The children enjoy the hotel breakfast and take a final dip in the pool before we do some groceries and start our drive east towards Montreal.
The first stop is the Kingston Mill lock, just a couple of minutes north from our hotel. This is the first lock in a series of locks that make the Rideau canal which links the St. Lawrence river with Ottawa. We’ve seen the other side in Ottawa which serves as the worlds longest ice skating track in winter. But we can’t see much here because of the heavy fog. We read a plaque commemorating the hundreds of workers that died during the construction from 1826 to 1832.
It’s just a 20 minute drive to the Gateway to the Thousands Islands: Gananoque. This is not long enough for any change in the weather so when we stand at the shore of the Saint Lawrence river we can see only a couple of metres in front of us. So we don’t see any island, let alone the 1864 islands that straddle the Canada-US border in the river.
We skip a detour to another lock and stick to the slow 1000 islands Parkway along the river. As we drive further the mist begins to clear. We stop at an harbour and fly, photograph and walk along the shore.
Back on the road Tim spots an Osprey on a nest just next to the road. So he turns the car and parks along the road to shoot some pictures, he even spots its mate a bit farther on a tree.
An hour further along the road lies Fort Wellington in Prescott. The original fort was built during the 1812 war with the United States. The present day fort was constructed in 1838 as a response to the 1837 rebellion. It’s closed but we get a good view of the fort by walking its surrounding ramparts.
After the 1837 rebellion was defeated by the British, the surviving rebels fled to the US. There they found many people willing to help and they started to raid an try to invade Canada in hope of starting a popular uprising. The biggest invasion happened just outside Prescott. 250 Hunter Patriots tried to capture the fort but were thwarted and landed at a mill instead. Here they were surrounded by local militia and finally defeated at the Battle of the Windmill. The leaders were hanged and 60 men were deported to Australia.
This was the last interesting thing along the road, so we head to the highway and drive for two hours before we arrive at our apartment in Montreal. There is no parking provided so Tim drops of Olga, the kids and the luggage and finds a parking space in a nearby garage.
It’s a nice two bedroom apartment with a kitchen so we cook a healthy meal, read some books, and Tim goes on a small walk to explore the area before we head to bed.
