Expedition Canada

Summer's Over! There have been some stunning sunrises and sunsets It's been a month since we got back from our epic trans-Canada trip and memory fades quickly once you start getting back into a routine.  And we are definitely back into a routine.   If there is an enduring memory of the trip, it is that we now have a better, first hand, understanding of the sheer scale of Canada.   We have hardly scratched the surface of the country and there is a lifetime of adventure in BC alone.  Methinks planning for a Yukon trip next year will be underway shortly, plus bits of Alberta and BC. Renovated stairs Since returning to the West coast the focus has been helping Nick and Lizzie get the final phase of their renovation project finished, ahead of the arrival of Sebby's sibling in a few weeks time.  And no, we don't know if it is a boy or a girl.   My focus has been on adding an Oak veneer to the grotty old painted stair treads, cutting and installing ...

Bonjour Québec Bay of Quinte sunset - our last stop in Ontario Nous sommes maintenant en Québec -  le Français-parlant centre du Canada.   And it is very obvious.  Unlike other provinces, the signs are in French only, not French and English.  Some of the drivers think they are in Paris, so yes, very French. I started writing this blog from Algonquin Provincial Park (PP)  Ontario , an area we last visited in 2000 when we came for a family holiday from the UK.   On that trip we planned a week in a 'cottage' on Lake Vernon in Huntsville, before driving to Vancouver for the second week.  That journey had we done it, has just taken us a leisurely six weeks and 7300km. It wasn't a couple of days drive.   In the end we used Huntsville as a base and explored Muskoka and the Algonquin PP when we saw our first ever moose, in fact several of them in a herd; if that is the right collective noun.  The 'cottage' was a six bedroom house on th...

But for Day 1 Disaster Tuesday June 3 I had not anticipated doing an update quite so soon, but the first two days have been rather newsworthy. No more than ten minutes off the ferry, approaching Capilano on Vancouver's North Shore, a loud bang, huge wind noise and we quickly realised our glass roof on the Tundra had shattered.  We were passing a large dump truck and trailer at the time and assume a stone had bounced off the lorry onto us.   We were a few minutes from Toyota, Jim Pattinson North Shore to be precise, who were no help, anymore than the collision repair centre they directed us to.  "No glass available in North America" was the refrain.  Nick has si nce found some in Ontario.  The question at the forefront of our minds was, will we get further than Abbotsford where we are due to pick up the trailer? The collision specialist, vacuumed out the broken glass (but left half the broken roof in place), stuck on a layer of sticky plastic and duct taped ...