Tuesday July 18 – Ottawa to Montebello

Canada is a VERY clean country. The cities appeared clean, and while there was some rubbish around the roads, it wasn’t like home. The reason? Canada has very high fines for littering, and people will even ask others to pick up what they dropped. We could learn from that!

It was a late start today, because we aren’t travelling very far. We walked to the markets again to buy more mixed berries, a bread roll each and a small quiche for our picnic lunch today. Then we walked to the war memorial for some photos and to talk to the supporting soldier for the two soldiers on guard duty. Various regiments send soldiers to do this duty for a month at a time, and each pair of soldiers is on duty for an hour. They don’t just stand, but march up and down a bit too. It was hot this morning so they would have been a bit uncomfortable. The soldier we spoke to said he had the 1pm shift, so wasn’t looking forward to even hotter conditions. He explained the memorial to us.

the hotel

We then walked over to Parliament House to watch the ½ hr changing of the guard (a ceremonial event in the summer only). This was guarded by military police and personnel, and also a couple of police armed with sub-machine guns. The guy on our side kept walking up and down looking at the people watching and also at the tops of the buildings around.

On the road again, and caught a pic of this groundhog at a large round-about type of intersection.

A number live here. Today we travelled on a rural road rather than the freeway, seeing farmland and stands of trees. We crossed the Ottawa River on a punt, which sat much lower in the water under the weight of the bus!

We travelled on to our destination for the day – Montebello. First we went to Parc Omega, an animal park. Here we had our picnic lunch before going inside the park. This was a safari-style park, and the owner took us around in an open-sided bus. It was an advantage having him because he was able to call the animals to the open for us to see. Many are roaming free – caribou, reindeer, ‘bambi’ deer and boars – and we fed them carrots (every car was given 3 bags of carrots). We weren’t allowed to feed the bison, because although they roam freely in their area, they are big and can damage a car. Not feeding them from cars doesn’t encourage them to approach cars. We also saw arctic and snow wolves, coyotes, moose and black bears (one which the owner has encouraged to stand for a treat). It was an enjoyable afternoon.

After this we went to the hotel which was nearby. The Fairmont Chateau Montebello is a big resort hotel made of logs back in 1930. It was originally built for rich men only. It sits in acres of parkland on the shore of the river with all sorts of activities and amusements for guests. Children are very well catered for. We walked around it for a while. We tried to see inside the manor house (where the owner once lived) but while the doors were open it had ceased tours for the day. Disappointing.

Dinner was at the hotel, us at the 6.30pm sitting.