shannon and i headed to toronto for a couple of weeks in mid-august to catch up with some friends and family, visit toronto and manage a bit of a holiday a deux! we spent the first week and a half in a whirlwind of lunches and dinners with highlights including a full turkey dinner with all the fixings on a hot august evening (not ideal conditions but delicious nonetheless!! thanks mom!), a couple of lovely bbqs with friends and their family, random dates with international visitors and gail's birthday party to name a very select few!
from a sight-seeing perspective, we went to top of the CN tower, had a lovely tour of the scarborough bluffs and the don valley brickworks and we looked through old photos giving shannon a glimpse of my life growing up... i must confess that some of the photos offered for viewing should have been left in their boxes/envelopes!!
after we'd finished meeting and greeting, we headed off on our holiday. the first place we headed was esprit rafting on the ottawa river! we spent two nights camping there and had a lovely day on the river with beautiful sunny skies and warm water!! the rapids were pretty good though i admit that i pined immensely for a kayak, skirt and paddle... we did some serious surfing in some rapids and shannon went for a bit of an accidental dip which was cute!! from there we headed to algonquin park for a paddle around canoe lake and a portage - i wanted shannon to experience having a canoe on his head (and i wanted to take pictures!!). we spent the night at one of their campsites and woke early in search of a moose. unfortunately we didn't find any, only their tracks... we headed down to innisfail to see jocelyn, brian and newman (their newfoundlander) and spent the evening catching up before heading down to niagara-on-the-lake for two nights at a b&b (thanks again d&g for the gift!) we had a delicious lunch at a winery and then visited a couple of other ones, enjoying a leisurely afternoon together. the next day, we went to niagara falls and took heaps of photos and went on the maid of the mist (and got drenched!!). it was a beautiful spectacle and we returned later in the evening for some night shots. unfortunately, as we all know, all good things must come to an end and so the next morning we rose, packed our bags and headed back to toronto and shortly thereafter, we headed on a plane back to melbourne!!
thanks to all for a lovely visit and i'll make a point of updating the blog more regularly going forward!
hugs,
s
p.s. while we were in toronto, melbourne was voted "the world's most liveable city"... it seems i chose well when relocating! particularly now that spring's around the corner and you can feel the excitement in the air!
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