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Killarney
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21 and 22 July 2004
I should start off by mentioning that my itinerary has changed a bit... the European Magic I was booked on has been cancelled, so I'm going on an earlier tour, and rescheduling my tour of London so that it's after the tour of Europe instead of before. All in all this means I'll be starting and ending my tours a day earlier than planned.
And now for the news which might actually be interesting. We've just been camping in Killarney Provincial Park. It's a beautiful place, as you will see in my photos. The scenery mainly consists of trees, water, and lots of granite -- Canada rocks! There's not much point trying to get everything in order, because on this scale time isn't important there. We spent a lot of time canoeing, swimming, reading books we'd picked up at thrift stores along the way, looking at wildlife and scenery, swinging in hammocks (although that seems to be a purely female pursuit) and killing mosquitos. I personally dispatched 5 321 mosquitos, Rob lost count after 239 678 321. If it weren't for the fact that he'll probably be reading this, I'd mention my suspicion that he's exaggerating slightly.
On the way to Killarney, and again on the way back, we stopped at French River. I've taken a few pictures of the signs there so you can read all about it. I bought some fudge and souvenirs from the French River Trading Post.
Soon after we first got there Patricia took me to the lookout, where I saw a chipmunk close up for the first time. It jumped right up onto my leg! I didn't have my camera that time but several other times chipmunks visited our campsite and stayed to eat the granola Patricia gave them. Chipmunks are small, cute, and look nothing like the ones in cartoons.
I also saw some red squirrels... I'd already seen grey and black squirrels earlier. I should mention that before going to Killarney we went to visit Patricia's mother, who would have probably been upset if we'd all got eaten by bears without even visiting her first. I saw a squirrel out her window. Later, back in Paisley, I saw a red squirrel having a sneezing fit... it looked and sounded rather cute.
Rob has just requested that somebody write down that he's mental. I'm happy to oblige. Rob Rix is mental. Really. He keeps trying to scare me, but I have nerves of... well, I have nerves and I know how to use some of them.
We stayed the night at Rob's sister Melissa's place before going to Killarney, and we're staying there tonight (the 21st) as well. Melissa has a giant pencil on her ceiling, which she made when she was at school. I'm hearing that she also has a bloated sheep, although I haven't seen it yet. I assume it's some kind of toy.
Anyway, back to Killarney (not literally.) While canoeing we saw a deer, some loons, some biology students, and several beaver lodges. We saw a few other deer by the roadside, but they all ran away before I could get pictures. Later we went out in the canoe at dusk and saw some beavers swimming around. A few 'slapped' for us... that's when they make a huge splash to warn others of our presence, and go underwater. A few times they went up on land where we got a really good view, but my pictures of those turned out pretty dark for some reason, so it may be hard for you to see. We also picked up a few sticks which had been 'beaved' -- that is, had all the bark stripped off by beavers. One particularly large one had been almost gnawed in half, so I took pictures of the bite marks. I also took a few pictures of a tree stump whose tree has been chewed down. I'm tempted to take a beaver stick home as a souvenir, but I dread trying to get an untreated piece of wood through customs in multiple countries. Maybe I should just post it home and see what happens. I've heard of people posting much stranger things.
Swimming was good. We swam in George Lake, where the water was warm and without salt or chlorine. The view from above the water was great, and it was easy to open my eyes under the water due to the only contaminants being sand and whatever excrement fish, birds and beavers leave behind.
As we were leaving Killarney we saw one of the naturalists sitting there talking to passers by. He had a Lunar moth, another kind of moth, and a butterfly -- I wish I could remember what species they were. I took pictures of them all. He also had an impressive moose antler, which I have photographed next to a young girl (whose size is unknown) for size comparison.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, if you're afraid of me being eaten by a bear) we did not see any bears in the park, so we had to go to the dump to see some. There are almost always bears foraging through the dump. The first time we went there, there were no bears, but the second time there were eight adults, and two cubs which were climbing high up in a tree and playfighting. Bears look much like I expected them to. You'll have to look carefully at most of the pictures in order to see the bears, but I did get one very clear picture of a bear walking along beside us.
Here are a few observations which are loosely connected by the subject of drinking. Even out camping we could not escape the ubiquitous Tim Horton's. George made filter coffee into a Tim Horton's cup every morning. On the way home I took a photo of my Tim Horton's iced cappuccino (or 'ice cap') since I have a history of taking pictures of iced coffees. One evening, even before consuming a single standard drink each, we discovered that almost any sentence can be made funny by appending the phrase, 'without any pants on'. Try it.
Some random pictures
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14 July 2004
Today was a fairly relaxing day. Some going out, some staying in, some Tim Horton's, some sitting around geeking... and I met Rob's sister Sheridan. I also found out that George has some great Mac and Apple stuff from 1984 and before. I took a few random pictures. There's one of the camping gear all ready for going to Killarney on Friday, one of Rob as a moose, me in Paisley (in more ways than one) and the cats, Maggie, Mr. Jinx and Mittens. Rob sometimes goes by the handle 'iapole' so he thought my magnetic poetry was worth photographing.
When good Canadians go bad
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14 July 2004
Aarrghh! I got a few things wrong and this unshaven crabby guy [his words] told me off! I have made some corrections to my last post, if you had read it before this post appeared you should read it again.
Canada
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10 July to 14 July 2004
Well, here I am on my first morning in Canada. For once I'll be spending significant amounts of time with people who actually read this log, so I'm a little self-conscious about what I say, but I wasn't going to say anything mean about them anyway. Really.
And just then Patricia came in and very nearly read what I'd written. I'm going to have to be very careful. Perhaps I should write what I really mean in the characters at intervals given by the digits of an irrational number which only I know. Right now I'm riding along in a car with Rob next to me, we both have our laptops plugged into a power board, and were communicating via Rendezvous on our ad-hoc AirPort network. I took a photo of it. I also took a photo of Rob looking rather spaced out. It's just occurred to me that if I take photos at just the right moments, I could make the thumbnails into a comic strip, complete with iChat speech bubbles where necessary.
I should fill in some details, because who knows what these people will do if I miss something out? Probably attack me with pieces of wood. I flew to Toronto, as scheduled, eventually found my luggage, and tried not to giggle as I prepared to be greeted by three complete strangers who I've known for nearly three years. I can't remember if I succeeded, but I suspect not. Anyway, they recognised me, despite the fact that the key lime parts of my hair have faded to bright yellow. Not many colours can fade to bright yellow.
The first place we stopped was a Tim Horton's, a coffee shop which seems to be as common in Canada as Starbucks is in the USA. After that we went to Rob's cousin Sarah's place in Hamilton for the night -- yes, they have a Hamilton here too. It was good to just sit around talking. With two young boys running around it was much like staying at my sister's place, but without all the computers, and with a guinea pig instead of rats.
Now, why did we go to Hamilton instead of Paisley? Because it's on the way to Niagara Falls. We also passed through Wellington (but not the one where I was born) and Howick on the way there. So here I am, again, sitting in a car doing nothing particularly interesting, but this time my hair and clothes are wet and I have 50 or so new photos. We went to the butterfly conservatory, rose gardens and stupendously huge waterfalls at Niagara. Yeah, that's right, three exciting photo opportunities in one day, so grease your modems, guys. There were some beautiful blue butterflies which I couldn't get a picture of because whenever they landed they'd close up their wings and look brown... I had to settle for the dead specimens in the gift shop. I got pretty good pictures of some of the other butterflies though... there were so many butterflies flying around it was easy to photograph them. I didn't take many pictures of the falls because most vantage points came with a free shower of Niagara water. I took a picture of New York over the other side though. It probably just looks like trees, but I can assure you, it is New York. Later on there are photographs of trees which are actually photographs of birds and deer -- you'll have to use your imagination.
Now I'm in Rob's old room in Paisley, which has key lime walls because he's obviously been anticipating my arrival for a long time. I'm trying to get everything straight so I tell you things in the right order. We went to Niagara on Saturday, then went to Rob's parents' place in Paisley, where I met Rob's grandfather, and the largest domestic cat I have ever seen, and two other cats. I also found out that all the cheese here except for mozzarella is orange. Later I was introduced to Rob's friend Andrew, who can be seen being attacked with a piece of wood. Andrew later gave me a stake (which is really just a skewer) with which to attack people... people don't tend to shoot people here in Canada, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't be scared of them.
On Sunday we all went to MacGregor Point, stopping on the way to see a wind farm and a nuclear power plant. I'd already seen the hydroelectric plant at Niagara Falls. The power company sponsors something called DU, which is actually not Depleted Uranium, but Ducks Unlimited -- I took a picture of a sign explaining that. The nuclear power plant looks nothing like the one on The Simpsons, and for that matter, anything you might have heard on Sooth Park about the Canadian pronunciation of 'out' is oot and oot wrong. I'll never trust TV again.
We walked through some bush by Lake Huron, saw some birds, a snake and a pitcher plant. I took a picture of about every second sign I saw, because they stay still for longer than birds do. We eventually got to a visitor centre, where I was introduced to a spotted turtle named Gregor, and an assortment of other animals, dead or alive. I wonder if a group of dead animals can be called a menagerie. On the way back Patricia and I saw a deer and a hare in the bushes.
At this point I should mention that every town around here has an ornamental painted or otherwise decorated fish. The obvious lifelessness of the painted fish reminds people that substances such as paint are bad for fish, and should not be poured down the drains and into the lake. Each fish is different, so I've taken pictures of the ones we've encountered.
I took a picture of the fish at Port Elgin, and also of Chantry Island, which is a bird sanctuary. The next stop, if I recall correctly, was in Owen Sound, to drop Rob off. On the way I took a few pictures out the window of the car, to give an idea of the typical scenery. Fields with hay bales are nothing strange to me, although a few more sheep would have been welcome. Even the street signs are a lot like the ones in NZ, apart from the crowns surrounding the provincial highway numbers. I thought it would be nice to get a photo of Rob against the picturesque backdrop, which I did. Despite the fact that he was talking to me and well aware I was lining my camera up for a shot, he somehow managed to look somewhat surprised in the picture.
On Monday, with the men in the family out working, Patricia took me to see the sights and people of Paisley. I had been told about a hippy named John at the Elora Soap Company who could talk the arse off an ass (I've always wanted to say that.) He was true to form... and very nice too. He gave us three bars of citronella soap and advised us to leave the fourth person as bait for the insects. To my surprise, I was told I had to see his toilet. Now, I know when I was at school we weren't supposed to write on the toilet walls, which was probably the primary reason why people did. John is not one to stifle such creativity; the side walls of his toilet are blackboards. What's more, the sloping roof is covered in printed witticisms. I took a few pictures, in one of which John was kind enough to act as a model. Unfortunately you can't actually see the toilet in my picture, but it is implied by the man sitting next to the handbasin.
More shopping ensued, at the local supermarket, outfitters, chemist and post office. I seem to recall being introduced at each place as having come all the way from New Zealand to visit that particular shop. At the supermarket I was able to confirm that orange cheese is indeed the norm here.
On Tuesday I awoke 25 seconds before my alarm went off, and got ready to go to Keady Market. Keady Market is big, hot, and smelly in places. It might sound like a less-than-ideal partner but it was a fun morning out. I bought some sponge candy because I wondered how much it was like hokey pokey (I have been slightly obsessed with finding hokey pokey around here because I was amused by Alex's reaction to it) and some CD samplers of Canadian music which look like they came free with beer some time in 1999. Cheap music and souvenirs all in one!
After market, we (Patricia, George and I) went to Melanie's place, where I drank chai tea and looked at her photos of Italy in preparation for my two nights in Venice. It's a lovely looking house with a nice view of farmland from the lounge, which I suppose is to be expected in a place like this. I could rave about how nice Melanie is but they might think I just put that in because I know they'll be reading this. Instead I'll let them wonder, and merely mention that I saw a groundhog.
But wait, there's more. Next we went to Harrison Park. This is not just a patch of grass with a playground. As well as a playground there are all sorts of birds and animals, some caged, some not, and a river with canoes. I took pictures of squirrels, a lovely bambi-like deer, some peacocks (including a white peacock) and peahens, some pheasants, swans, Canada geese... I promise I'll go through and add captions one of these days. Patricia and I went out in a canoe for half an hour, which was great. I took a few pictures from the canoe too, one of which features a canoe going in the other direction. We saw some ducklings from the canoe but I didn't photograph them.
I should mention that I've seen many of the creatures I had otherwise only heard of in fairy tales and the occasional website. No unicorns yet (although I've been informed they have the movie The Last Unicorn on tape) but I've seen squirrels, a chipmunk, a groundhog and a raccoon, and smelled skunk. I didn't get enough of a whiff for it to be seriously unpleasant, but it seemed rather coppery and grassy, although that could well have been the background aroma of the actual grass.
After a while in the park we went to get Rob from work and went back to Paisley, where I am currently in the living room enjoying the view of some spectacular lightning. It's been pretty hot all day so it's quite pleasant to watch lightning and get the occasional cool breeze.
I'm sure to have left out some stuff, but it's probably about time I let you all know that I didn't drop off the edge of the world on exiting the USA.
Last Day in San Francisco
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8 July 2004
Today was my last full day in San Francisco. You'd think I'd rush around trying to visit all the tourist attractions I haven't seen yet, but I just felt like wandering around acting like a local. I went to the post office to post my poster (aha! The poster becomes the posted!) of the new 30 inch Apple Cinema Display home. On the way I took a few pictures of some typically tall buildings.
After visiting the post office, I sat down at the nearby Starbucks (in this city, there's always a nearby Starbucks) and had a look at my map to see if there was anything nearby worth seeing. I was quite near St. Mary's Square, so I went there, but it was surrounded by fence and seemed to be closed. Instead, I sat at the front of what I think is the Bank of America building. It could have passed for a square itself if only it had had four equal sides. There were nicely manicured trees and an uncannily accurate sculpture of nothing in particular, which I photographed. I also took a picture of the flags it was flying for California, USA and San Francisco. It would have made so much more sense to switch the flags around and go from the general to the specific, or vice versa, but I suppose the illogical order is in keeping with the US date format.
I took a few pictures of the street, since it is fairly typical, with taxis and trees and newspaper dispensers, or whatever they're called. On my way back to the hotel I took a few pictures of a shop which sells ornate, expensive and useless items, presumably to the people who ride the limousines and other expensive cars around the place. I also took a picture of the Australia Fair shop on the next block from my hotel. I'm amused that I went halfway around the world and still ended up right next to Australia.
There are a lot of things I didn't get to see, and things I probably could have seen if I'd been more organised, but I have a feeling I'll be back. WWDC 2006 perhaps?
I'm flying to Canada tomorrow to see Rob and his family!
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