A day trip to Hamilton

This really was not a hike.  We have not been hiking much; we are still recovering from our injuries and surgeries.  We are doing well but far from getting total mobility or strength.  She on her elbow and I on my knee.

On a humid and hot day we decided to play tourist nearby and drive the 50 km to Hamilton,  the steel city.  After checking the attractions on the web we decided to visit the Canadian Heritage Airplane Museum (I like old planes)

The Museum store has one of the models used for the Disney movies

One of the Museums Harvards

  A DC-3 or a Dakota.  This planes were used in WW II and flew commercially for many years.  My fist flight was in one of these from Mexico City to Acapulco.

A B-25, the Hot Gen

The Spitfire from the battle of |Britain

One of the very surviving Lancaster bombers from WW II.  The Lady Orchid. This one still flies

Some nose art

 This are the planes still being used by the RCAF Snowbirds

Another battle of Britain plane.  This is a replica of a Hawker Hurricane made of fibre-glass.  The Museum had a real Hurricane but and unfortunate fire on a Hangar a few years back destroyed it.

A Catalina

An some others.

We spent a few hours there and I had a great time.

After the planes we drove to the other side of Hamilton to visit Dundurn Castle.  .  If I may be permitted to copy some text from Hamilton's website:

 The 40-room Italianate-style villa built in the 1830’s on Burlington Heights; the former site of a fortified military encampment established by the British in 1813. Once home to Sir Allan Napier MacNab, railway magnate, lawyer and Premier of the United Canadas (1854-1856) and his family, today Dundurn Castle tells the story of the family who lived above stairs and the servants who lived and worked below stairs to support their affluent lifestyle. Her Royal Highness The Duchess of Cornwall is the museum’s Patron and the great, great, great granddaughter of Sir Allan MacNab.

So this is really not a castle but a mansion.   Impressive indeed but I would not have liked to live there.  With very high ceilings the heating was by fireplaces.  This must have been very cold in the Canadian winter.  Sir Allan apparently liked innovations so for that time, they had one flush toilet for the whole house.   I am sure the servants were not allowed to use it.  The restoration of the mansion included using the original furniture.

Light was provided by gas lights.

 This is part of the library

And this is the smoking room.

A dining room for formal dinners

Te piano costed mora than a car would cost now.  The marble on the walls is really wallpaper

While Sir Allan was Presbyterian, his second wife was a devout Catholic.  This cross and the image of Our Lady are from her bedroom

Lady Mary's bedroom

Sir Allan's bedroom

Sir Allan's tub and sink

We enjoyed the day so much that we will continue with tours like this

Brenda and Annemarie's birthday hike

Still recovering from our surgeries.  Brenda's elbow and my knee.  I have started walking and we have had a few short hikes.  This week our friends Annemarie and Ron came up from Virginia.  We meet her last year while walking el Caminho Portugues, from Lisbon to Santiago de Compostela. While in Portugal we found out that Annmarie and Brenda share June 8 as their birthdays and we celebrated last year in Valenca, Portugal.  

Of course, being pilgrim friends we had to hike to celebrate the birthdays.  We went to Crawford Lake, one of our favourite places.  We walked close to 10 kilometres.  The flowers are out and the woods are that beautiful spring green.

We walked to the lookout and then around the conservation area and ending at the lake.

At the lookout

And finally at the lake

We had lunch at the picnic area and then went to see a presentation on the Iroquois tribe that lived here and how the anthropologists have conducted their

studies.  The village where they lived has been reconstructed so we had a chance to visit it and learned more about the natives.  We visited a long house and a member of the staff explained how the natives lived in these houses.

We ended the day with a birthday chocolate cake.

 The cake was supposed to read h"Happy birthday A & B" but between the bakery and home the letters run down the side.

We had a good birthday day enjoying the company of very good friends.