On route and in and around the St Lawrence river - days 20-22

After a cup of tea sitting out in the garden we said our farewells and got on the road (we intend to go back to Paul and Gilly's in a week or so to take the dogs for some long walks - they are going to be fed by neighbours for the 3 weeks the Wilsons are in the UK).
After about 1/2 an hour we passed the Indian River Reptile zoo and of course we had to stop and take a look. It is the only accredited reptile zoo in Canada and gets rescue animals from all over the country. It also has a pair of Tamarind Marmosets for a breeding program.
There were an enormous number of snakes, lizards and turtles; Celso would just look at them and say their name and a bit about them, however I had to spend longer looking at all the info on the enclosures. The best bits, I think, were the American alligator and a Central American crocodile. They each had inside-outside enclosures, but fortunately for us they were both inside in their swimming pools on the other side of floor to ceiling glass. It meant that we could see them just floating in the water from both above and below the water line and get up nose to nose with them.
There was a small encounter with a baby alligator (called Chomper I think) and a 2 metre Boa called Friendly. Not as good, or hands on, as the encounters that Celso does back home.
After about 2.5 hours we were back in the car and we made our way East to Kingston, where Lake Ontario meets the St Lawrence river. We drove around to take a bit of a look, stopped at the tourist office to find out what we shouldn't miss and visited a shop selling fair trade goods. Many of the carvings in stone were by a man from Zimbabwe, we watched him at work and marvelled at the amazing detail in his pieces. In the shop they also had defunct trillion dollar notes from Zimbabwe which they sell and then ship American dollars back to the country in the hope that it won't devalue.
We found a motel and Celso and Tristan went for a swim in the pool whilst I read my book. Then we went out for an amazing lobster, shrimp, scallop and crab dinner in a restaurant called Red Lobster.
Finally at 9pm we went on a guided ghost walk of central Kingston by lantern light. We learnt about all the ghost sitings and some of the facts behind them. There are several haunted B&Bs, one in which young children are found crying in peoples rooms in the middle of the night, another in which an old lady goes through all your things. A hanged man leaning against the old gaol wall, always in the same spot, when they tore down the wall about a decade ago, a coffin with a hanged man inside was found bricked up in the wall at that exact spot.... since the body was given a decent burial there have been no further sitings. There is also Theresa, a woman who approaches people in an alley and asks them to help her find her bone. She has also saught the help of people in the local buildings, she tells them she was murdered whilst pregnant and that her body is in the basement; she asks for their help in giving her remains a decent Catholic burial.
Tristan was a little bit spooked by the end of the walk, but some curious things happened during the walk... as we passed one house a man was standing behind an open door sharpening a knife.. the noise and his sudden appearance made quite a few of us jump. Another woman fell over for no reason at all, and the dark alleys we walked through were stinky enough to give anyone a shock!

The next morning; after a breakfast in our motel; we hit the road about 40km East up the St Lawrence river to a curious little town called Gananoque. We bought tickets for a boat tour around the 1000 islands (in fact nearly 1900 islands that are situated in the first 20km of the St Lawrence from Kingston eastwards) but we had about an hour to kill so we wandered around the town which was full of artists studios and curio shops. We found a gallery with beautiful Inuit carvings and Celso couldn't resist... and so our first package is wending its way back to the UK by sea-post.
The cruise was amazing; it included islands with nothing on them at all, small outcrops of rock with a solar powered mini lighthouse complete with occupied Osprey nests on top, islands with a single weatherboard residence, larger islands with several houses and a supply of electricity from underwater cables and then there was millionaires row... the most bizarre of which was Boldt castle with a silly looking fake castle and the most enormous boathouse... it was built by the owner of the Waldorf Hotels for his wife but she died before it was completed. We passed under the most enormous bridge that crossed from Canada to the US, I don't think I've ever seen such a high bridge but it has to be that way to allow the sea fairing ships to get through down the St Lawrence and then into the Great Lakes.
Seagulls accompanied us on the boat flying in the updraught over the ship, they just seemed to hover there without having to put in any effort, I suppose it's a bit like dolphins riding the bow wave.

It was Tristan's turn to decide where to go, so he took us East along a small road that hugged the bank of the St Lawrence to a further bridge that crossed over to the States. We found a little family run motel that had access to a river flowing into the St Lawrence where Celso could go fishing... and at last he caught a decent sized fish (as well as some tiddlers) and he cooked and at it that night. We also cooked up sweet corn and feasted. Whilst fishing he was visited by an American mink (Celso had to do lots of internet research to find out that that was what he was... it is also the same animal I saw in Algonquin) who hissed at him and swam past slightly further along the bank. Celso chucked him one of the tiny fish that he had caught and he sat munching under the rocks making a terrible racket cracking through the bones and chewing loudly like a teenager chewing gum with their mouth open!
Today we drove to Montreal along the tiny country roads again. We stopped at Campbell conservation area and took a walk through some marsh land where there were abundant frogs. They had green tops and yellow throats and were up to 15cm long. They looked like some sort of porcelain imitations because the colours were so bright! Half of the walk was over a boardwalk through the middle of the marsh. We saw an amazing fluffy headed, curve beaked, small heron like bird and another small wading bird (a bit like a coot) that could run over the surface of the water. I was also shocked by a snapping turtle that poked its head up under my feet. We sat and ate boiled eggs, carrot, celery and cucumber sticks, cheese and yoghurt and fresh fruit in the middle of the marsh and then wandered on our way.
Montreal reminds me of Paris in that it is really poorly sign posted and frustrating to find anything. Signs are only posted right on junctions so if you are in the wrong lane their is nothing you can do about it. They also have signs that disappear for a long time. e.g. you follow a sign for an information office and they have a sign at each intersection for quite a long way and then the road splits in 2 and their is no indication of which way you should go.... SO FRUSTRATING. Any way we are now ensconced in a motel and ate VERY well in a local Vietnamese restaurant for under £20. Tomorrow we will go and see the sights and decide whether we agree with Montreal's claim to be the most cosmopolitan Canadian city.