21st September – Sudbury , ON

Where about in Canada are we? Check it out below. Red stars show where we have been so far (including Sudbury), green shows where we are going on Tuesday.

Canada is similar to Australia in that it is split into a number of provinces (similar to states). We are currently on the east coast in the province of Ontario and will be leaving here to enter the province of Saskatchewan on Tuesday (central southern province). So far we have covered the provinces of Newfoundland, British Columbia and Nova Scotia as well. So as you can see with Canada being a similar size to Australia, we’ve covered quite a bit of ground over the last few and a bit weeks.

Unfortunately our plans to head to Toronto for the weekend haven’t panned out. Air Canada who has a monopoly on the flights here, decided they would charge us an additional $1700 CDN to overnight. Thanks but no thanks. Oh well, we will make other plans.

Last night we decided to go for a two hour walk around Sudbury back to the Ramsay Lake and its surrounds. However, before we got there we took a few shots of Sudbury, just to prove we weren't lying when we said originally it was a crap hole.

View out of our hotel room (no wander we want to keep the curtains shut).
What we were told was the local gay pub… err.. we don’t think so somehow.


More colours of Canada (sorry if we’re boring you but these are just amazing).

A big lump of Nickel Ore from Sudbury Basin which is what the town is founded on.

Mining statue – a tribute to the miners who founded the town.

Geese – yes we’re off terrorizing the local wildlife again. We only stopped chasing them when they almost ran across the highway across traffic… hehe. (Of course we checked no one saw us behaving like five year olds first!!)

20th September - Sudbury, ON

OK. So we were wrong. Sudbury isn’t the biggest craphole.

We walked a suggested boardwalk down along the river and look what we found. Ramsay Lake and it was beautiful with the sun setting. Dogs and people were out enjoying the warm evening and we got stopped a number of times with people hearing us talking and asking if we were from Australia. Everyone in Canada either knows someone in Australia or desperately wants to go there themselves.

Half way along the boardwalk we met up with Tom who we were going out to dinner with. The rocks here were interesting (even for me). Apparently this one along the boardwalk was formed by glaciers rubbing on it (or something more technical than that description I am sure).

Keeping an eye on things and a fall colour picture because... well I can.

At the end of the boardwalk I demonstrated my brilliant knowledge of wildlife when I said this “Oh, look it’s a baby squirrel”. Of course it was nothing of the sort but a chipmunk. Dan made some joke I found funny about Alvin and the chipmunks. I don’t think Tom got it. We had an awesome meal and Tom was great company.

When we got home, we were discussing our new purchase of -20 degree sleeping bags and would they be adequate for the cold weather? Dan and I had the following conversation.

Tan: “Dan, where exactly is camp, like what suburb?”

Dan: (almost wetting himself at this point). “Well you saw me email KM241 as the address for our sleeping bags to be delivered”.

Tan: “Yes, but what is the name of the suburb”

To which Dan pulled up the google map showing a highway.

Dan: “Well KM241 means its 241 km’s along the highway so the trucks know where to pull off to find us”.

Tan: “Dear god, we really are in the middle of nowhere aren’t we” (Tan remembers at this point the fact that the food truck missing the turnoff the highway and Dan was forced to eat cereal with yogurt for breakfast as the truck disappeared for another week and prays the sleeping bags will be there when we arrive on Tuesday).

We checked the weather again on this website. Three words O.M.G. Check it out here. We arrive on Tuesday. The daily temperature will be six.

So I decided to post the following:

The Four Times We Have Been Freezing When We Have Travelled But Are Nothing Compared To Where We Are Going.

1.Kleine Matterhorn, Zermatt – Switzerland

This was the first time I had seen snow and it was enchanting. However, note the blue skies and the fact it was by Swiss Alp Standards – relatively warm.

2. Jungfrau, Interlaken - Switzerland

Fabulous, beautiful. Half the fun was the train ride to the top that kept stopping to give you breakthaking views through the holes cut in the side of the mountains.

3. Germany - Zugspitze (the highest mountain in Germany - 2962 m)

Freezing – it had freshly snowed and it was windy. I had to go to the toilet to defrost myself under the hand dryer. We were traveling with friends.

4. Gallipoli, Turkey (Anzac Day)

I think we wore every layer we owned plus sleeping bags. Possibly the coldest we have ever been we agreed. We were right near the water with the cold air blowing off it for about three hours before the dawn service.