Ganaoque is one of the main doorways to the Thousand Islands archipelago, a group of over 1,800 small islands on the St. Lawrence River straddling the US and Canada. Many of the islands are very small and feature a single house giving the owners their own private island. After doing homeschooling we went into the town of Ganaoque after lunch to go onto a boat ride to see the islands.
The many houses on private little islands were very cute with some of the islands not much bigger than the houses on them. The weather had cooled off so it was a very enjoyable 1 hour cruise and there were a ton of other boats, kayaks and jet skis on the water. The guide said that some of the houses could be rented but I shudder to think how much that would cost.
After the cruise we drove a little further to the town of Brockville to spend the night at the Walmart there. While stopped at a red light we felt a bump and found that a large red pickup truck trying to get into the left turn lane next to us had bumped our back. We went out to take a look and it seemed like just her rearview mirror had bumped us causing no damage so we just let her go and went on to the Walmart. Once there though we took a closer look and found that her wheel had taken out our rear left side night light. The light is easily replaceable but we felt bad that we hadn’t noticed it earlier.
We arrived in Montreal by lunch the next day. As soon as we entered the province of Quebec all the signs changed from English to French which was kind of interesting. As usual we went directly to Chinatown and found a parking lot for CAD$10. It had rained heavily the previous night and the weather was still off and on raining. Montreal’s Chinatown, while smaller still felt like a pretty legit Chinatown. It was past noon and we were all pretty hungry so when we saw a Happy Sheep hot pot restaurant we couldn’t resist. This is the same chain as found in Texas and California so we were eager to see if it was similar. The price at CAD$26 for adult lunch (plus CAD$9 for the pot) was a little cheaper but the meat selection was a little less with just sliced lamb and beef available, no pork or chicken. Still we ate our full while watching the rain fall outside.
We caught a break in the rain after lunch so we went to the nearby Notre Dame Basilica but they were only letting regular parishioners in. We continued on to Old Montreal and it was like we had gone France surrounded by old French architecture and French street cafes. We were stuffed full so we did not try any of the restaurants or cafes but did find room for a bit of ice cream before heading back to Rover where we had a rest before driving to a nearby Walmart for the night.
If you want to know more about our trip through Ontario check out our video!