Algonquin Park: peak of autumn colours and meetings the inhabitants

 

While driving from Toronto to Montreal we decided to do a kind of detour and visit the huge Regional Park Algonquin, in the north of Ontario...The second of October 2012 was the day with the peak of autumn colours in the Park and was the day we spent there hiking and taking pictures:-) We were looking for mooses and bevers, but spotted birds, an otter and tons of squirrels and chipmunks...I also enjoyed the autumn leaves a lot!

Nico was really charmed by all the variety of different mushrooms and sponges and took tons of fantastic pics...While doing this he also spotted a specie from the common Garter snake (not dangerous for people). A small selection is below:

Pumpkin fever or lost inbetween pumkins: At Water market of Montreal...

 

Where do I start?!:-)) I know/ermember pumpkin as long as I remember myself. I used to eat it in cakes (with sugar+walnuts: the way we have it in Bulgaria in winter) or simply baked in oven with honey on the top. Since I live in Western Europe I have discovered one uses it as a veggie. So for few years now I am absolutely hooked to pumpkin soups or pumpkin-gratins...Imagine my joy when we went to At Water market in Montreal and we could literally dive in huge amounts of different kinds of pumpkins. Next to orange and yellow, I saw white, green, multi-colours ones. Most of these sorts I have never seen in my life...The way they were presented and on sale, as well the artistic ones just made me smile, so today you may find a selection of these beauties! Of course some already pre-painted pumpkins were there to remind of the coming Halloween too:-)

Gliding in Ontario & pictures from the air with York Soaring Club

 

Today I am gonna share with you an amazing new experience. My very good friend (and colleague) Dave took me up in the air, on board of his beautiful glider Slingsby T21B. After preparing all the cute little toys on the grass in front of the hangar, we climb in and got pulled in the air by another plane for around 10minutes. Then we were left floating under the clouds and above the autumn colour painted landscape...

And me ready to go up in the air:


What is special about this glider is that the two seats are next to each other (and not one behind) and the open cockpit (which is great for pics). Btw this British beauty (age around 60 years, made 1953-54) is now so rare, that Dave´s glider is the only one in Canada. Only 300 were made in total and still around 200 exist and fly around:-)

On the picture below one can see the air field of York Soaring Club too...

Peak of Canadian autumn colours in Ontario

 

In the last days of September one could already start admiring the breathtaking autumn colours in Ontario, Canada. While moving north from Toronto, direction Algonquin Regional Park, the leaves of the trees were getting more and more amazing and the views (even from the car) simply stunning! What a fantastic way to start the monthof October, my month:-)

Autumn colours in cozy Elora, Ontario...

 

What a sunny Sunday in the autumn-colour-painted Ontario countryside! Yesterday we spent a great day in the cozy town Elora among its creatuve street art, beautiful old houses and pastel nature colours. Several cute shops and galleries invite you for a visit, squirrels run around the trees and the sun was shining! At the end of the day we enjoyed a Canadian organic ice-cream too: I had a ball of lavender-blueberry one, while Nico enjoyed two huge scoops of maple+pumpkin ice-cream...A place not to miss when you are in this part of the (big) country!