Early breakfast and then we drove to St Felicien - around 30 minutes away ... and we ended up in a forest at D`Arbre en Arbre ... an outdoor pursuits company.
Here I met two delightful sisters Janie-Jade and Katherine who taught me how to zipline. For those who don`t know, ziplining is basically floating from one tree to another while attached to a metal cable. It MAY sound simple and most people over the age of 90 and under 5 would find it so ... BUT I didn`t. I even got stuck halfway down a 900 feet zipline 300 feet over a raging river! Janie had to come and rescue me.
I was a tad embarrassed but hey, I can`t be perfect at everything! Ha! By the way, there are 2 kilometres of ziplines here ... awesome!
From there we drove the 15 minutes to Zoo Sauvage which specialises in "very Northern Hemisphere" animals. It is a HUGE zoo ... with some pretty spectacular inhabitants.
After meeting my lovely guide Alix, I was ushered to the polar bear house. There`s a Mummy Bear and two (twin) Baby Bears - girl & boy - both quite young. I am now one of the VERY few members of the public EVER to be allowed to feed these bears! I was harnessed to a walkway and guided through the process by keeper Joanie Boudreauld ... see photos below! These amazingly graceful but deadly animals munched on fish and horse meat ... yum for them! There was an audience of hundreds watching ... I didn`t let them down!
We then went on a "Jurassic Park" style tour of the Zoo. In a 4 x 4, we drove round meeting black bears, musk ox, bison, elk, squirrels, prairie dogs, caribou and deer. It was GRRRREAAAAT fun!
We took lunch at a traditional 19th century farmhouse ... where the actors played the parts of folk from back then. It was good food ... and entertaining!
There were LOADS of mozzies ... I used my new find - Smidge. I got bitten once, on my head .... the ONLY place I didn`t apply the Smidge!
The tour ended with me feeding two orphaned moose and a baby caribou. So, so, SO cute!
I LOVE MY JOB!
I LOVE CANADA!
Song of the Day: Janie`s Got A Gun - Aerosmith
www.youtube.com/watch?v=RqQn2ADZE1A&feature=av2n
Weather: Rainy ... then Sunny ... HEAVENLY!
next to Val-Jalbert Waterfall - 236 feet high (aka Ouiatchouan Falls)
Zip zip
I made it!
Jimmy straps a camera to my foot!
Gorgeous Janie-Jade and Katherine
On the walkway ... polar bears await lunch!
Fish & horse meat! yuk!
Mummy & Baby Bear
Baby Bears
Mummy with Baby Bears
Joanie Boudreauld
Canadian Gothic
Big Beast
Tim`s new home x 2
Black Bear
Run after feeding caribou
Guide Alix Charron-Deschenes
Smidge works!
Feeding the orphan moose
with baby caribou
