Splash!

It's been another glorious day with wall-to-wall blue sky and warm sunshine. This morning we took a ride on the Ottawa Amphibus (the only such bus in the province) - the concept is similar to the amphibious WW2 DUCW vehicles but this is more-or-less like an ordinary bus except that it's as happy in water as on land. The tour lasted about an hour with a really fun guide giving a bilingual commentary; about 1/3 of the time we were on the Ottawa River.

The first extra shows the front of the bus, and the second a photo taken from the river - it shows the Fairmont Chateau Laurier hotel - the most expensive in the city with rooms costing up to 10,000 CD$ per night (no, we're NOT staying there!). Its architecture is somewhat reminiscent of the Fairmont in Quebec. To the right of that is the series of 8 locks which connect the Rideau Canal to the river: the locks are said to represent an amazing engineering achievement in the middle of the Canadian wilderness of the early 19th century and became the focus around which the city of Ottawa grew.

In the afternoon we took the free shuttle bus (actually they use traditional yellow school buses for this - definitely not amphibious!) up to the beautiful Gatineau Park, although it was so busy we didn't have time to stop at the top of the park before taking the bus back down. As we walked back to downtown from getting off the bus, crossing the river on the repurposed old railway bridge (last used by trains in the 1960s) and through another park, I took a sequence of photos of a tree in gorgeous autumn colours and merged them in the Pep Ventosa style - see the final extra. It seems that we've been very lucky: we met some locals in a coffee shop who told us that the fall colours have been the best they've seen for many years - and that they're at their peak at present, about 2 weeks later than usual so we came at the right time!