Gatineau Park

Today we crossed the river to visit Gatineau Park.  I believe (although there is a good possibility that I am mistaken in this) that we drove through French speaking Hull (or should that be 'ull) which is the name of the part of Ottawa across the river in Quebec.  We (Jacob) noted that the electricity pylons look different and the traffic lights are sideways, perhaps they are tired or just a bit more laid back.

We took a walk around Pink Lake which is not pink but a truly mesmerizing shade of green.  The lake is surrounded by quite steep cliff faces in many areas so there is a trail of boardwalks and I'm going to guess at maybe 800 wooden steps.  Arghh, I pretended to be fit at the time as Gary was bounding up and down them like a spring chicken on caffeine energy drinks but I will pay tomorrow.  Here he is running ahead with the kids.

Pink Lake is a meromictic lake which is apparently a rare phenomenon where a lake is very deep and in this case, very sheltered so the bottom layers of water never mix with those at the top.  This means that a special sort of green weed lives here that helps to give the lake it's amazing colour.  Here are another couple of attempts to capture it.

I don't think the kids noticed much but we saw turtles, frogs a chipmunk and I think a distant loon, the feathered sort and my first.  No wolves and bears which wasn't surprising given that our children were not the noisiest there.  Now that was a nice change of pace.