Fred Picnic

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The Fred Eaglesmith Charity Picnic was held again this year at the Springwater Conservation Area just outside of Aylmer. It's about an hour drive south of our home and we usually attend. We've discovered all sorts of great music through Fred and this weekend was no exception.

Some of the singers who were there: Audrey Auld (Australia), Washboard Hank (of course - he does Master of Ceremonies honors), Bill Poss and the Fabulous Ginn Sisters.

Roger Marin had driven home from the Yukon with some friends to attend and play. They told a story how Roger detected an odd noise in their truck driving one night -- it was a wheel bearing and he stopped and replaced it on the road! Apparently Roger was the chief mechanic that the kept the tour bus on the road when he travelled with Fred.

Home County

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It's the annual free Home County Festival in Victoria Park.

Pictured at left is Ron Hynes, the man of a thousand songs, who was there this year. The first time we've ever seen him play. We were introduced to his music through the song "Sonny's Dream" when we first heard it on the Prairie Home Companion sung by Jean Redpath. It's one of those songs you'd swear was written by anonymous -- it's just that classic.

Locals the Rizdales (from London) and Rant Maggie Rant (from Stratford) where there as well.

We like to go to the afternoon workshops/song swaps. There are evening events on the big stage but we prefer the sunny afternoons listening to music under the trees.

Rant Maggie Rant

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Rant Maggie Rant are a Stratford band with a big Celtic influence. We've seen them a few times and have some of their music on CD. They're very good.

The pictures in this album are from an afternoon performance at the St Marys Heritage Festival which is held in downtown St Marys (where we live) every year for a weekend around early July.

We enjoyed their performance.

Lausanne

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Kate's annual KBS conference was in Lausanne Switzerland this year. We flew in and out of Geneva and took a direct train from the airport to Lausanne. The Lausanne train station was just a few short but steep blocks downhill from the conference hotel - the very modern Hotel Alpha Palmiers.

We stayed in the conference hotel and, while Kate was at the conference, I explored the city and surrounds. The picture at left is the Pont Bessieres with the Cathedral behind it. Below you can see the underground tram coming through.

We had some visitors -- my university chum Martin, who lives in Germany, came for a day (he came to the conference dinner and dance) as did our neice Eva who was working a summer job at Vimy Ridge in France. She was able to travel by train through Paris to meet up with us. That's a bit of a struggle as you have to negotiate the city to get from one station to another.

Lausanne is a beautiful old city on Lake Geneva. There's fairly intensive viticulture nearby along the lake shore which I explored by foot and return by boat. Kate, Eva and I took a ferry across the lake one day to Evian (of Evian water fame). Another time we took the train together to Montreux and then a cog train up the mountain side to Rochers de Naye.

There's an Olympic Museum in Lausanne, Martin and I explored that together -- there's some fantastic sculptures in an outdoor garden. We also went to the Cathedral together. It is pretty impressive with lots of carved gargoyles and such. The nearbly old town sprawls with many very old structures still in place. The town is built on a steep hillside so there's lots of interesting lanes and alleys to explore.

It's an interesting city with lots to explore. We had fun and it was really nice to meet up with our neice Eva and old chums like Martin. There are, of course, all of Kate's international chums we see on these travels.

Rock Glen

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My friend Charles Dunham had us do an early spring drive to the west of the city - Lambton Shores and Lake Huron. We visited the pretty water falls on the Ausable River at the Rock Glen Conservation area near Arkona on Lambton Shores, the spring flowers at the nearby Tiedje Woods (Thames Talbot Land Trust), and the beach at Port Franks. 

I had never been to the Tiedje Woods or even heard of the Thames Talbot Land Trust. Charles, as a long time naturalist and hiker, was my guide. He likes to explore the woods.

Charles got to take some pictures and get out of the city.

It was a good day for both of us. I got to play with my old Minolta Dimage A1 (5mp) and my new Canon Rebel XTi (10mp). Hard to tell which takes better pictures. I was experimenting with taking raw images on the Canon but gave up on that soon after.

Mornington Peninsula

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While visiting Melbourne we took a little trip down to the Mornington Peninsula. It's on the east side of Port Phillip Bay and only a couple of hours out of the city -- we rented a car and stayed over night in the town of Rye.

We've been before and will go again. It's an area of vineyards and wineries specializing in Chardonnay and Pinot Noir. Two of our favorite grapes. The area gets some cool breezes off the Southern Ocean. They think of it as a "cool climate" wine region but then they've not been to the Niagara Region here in Ontario where we really do have a cool climate.

It looks like the swimming around Rye might be nice. When we were there at the end of March it was at the end of summer so the water was cooler.

New Zealand

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Kate and I had been to New Zealand back in 2004 when we explored the North Island on our way through to Australia. We returned to explore the South Island when Kate was invited to present at a conference in Wellington. Wellington is the capital city on the extreme south/east corner of the North Island.

Our flight from Melbourne was uneventful ... until we got to Wellington. It was quite a windy landing with the plane rocking back and forth for a rough cross wind landing. Kids on the plane were laughing and shrieking joyfully through it all. Kate and I were gripping one another and praying that it wasn't our last flight ever. When we landed the pilot said, "Welcome to windy Wellington. The control tower didn't think we were going to make it."  They taxied to a second gate where the wind wasn't rocking the plane around.

The weather remained windy and cool throughout our visit. Late March in this part of the world is the beginning of the fall season. And this is an island nation where weather is largely influenced by the cool seas which surround it.

In Wellington we stayed at the Museum Hotel (right across the street from the new museum where it had originally stood). The hotel had been moved on rails to it's new location! I tramped around Wellington and the harbor area, visited the Te Papa Museum, took a funicular/cable car up the hillside to visit the Botanical Gardens and toured the parliament while Kate was busy with her conference and meeting with people. Interestingly the parliament was a bicameral house but the senate has been abolished -- it's a small country, they don't need a large parliament.

After the conference we took a ferry from Wellington to the South Island landing in Picton (that's the Marlborough wine region). From Picton we then took a small narrow gauge train to Christchurch. The train had an open air viewing carriage and there were lots of views of vineyards and the eastern coast as we traveled south to Christchurch.

We didn't explore Christchurch at all. We rented a car and headed out to first explore some nearby wineries and the Hanmer Hot Springs where we had a bit of a soak.

From there we drove west from Christchurch into the mountains and stayed at Lake Tekapo where the Mt John Observatory is found. We went to the observatory one night and got to see the rings of Saturn from a modest sized reflector telescope. The moon was bright that night and there was some cloud which made star gazing not as good as it might be.

The mountain country we explored is pretty barren. Although we did run into a herd of sheep -- not as many as on the north island but enough to block the road. We could have spent a lot more time exploring the island but this whole trip was a late addition to our planned stay in Australia.

We returned to Melbourne from Christchurch.