Kingston, ON to Victoria, BC Canada Across Land

The 4,500km drive across part of Canada. Will fill in with the writing explaining the pictures soon!

Algonquin Park, ON, Canada

Went camping in Algonquin Park. Great scenery and was the first time i saw the 'real' Canada in my eyes with pines and lakes everywhere.

Caught myself a fish in the lake we camped by. Wasn't very big but ate it just because I had gone to the effort of catching it.

Posing by the lake!

Grand Bend, ON, Canada

During work I had a couple of days off in a row so decided to do something a little different. I bought a tent from Walmart, hired a car and drove across Ontario to Grand Bend over on Lake Huron one of the great lakes. It was a long and boring drive but when I was eventually there the lake was beautiful. The great lakes are where a lot of people in Ontario go on holiday and they call the lake the beach. Very different kind of beach than I'm used to.

The beach at Grand Bend. Grand Bend is a very popular beach for people in Ontario and even during the week the Beach got crazy busy. While I was there Ontario was in the middle of a heat wave with temperatures getting up to 40 Degrees Celsius. The water here was beautiful to swim in and it is hard to believe that during the winter the lake will actually freeze over.

Lake Huron in the morning. It was already hot enough to swim and it was 7 o'clock. The lakes are massive and it is like your looking out to sea until you get into the water and don't have the salty taste.

The beach early in the morning. Was a lot less busy at this time.

Niagara Falls, ON, Canada

Well here we go. I came to Niagara Falls with intentions of checking out the water fall. However, I ended up living here in the HI Hostel for just over three months and working on Clifton Hill the street of dreams for children and hell for adults. Nailed a job in Niagara Falls as a Supervisor at 'Adventure City', which is an arcade with rides attatched to it. Had a great time here and met some great people.

The falls themselves were a bit of a let down for me in comparison to what I had seen at Iguasu Falls in South America but the Canadians had certainly made a big deal about the falls.

Heres a picture of the HI Hostel in Niagara Falls where I lived for 3 months and had a wicked time. Certainly a very cool place to stay for a 3 month period.

Certainly spotted plenty of Squirrels around the hostel. This one has probably just fetched some food out of the dumpster.

Here is the area where I worked for the 3 months I was in Niagara Falls. The entrance to the arcade is at the back of the MGM building. All of the stuff in the picture though was all linked to the arcade as well as it was all owned by the same guy. Very wealthy man!

Clifton Hill, the street I worked on at night. It was as I could imagine Vegas to be but for kids.

The Iron Horse. My trusty mode of transport in Niagara Falls. It treated me very well. Had some interesting down hill adventures on her though having no brakes.

Standing in front of the American Falls part of Niagara Falls.

This is by far the best view I could find of the Falls and it is from the roof of the Sheraton Hotel. One of the benefits of getting on well with certain people who know the right people at work. The far falls is called the 'Horse Shoe Falls' and is considered the Canadian Falls. The closer Falls is considered the American Falls.

This picture is taken down in the gorge a little bit down from the falls. Chilled out down here a bit just to get away from the craziness of Niagara Falls. Was a really cool spot where you could walk along the rocks and even spotted a Beaver mooching around trying to build something.

Also down in the gorge below the falls. This area was known as the whirlpool. Certainly wouldn't have wanted to be sucked into the middle of this area. The picture does not do the whirlpool justice. Again you can see in this picture that the Canadians managed to make a tourist attraction by putting a wire up and travel people across the whirlpool to get a better view of it. Was a shame they did this everywhere in what would have been such a nice area if left alone.

Had a great time though as I said and will never forget Niagara Falls!

Toronto, ON, Canada

It's been a while since I've updated the blog so I thought it was probably about time to get some pictures of Canada up. We arrived in Canada on the 2nd of June flying into Montreal. We only spent the day in Montreal due to the difficulty of dealing with speaking french and also the fact of wanting to get out and start earning money. Therefore we caught the bus and moved on to Toronto where we were lucky enough to be able to stay with some kiwi lads living in the very centre of Toronto. We spent about 5 days in Toronto just sorting out work related stuff so we could start working as soon as we found a job. Had a great time in Toronto it is a very nice city and there seemed to be plenty to do during the summer months. The city was also very cool in how it had been designed with the city being broken up into different districts, such as the banking district where each big bank had a corner of the street all facing each other and the entertainment district where all the bars are.

Here is the CN Tower. It is located right in the centre of Toronto and is by far the biggest building in Toronto even though there are sky scrapers everywhere. You can go up it and do dinner etc... but it was far to expensive at the time for our budget.

Just a couple of the high-risers from a park in the centre of town.

Rio de Janeiro

Finally the last leg of the South American Trip. Rio de Janerio! This is where we all went our seperate ways but all had a great time before we did. I spent about 5 days in Rio which was an amazing city. It is full of big hills which have been turned into what are called 'favelas'. Here people live in a world of there own it seems. All of the favelas are linked to gangs and are places where a lot of dodgy stuff happens. I didn't venture into them due to the apparent danger and couldn't really afford to do a tour but you could see a lot from the strees at the bottom. The favelas are under guard by the police with machine guns, I think as more of a way to stop certain people leaving the favelas. You can get all sorts of illegal stuff from the favelas and apparently some of the richer favelas even have anti-air craft missiles for if the police try and fly over. It was amazing how this all existed in such a big city.

While in Rio I ventured to my first ever game of professional soccer at Maracana Stadium where we saw Flamengo play Gremio (two Brazilian teams). We also went to a street party in Lapa which was a pretty awesome experience. The street party occurs every Friday night and 35,000+ people fill the streets of Lapa and party until the morning. You could buy 2 shots of Tequila for 5 reals in the street and beer for 2 reals. Was awesome. Saw the area they hold the Rio Carnival as well. From the set-up they have I could just imagine how amazing the atmosphere would be at Carnival.

Saw a lot of other stuff in Rio as well. Is an amazing city to visit but by far the most expensive of all the places we went to in South America. Even though this was the case it didn't detract from the place and the things to see and do.

Me and Andrew sitting on the path right beside the beach of Copacabana drinking coconut juice straight from the coconut.

Copacabana Beach. One of the many beautiful white sand beaches in Rio.

This building was in the Plaza in the centre of Lapa. It had some really impressive architecture going on with a golden eagle on the roof. Unsure exactly what the building was.

Another of the buildings in the Plaza.

This here is the Catholic Church. Only took a picture because I couldn't believe it is a church. Apparently it took a lot of time before it was accepted by many catholics as being a church and many still don't visit it for mass. Went inside it as well during a mass. It is massive but only has one level. The rest of the space is wasted. It's as bland on the inside as it is on the outside.

These arches are in Lapa. Traffic flows through them and a tram runs across the top of them. Went on the Tram across them as well. Cost us 60cents and was a pretty wild ride hanging off the side of the tram and pulling yourself in as buses came toward you.

Saw some really impressive graffiti in Lapa on some of the buildings at the bottom of the Favelas. Saw this just before we got to the tiled stairs.

These stairs lead up into one of the Favelas and have been tiled all the way up by a guy from Chile. Is an amazing story if you get a chance to have a look into it as to why he has done this. His whole life since he entered Brazil has been dedicated to tiling these stairs. When he finishes one area he destroys all the tiles in another area and restarts the area with a new design. The stairs are covered in tiles from all over the world that have been sent to him by different people. The stairs are quite famous and are in the video clip for 'Beautiful' by Snoop Gogg and Pharell.

Here is just some of the tile work he has created. His work was so impressive it just has to be seen for yourself.

Actually managed to get a picture with the man himself. This wild looking dude is the guy that works every day of his life to create and maintain this amazing stair case. In this picture we are right at the top of the stairs in the Favela.

This is one of the most famous beaches of Rio. Ipanema. This was where most people went to swim, surf and sunbathe. Beautiful beach.

Looking across the city to the statue of Christ. (Christ the Redemer). Unfortunatly while we were in Rio they were cleaning Christ the Redemer and the statue was half covered in scaffolding.

This was as close as we got to Christ the Redemer due to bad weather but even though it was covered in scaffolding it was still pretty cool to see.

Looking across some of Rio. The mound in the distance to the left is sugar loaf mountain which has two cable cars going up to it for tourists to capture a 360 degree view of Rio.

Heres the view from Sugar Loaf mountain back toward Copacabana beach. Wasn't a great day up there but the views were pretty breathtaking. Well worth doing and a great way to capture the layout of Rio with all of its Favelas and high rises spread everywhere along the beach.

Party Boat, Paraty, Brazil

To finish up our trip together as a group before we entered Rio we went on a Party boat in Paraty. It was an epic day of drinking free Caprinhas and Beers we took on with us and eating as much food as we could. The day consisted of drinking, sailing for short periods of time and jumping off the yacht. We spent about 6 hours on the boat on which they blasted music the whole day. Was an amazing day in the sun with an awesome bunch of people.

Heres a view looking down the boat we sailed on. This is at the start of the day where everyone is still feeling a little hungover from the night before.

Chilling on the front of the yacht soaking up the sun and admirring the view.

Big swan dive off the nose.

Taking the rugby ball, which we bought in Argentina to keep ourselves amused, in mid air.

Did a lot of jumping off the boat if you can't already tell.

Some of the team we travelled South America with. Found the hat on the boat. Wore it for a couple of hours around the boat and in the water.

The change of atmosphere from the beginning of the day in comparisson to the end. Callum now has the remains of a devil costume tied around his head for some reason. Amazing party!!!