But back to Winnipeg first, where I last wrote. It was an okay place - to be honest I wasn't there for long and didn't have great weather so didn't really do that much. The highlight was probably the free breakfasts at the hostel (I'm pretty easy to please sometimes) but I did enjoy what I saw of the city - it was pretty much the gateway to the west back in the frontier days and some of that still shows in the old buildings dotted amongst the highrise. Oh and there was a really cool storm there which towered over the city, still lit faintly by the sun after it was dark down at ground level, but was completely silent as the lightning was so high up.
Toronto was my next step, I flew this leg for a change, even though it felt a bit like cheating since I'll be crossing the rest of Canada by land. I had to get there for a trip I wanted to do though, and it was nice to get a different perspective on the landscape - seeing all the lakes covering eastern Manitoba and Ontario from the air is pretty impressive (everyone back home wondering where all the water is, it looks like the Canadians have got it all). The trip was up to Algonquin Provincial Park, a really pretty place of rolling hills and lots (and lots) of lakes and rivers. This was my first good look at the fall colours, it's amazing to look out over the forest canopy and see a patchwork of greens, reds, oranges and yellows as far as you can see. It was a good weekend, did some hiking and canoeing, but you'd need a lot longer to really appreciate the place. But with only a few weeks to see the best of the fall colours I wanted to cover a big area so couldn't stay too long in any one spot. I think this is really the best time of year to see this part of the country. It would be nice any other time of year, but during the fall it's every bit as spectacular as somewhere like the Rockies.
Back in Toronto I caught up with my friend Laura, a Torontonian I met in New Zealand last year (we went up to Fraser Island earlier this year when she passed through Brisbane). She's just arrived home after her own year of travelling so we were swapping stories about our various exploits while she showed me around some of the nicer areas of the city, like the Toronto Islands and the Beach neighbourhood (there's a really, really good ice cream shop there). I'd already seen all the big attractions when I was here 2 years ago, Niagara Falls and the CN Tower, so this time around I was just checking out the city in general. It's okay, similar to New York in many ways, but I've been spending a fair bit of time in cities lately and they all start to feel the same after a while. I did like that ice cream shop though. And their city hall is cool.
From Toronto it was on to Montreal, and being in Quebec that meant into French Canadian territory. After spending so long in Canada and feeling quite at home here it was quite strange to be somewhere which still has all the same shops was still dramatically different. I don't know much French but I've been picking up some tips from various people I've met on my travels - my pronunciation is still pretty dodgy but with help from my new friend Priscilla (who I met on the Algonquin trip) I'm finally getting the hang of the 'r' sounds so it sounds less like I'm trying to cough something nasty up now. I didn't end up using much though, most people you encounter can speak English anyway, and while I could say a few basic things I couldn't really understand most of the responses, so there didn't seem much point starting to talk to people in French just to tell them you didn't understand as soon as they answered. And one of the key phrases I did learn in advance (Je ne parles pas Francais - I don't speak French) I hardly ever actually used because it just seems slightly illogical to say you can't speak a language, in that language. It makes me feel dishonest. Threw it out there a few times though, just to look more cultured.
I did like Montreal, it's one of the more attractive Canadian cities (Vancouver's still my favourite though), particularly the Vieaux Montreal, the old quarter of the city, which has some really attractive heritage buildings. Even better though was my visit to Mt Tremblant, a small village and nearby ski resort in the Laurentian mountains. The forests here were just gorgeous, and I spent several happy days walking through the forests leaf peeping, although with the amount I was doing it probably more like leaf ogling. It was definitely one of the highlights of the trip though, particularly the hike to the top of the mountain itself.
It was back to Montreal briefly after that, and then on to the Maritime Provinces. I stopped by Fredericton in New Brunswick just for a day to check it out. It was a nice little town, has that typically north-east American kind of feel to it with lots of old houses, tree-lined streets and church steeples all over the place. And that brings me to Haifax. Immediately took a liking to it when I arrived yesterday afternoon - it's been raining a lot lately and cleared up just as I arrived so I went straight down to the waterfront, which looked great in the late afternoon sun. It's really nice to be back by the ocean again too, to have that smell of salt in the air. And to be back on an east coast again, which my internal sense of direction is more used to I think. I'm heading off on a tour of the area for the next week or so, after which I have no real definite plans. I've heard good things about this part of the country though so I'm sure I'll be hanging around for a little while at least.
1 comment:
At least you can leaf it alone now and take some other pictures.
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