A voting shemozzle and a walk in Gatineau Park – 12 October 2023

 

It was time to vote in New Zealand's election.  I had found out where the High Commission was situated and Graham agreed to take us to the location in Elgin Street in downtown Ottawa.  What could go wrong?  We would be in and out in a few minutes having cast our vote. 

 

It started fine with Kirsty the deputy High Commissioner welcoming us to the High Commission and ushering us into the room where voting was to take place.  We filled out the requisite forms and she noted that all the Wellington Central voting papers had been used (they only get a few papers for each electorate and apparently Wellington Central is a popular one) and she would have to use a master copy.  The master copy was nowhere to be found in the meeting room.  She was rightly getting a little frustrated as the person who normally did it had gone out and she was the back-up.  She went further into the office to see if she could locate it and came back saying that even the High Commissioner was engaged in the great master ballot paper hunt.  On top of that the returning officer had gone out without either his work phone or his personal phone.  It was clear she was a little frustrated but she kept calm.

 

Plan B had to be implemented which involved starting to do an online vote and then printing off the ballot paper for photocopying.  Finally, we were able to cast our ballot.  Kirsty apologised and I commented that her colleague is probably going to be in hot water to which she agreed.  This had all taken about an hour. 

 

We returned to Gloucester and shortly afterwards we were picked up by Graham’s friend to Gatineau Park which is in Quebec across the Ottawa River to the north of Ottawa. 

 

King Mountain car park

There are lots of roads through the park which, during winter, become places to cross country ski. As well there are a large number of walking or, in winter, snow shoeing tracks.  We did the latter when we were here briefly in the winter a decade ago.  During the summer the roads through the park are used by cyclists and even on a workday there were many cyclists exercising on some of the steeper climbs. 

 

Along with Graham, Nick and Sayeed we walked the King Mountain track which was described as hard whereas I thought it was relatively easy, but I suspect compared to others it might be a little harder.  It had a lot of interest in terms of some climbing, a lake, views and of course the autumn colours.  It was a 1.8km circuit and provided great views to the south and west.  We could see the Ottawa River wending its way from the west and through the city.  In places it is so broad that you could almost mistake it for a long lake. 

 

It was nice to stretch our legs in the fresh air. 

 

That evening we went to Bev’s nephew’s house for dinner which was a takeaway chicken meal that was huge. My chicken breast must have been grown on a chook that was the size of a small turkey it was so large.  I struggled to eat it all.

Below are various views from our walk in around King Mountain.