and even Alex, would go on some of the rides. Both were over the height restrictions, but there were a few rides there were scarier than others!
I picked a semi-scary but easy-enough ride for them to try out, and as there were only double inflatable rings, I sent them by themselves. The smiles on their faces when they emerged at the bottom were ear-to-ear.
"That was sooooo coooool! Mummy, you've got to come too!"
I'd seen a few people come down by themselves on the double rings, so Alex said he'd go by himself and I went with Abi. It was a short ride, with a sudden drop into a whirlpool-like bowl, before funnelling out another pipe.
"That was AWESOME! I went so much faster with you in it this time!"
After this, it was all on! Off to the biggest and scariest ride - a MASSIVE wave-like ramp you had to do as a group of two or four. Fortunately, we met a family of five on the stairs who had the same dilemma as us, so one of the mums in their group came with us. Sweet Jesus, my throat was hoarse by the time we got off. I had the misfortune of being the person going backwards down the 45° slope, so this meant I went up the opposite ramp backwards too, and I got to see the massive drop back down the ramp from the highest point! Round a few twists and turns, and we were out the bottom.
"Can we go again?!!"
So we all went again!
We tried every ride at least once, apart from one that was just too scary for all of us; a torpedo-like tube you stood in and which the floor dropped out. No thanks!
At the end of the day, we got stuck in a queue for our last ride for 45 minutes. Despite two rides beside each other going into the same pool, the operator at the top was only sending one ride down at a time, then waiting for the signal from the 'watcher' at the end before weighing the next lot of people for the other ride. What an absolutely ridiculous waste of everyone's time. So many people were complaining. One of the other rides was even more stupid, with four tubes going into the same pool but only sending one person down at a time. I can only hope that on a busy day they are better with their queue management.
We left later than planned due to our last ride, as we also played in the water-play area for a while, which is what I'd promised for the end of the day. Even this one area was such much fun, I can understand why people buy season tickets!
Poor Dan, who missed out on all the fun of today. There will be other times!
Day 33 - more Toronto sightseeing. I drove myself to the train station, and it's definitely getting easier negotiating junctions on the other side of the road.
We first went to St James Cathedral, which has the highest spire in Canada. What a beautiful building! All the stained glass was stunning, and their organ pipes were split into five huge sections around the whole room.
I wanted to buy the Lonely Planet guide for USA, so we found a mall, which blissfully had air-conditioning! One of the shops was the best shop I've ever been in - a Lindt chocolate shop! 25 flavours of Lindt truffle balls, the likes of which I've never seen before. Raspberry and milk chocolate, orange and dark chocolate, matcha, maple syrup, dulce de leche...so we bought Dan a bag of 15 different truffles, and one for each of us to eat.
After that we walked to the waterfront. Oh boy, was today hot! Hit 30° in the afternoon, and we were all hot and bothered by the time we got there. We found a very handy misting-tent, so walked through it a few times to cool off.
We walked along the really clever Simcoe Wavedeck - four waves of boardwalk that undulated to different heights. Alex and Abi had loads of fun running up and down them!
By this stage, the heat had got the better of both children, and the sweat patch on my back was getting bigger every minute. We made our way back to the train station, and this time boarded the train...without a ticket! The three other times we'd been on it, we hadn't seen a single ticket inspector, nor were they any gates for us to go through to swipe a ticket or card. So, we chanced our arm...and it paid off! Although, I admit to being rather freaked out by the "revenue supervisor" who was also on the train; turned out he was a money security guard catching a ride home!
Day 34 - Niagara Falls. First stop today was back on the train into town to go to a chiropractor, for the kids' and my monthly adjustment. Chiropractic care is something we have been doing since I was pregnant with Alex, and we find them fantastic. Our chiro at home looked up the 'magic network of international chiropractors' to find one recommended in Toronto, and we managed to get an appointment booked at short notice. I have to say, the man was lovely and gentle, but we were in and out as a family in a total of 15 minutes. This was not what we were expecting, having enjoyed 15 minutes each from our wonderful chiro in New Zealand! My sincere hope was that the price we paid had a good ratio to effectiveness.
We went back to The Box and had a quick lunch, packed some snacks and bottles of water, and drove to Niagara Falls.
What a truly magnificent sight! Niagara Falls are actually three falls; Horseshoe Falls, American Falls, and Bridal Veil Falls. It was incredible to see such awesome, raw power. In fact, the amount of water is so powerful, the Horseshoe Falls are eroding by 30cm a year!
We had bought tickets for a river cruise up to the falls, which Dan and I were very excited to do. Dan had been here as a child, but they didn't go on a boat ride. Our red souvenir ponchos identified us being on a Canadian boat, with all the blue ponchos on American boats (this river is again a dividing point between the two countries).
Boy, did we get wet!! The boat took us past the American and Bridal Veil Falls to the Horseshoe. The force of the spray was like being in a torrential downpour, and the sound was deafening. It is impossible to comprehend how anyone has survived falling over this waterfall, one of whom was just seven when he was swept over the top after the boat he was on capsized (his uncle, piloting the boat, did not).
There was also a lot of wind blowing the spray in different directions, and our hoods kept coming off. Trying to take pictures also proved a challenge, as our hands were soaking wet and we were squinting so much to keep the water out our eyes, that we weren't even sure of what we were taking pictures of!
Once we were off the boat, the kids and I left Dan at a park bench to rest while we wandered up Clifton Hill, a miniature Las Vegas strip at Niagara. Lots of arcade shops and amusements and food and sweets and a variety of other money-traps. The Frankenstein roller coaster Burger King rather sums it up!
There was a Ferris wheel Abi wanted to go on, but we had something much better planned - dinner at the top of the Skylon Tower overlooking the falls!
What an incredible view - we had a great seat overlooking Clifton Hill, and the American and Bridal Veil Falls, and it was very pretty to watch the lights slowly come on. We had booked a buffet dinner, which unfortunately was not as gluten free as the website made out. The kind maître d'hôtel said "if she's only going to eat like a sparrow, then I'm not going to charge you for her" as the only things she could eat were the salad, cold meat, and fruit. Alex, on the other hand, ate as much as he possibly could, and made himself feel very ill at the end of it! Dan and I also ate our fill, and the desserts were divine - Abi helpfully kept getting more for me, even though I didn't want them!
We went up to the observation deck after we'd finished eating, and waited for the lights to come on at the water - we weren't disappointed!
There was also a nightly fireworks display at 10pm, and even though the view from the top of the tower would have been pretty cool, we decided waiting for everyone to get back down afterwards would have taken too long (plus, the wind at the tower was rather chilly). As it was, we didn't get back to The Box until almost midnight!
Day 35 - Toronto to Ottawa. We all had a long sleep-in following our late night, and fortunately we had an 11am checkout time. To keep the kids quiet on another long drive (five and a half hours), we let them watch the Chromebooks for most of the journey. We cooked up any leftovers from dinner two nights' ago and ate them for breakfast, and since we were all still full from our dinner the night before, we didn't need to stop for lunch on the way.
Flicking through radio stations nearing Ottawa, we heard some civic defence alert noise on a French station. Shortly afterwards, we got an alert appear on the car navigation system warning of severe thunderstorms on our route. Then, around dinner time, we got some alerts on the radio and on our phones warning of a possible tornado about 15km away from where we were staying. Ottawa had a tornado strike it just a couple of weeks ago, and with the temperature being high 20s and humidity making the day feel like high 30s, severe weather is to be expected. We did get a thunderstorm, but it didn't last long and passed by us some distance away (no tornados here either). And here, for the next two nights, is a university conference and residence building; while eating our microwave dinners, we watched a bunch of students holding a rain dance in the quad in the pouring rain - very amusing!
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