We left Ottawa this morning (Sunday) and headed west down towards Toronto in the direction of Niagara Falls to be there for Monday afternoon.

Our route took us parallel with the river down onto Lake Ontario.  We have followed the St Lawrence River for many miles now. The river is a gateway for ocean going vessels travelling through to the Great Lakes.

But by far the most beautiful stretch so far was this section past the Thousand Islands. From Rockport we drove down the Thousand islands Parkway to Kingston. The scattering of over a thousand tiny islands are just beautiful. Some have houses, some are too tiny.

We came off the highway to find a spot to brew a coffee and stretch our legs. 4 hours later we finally found our way back on to the highway to continue our journey.

What a beautiful place.  We could have spent weeks here not just hours.  Back to the same old problem of there being too much to see and too many miles to cover!!

We paddled on one of the many ‘beaches’, the kids swam (William diving in to the shallow water and banging his head on the bottom!!), picnicked on the shores of the river and generally took in the peaceful beauty of the place.

One of it’s most famous islands is Boldt’s Castle which was built by millionaire hotelier Boldt, a ‘folly’ (for folly read stinking great castle) on one of the islands. It was his Head Chef from the Waldorf Astoria who entertaining guests at the castle concocted Thousand Island salad dressing.  So now you know!!  (The castle was abandoned by Boldt in grief when his wife died.  What a shame!)

Imagine living on one of these very special islands… this was our favourite.  

Although this one was sort of special too…

Of course you would need a fleet of boats – one for every day pottering around, one for special days out.  Wait a minute this is worse than cars!  Scrap that plan.