Archive for: Algonquin

Exciting week

Well we have been quite busy this week with the girls visiting. We took them into Belleville just to look around and then we did some shopping at Walmart. They were amazed at the size of the place as we have a superstore here and it is pretty huge. They spent ages looking at the DVD’s and CD’s as they are quite a bit cheaper here than in the UK.

In the evening we didn’t really do too much as the jet lag was catching up with them and they went to bed early.

On Wednesday we went up to Algonquin Park. We had a really good drive up there and stopped off at Tims in Bancroft. This was their first taste of Tims and they really liked the donuts and muffins. We then carried on the journey to the park.

We were lucky with the weather as it was nice and warm but not too hot so walking around was pleasant. One car park we stopped in had lots of black butterflies fluttering around. I managed to get a couple of pictures. They are apparently Mourning Cloak butterflies!

We did the beaver pond trail which goes round two beaver ponds. We saw the dam they had built as well as a couple of lodges where they live.

We then visited the visitors centre and took a look at the photo gallery they had there. There are some stunning photos on display and anyone into nature and photography should definitely visit. We also went round the exhibits they have on show and of course the girls went in the shop.

At the rear of the centre is a viewing platform where you can see across the park and we took some more pics there. When we had visited before they had a feeding station for birds and squirrels etc. This time however the area was a little run down and no food out so no birds or squirrels.

After having a bite to eat at the restaurant we ventured on to one of the many lakes in the park. We spotted some tracks in the sand and when we looked them up they appear to be coyote – unless anyone knows different!

We did a few other trails but failed to see any significant wildlife. The girls wanted to see a moose, but none were playing the game!

At the weekend we took the girls to Toronto where they stayed for two nights. They had a great time and went up the CN Tower, explored the lakefront area and of course shopped. We picked them up on Sunday evening and they were excited but pretty exhausted.

Yesterday we went to Toronto Zoo as this was somewhere they really wanted to go. We drove down together but then split up so they could do their own thing and us oldies were not cramping their style!

We saw some lovely butterflies pictured here.

There were also some amazing animals – here are a few. I will put the rest in my photo album section as soon as I have a few minutes.

This is an acrobatic orangutan baby posing is a slightly undignified way!

A rather stunning tiger

Some lazy river hogs

Just how cool is she?

A grizzly bear who was unfortunately wandering around in circles which is never a good sign in a bear!

And this handsome creature is a Southern hairy-nosed wombat. Now he has a face only a mother could love!

Today we dropped the girls off in Cobourg where they are spending the day on the beach. The weather is going to be great in the mid 20′s so they should get a bit of a tan.

Otters in the wild

Yesterday we visited one of our favorite places Algonquin Provincial Park. The weather was beautiful, blue skies and sunshine, although it was still a little chilly at -5C. As there was no wind it didn’t feel too cold though.

This area has had more recent snowfall than were we live so there was a lot of snow still about. Most of the trails were inaccessible so we didn’t bother with them. We did the drive through the park and stopped off at the visitors centre which has a great balcony at the back with superb views across the park.

views

view 2

From this balcony you can see where the park people feed the birds and we could see Blue Jays, woodpeckers, sparrows, chickadees, nuthatches and red squirrels. These are all birds we get in our garden, but one addition was a grey jay which we do not see.

There are many areas with huge granite blocks of stone (Canadian Shield) from which huge icicles were hanging, looking rather stunning.

ice

ice close up

Going round the park we decided to exit from the far end and journey home in a different direction, one we hadn’t used before. It took us longer but was worth it as we saw a lot of deer wandering about and we also saw otters. We have never seen otters in the wild before so just seeing them made the whole trip worthwhile.

Otter

Otter 2

All in all a great day out.