Lepod's Blog

We brought our GPS with us, and in Montreal I downloaded the map of the US and Canada, and also the Homer Simpson voice, just for fun. He gives the directions but also puts in extra funny bits like “we’re going on the motorway, woohoo” and “you have reached your destination and can hold your head up high, because you are a genius.” Anyway, with Homer’s help we headed out of St John’s and drove to Salmonier Nature Park, about 50 km’s south west. 

The park is for animals that are being rehabilitated, for instance they might be recovering alchoholics, or have a broken wing that needs mending, that sort of thing. Anyway, the weather, which has been excellent since we got here, reverted to what I understand is the norm ie it was absolutely bucketing down. It eased up as we arrived at the park, and we saw a Moose, a Bald Eagle, a Caribou, various Owls, and some Hares,  and a Lynx.

The friendly Otter, the Beaver, the Foxes, the Mink, Marten and Vole were snoozing in their various burrows so unfortunately we did not see them. Still, it was nice to be out in the countryside for a bit of a hike.

We then drove across to Bay Bulls on the East coast, it’s a little fishing port, one of the oldest communities in Newfoundland and Labrador, French fishermen used the habour in the 1500’s. It’s the home of various boat tours to see whales etc, and we took the O’Brien’s tour, www.obriensboattours.com
which I can highly recommend. As we got under way, the guy doing the commentary burst into a  sea shanty with all the passengers clapping in time. He was a witty character with lots of stories, as most Newfoundlanders seem to be. First stop was an island in Witless Bay where there are literally millions of sea birds, and we saw a lot of them.

The first up were the Puffins, and they are really cute. They are great swimmers and they dive down to catch their prey, eat their fill, and then have a great deal of difficulty taking off again as they are now too heavy, and also their wings are wet. So they have big long take off runs like a seaplane, and sometimes they crash into a wave and have to try again. We took a few photos:

I got a few of them in the water but they came out quite small, whereas these

ones are reasonably close. I think they are nesting here. Apparently they mate for life and always return to the exact same spot for nesting.

Here’s one in the water: I think he’s about to take off. They have really big, bright coloured beaks during mating season.

There were quite a few other seabirds on the island, and Pauline got this great shot of some seagulls with a baby.

Next up we headed further out to sea to try and find some whales. Unfortunately the fog descended to the point where even if we’d been surrounded by whales having a big party, we would not have seen them. It was slightly surreal, sailing into a foggy void playing irish sea shanties loudly on the p.a. Maybe the whales are sick of irish music! Still, it was a good crack as they say in Ireland, and eventually we headed back to port where I tried cod tongues for the first, and possibly the last time! They love them here though.

Here’s a picture of the boat we went out on, as you can see it was fairly foggy! Also a view of the port.

Tomorrow we are heading back to Montreal, we’ll be sorry to leave. We are hiring a car in Montreal and driving to Peterborough to visit a colleague of Pauline’s, then we are driving to New York state via the Niagra falls to see Helen and Cas. Should be good! I’ll keep you posted.

We had a very nice 2 hour flight from Montreal, and the slower pace of life was apparent as soon as we left the plane.  St John’s is a famous port, and reminds me of Lyttleton except quite a bit bigger. The houses are mostly wooden Victorian terraced houses painted in quite bright colours, and the streets are  steep. Yesterday we walked around the centre city and I purchased an excellent Vespa of Newfoundland tee shirt like this:

I’m rather pleased with it! Then we walked to the museum, as it is free on Wednesdays, and admired the stuffed animals that we just don’t get, like beavers, moles, otters, cougars, silver foxes, also they had an exhibition of ice age mammals with models of hairy mammoths and giant beavers, which were enormous!

Today Pauline and Simon were at the Newfoundland Labrador Centre for Health Information all day, and I walked along the waterfront up to the Signal Hill national historic site, which overlooks the harbour entrance and the town, and was used for military signalling. There are also several cannons guarding the narrow entrance to the port. The views were great, and I also saw a whale’s tail out to sea. Apparently there’s a lot of Minke whales about at the moment. There’s all sorts of interesting animals here and we are determined to see some live ones in the weekend. Tonight we went to a vegetarian restaurant called The Sprout, as Simon is a vegetarian and he had a rough deal last night when we had fish and chips and he had to have a burger minus the meat which was a bit boring. The food at The Sprout was excellent. There are some great restaurants here.  One of the local delicacies is cod tongue, which we haven’t tried yet but I will.

I’ve posted some pictures of the town and the Signal Hill area. Incidentally there’s also a George Street! Will write more later.

We’ve had a great time in Montreal, Pauline and I went for a cruise on the Saint Lawrence river on Sunday, which took us past the old 1967 world fair monorail system, and the US pavillion, a geodesic dome designed by Buckminster Fuller, which is now used as a biosphere which is  “an exclusive venue to better understand major environmental issues, including those related to water, air, climate change, sustainable development and responsible consumption.” Anyway, it looks pretty cool.

Pauline and Simon had a successful meeting at McGill University. While they were busy, I took time to explore the underground city. Possibly because the weather gets fairly cold in the winter, a vast complex of underground malls has been developed with underground streets connecting them, and of course the metro system. You can go shopping and never get above ground all day until you return home if you wish. Here’s a link to the relevant wikipedia article if you’re interested:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_City,_Montreal

There’s no doubt that the cobblestones, french street names and language,  charming architecture and superb food have made for a great visit.

Tomorrow we are up early and off to St Johns, Newfoundland. Looking forward to it!

We flew into Montreal from Vancouver on Thursday leaving at 7am and arriving at our Montreal apartment at 8:30 pm local time, fairly well exhausted.  The flight itself was quite pleasant (although 4.75hrs) on an Air Canada 767 which was on it’s way to Paris, stopping at Montreal on the way.

The first impression I had was, everybody speaks French. Even though I knew this I didn’t really believe it until now. Quite a few of the people we met did not speak English at all. It makes things feel a lot more exotic and foreign somehow.

Friday Pauline and Simon did some work, apart from that we spent time finding things like the local bank and supermarket and after stocking up with groceries we walked into the historic centre of Montreal. For some reason there’s a huge statue of Admiral Nelson – seems rather odd in a french city! The place has a far more european feel to it and the historic part is quite beautiful. I’m very pleased to be here! I’ll write more later, but in the meantime here are some photos:

A note about the Bixi stands – these are places where you can hire a bicycle for $5 per 24 hours or $28 per month, there are many of them located all over the city, we have some at the end of our street. You can pick one up from one location and drop it at your destination if you wish. The city is very bicycle friendly, with cycleways everywhere.

Last night Pauline and I attended the Arts Club Theatre Company production of  LES MISÉRABLES, a musical by Alain Boublil and Claude-Michel Schönberg, based on the novel by Victor Hugo.

Initially I expected the play to be about travelling economy class with Air New Zealand, just kidding, but my hopes were not particularly high as I’ve been to musicals before. In this case I was pleasantly surprised, the music was not disagreeable, the singing was very good and the story was excellent. Pauline loved it. If you’re in Vancouver before the play ends in August,  I can highly recommend it.

The play was at Stanley Theatre in Granville St, a couple of blocks from our appartment so we walked as, although it was raining, the night was quite temperate.  All in all, a very successful evening.

As you can see, we hired a modest vehicle  on Sunday, and took a trip to Whistler which is a ski resort 125 km’s north of Vancouver in the mountains.

The drive was spectacular, and I enjoyed being passed by a group of 8-10 Lamborghinis on the freeway – several million dollars worth out for a drive. The town is in bear country and there are signs everywhere with instructions on what to do if you bump into one on the trail – apparently you should stand your ground, speak softly to the bear and then back slowly away – hmmm!

The day before the big trip we went to Stanley park which is on the waterfront, and tried to take pictures of the floatplanes taking off but they were too fast for us. The park had a whole lot of totem poles some of which Pauline is standing in front of.

Today is not so hot, I think it’s only about 18 so I’m happy. Pauline and Simon are off at a meeting somewhere, I’m kicking back in the apartment but I’m going to look at the second hand bookshops nearby.

I hope all is well in NZ and you’re not too frozen!

The flight from NZ was actually not too bad, immigration and customs couldn’t have been nicer except Simon’s bloke was pretty grumpy. We had a hair raising taxi drive to the hotel in Westwood, LA as the driver was busy talking on his cell phone and nearly tail ended a car in front of us. Still, we got there and the hotel was very nice. After a shower and a bit of a rest we had a look round  UCLA, then grabbed some food from an excellent whole foods supermarket, then off for a well deserved sleep. Next day we had a Russian taxi driver who was a far better driver, and after the usual security shennanigans the flight on Air Canada to Vancouver was excellent, the plane was a spiffing Embraer 190 jet which was very quiet and like new inside.  We are now in our ritzy rented apartment in Vancouver, the  owner picked us up from the airport which was a nice touch.

Today Pauline and Simon had a meeting at the University of British Colombia, so I had a good look around the historic and waterfront areas of Vancouver, then when we met up we jumped in an outside lift up to the lookout tower at the Harbour Center, then we walked down to the gastown area which is a historic area near the waterfront with excellent shopping and food. I’ve posted a few pictures of our trip so far.