Canada: 11.09.25 - Day 7: Roo’s, growler’s, howlers and flights….what’s occuring!

After a decent nights sleep and a lie-in we didn’t start our yoga session until just after 8am after which we held a post-mortem about yesterday’s ‘walk’ which saw a steppage count of some 22,500 steps and a distance travelled of some 9.3 miles, in flip-flops! We would just however like to address the issue of walking in flip-flops for these are no ordinary flip-flops that we wear, no these are M&A’s specially selected Ipanema flip-flops, made with a uniquely formulated PVC plastic called "Flexpand", a recyclable and non-toxic material that makes this footwear super comfortable, flexible & durable on the footbed and toe strap and Clarks’ flip-flops, crafted with soft fabric uppers for a skin-gentle feel, while grippy soles make for confident support and easy-breezy steps. So, we’re just sayin’, these flip-flops are meant for walking!

Today though we’ve got our sensible heads on, no really we have and we’re going to do a short walk to the Bean Scene cafe, a steppage of some 7,000 steps and enjoy an energy ball with our cappuccino’s and possibly pop into a shop or two on the walk back home. The schedule for Thursday tells us that after our yoga session, our walk and breakfast we’re being collected by Tara and taken to the kangaroo farm not far from where she lives and then we’re going back to her place for omelette, hash browns and toast. Ours is not to reason why, but that’s the menu. Plus we’ll be stopping off at the liquor store to a) replenish Myrna’s liquor chest b) take some drinks with us to Tara and Dave’s later this afternoon and c) purchase some liquor for Sundays soirée with the ‘cousins’ at Tara and Dave’s place.

We did our yoga, we went for our walk, we bought a few ‘things’ in the nearby shops, we had breakfast and we were picked up by Tara at 1.30pm where we headed off to Kangaroo Creek Farm. We didn’t know what to expect but as we didn’t get there until 2.15pm and they close at 3.00pm on the dot it turned out to be a whistle shop tour of the farm. We still saw most of the animals in the farm; we said hello to Priscilla the African Crested Porcupine and Gord the Sugar Glider who was oh so tiny and unbelievably cute. We petted the capybara’s, the largest rodents in the world and we walked amongst the kangaroos who, as it was so hot were lying around having a siesta. We saw two albino kangaroos and a mother who still had her joey nursing in her pouch. Here’s an interesting fact….. A kangaroo's gestation period lasts only about 28 to 34 days, resulting in a highly underdeveloped, jellybean-sized newborn called a joey who is born blind and hairless. It immediately makes a difficult crawl through its mother's fur to reach the safety of her pouch, where it will latch onto a teat and continue to grow and develop for about 8 months, much longer than the gestation period itself. Who knew! And bless him, we met a little bearded dragon who had to have half of his tail amputated as he had some sort of mites that attacked and damaged the tail. All in all we managed to be in and out of Kangaroo Creek Farm within 45 minutes.  All done in flip-flops!

We felt the need for a beverage of the alcoholic variety and ended up at the Upside Cidery opposite the airport. There they offer cider tasting, although we didn’t go for a ‘slider’ of cider which is what Maice thought they were called nor did we go for a ‘sleeve’ which is a pint. No, we went for a ‘flight’ of cider which is 4 x Canadian sized ‘small’ glasses of cider, all in different flavours. They were really nice and chilled, particularly lovely on this very hot day. Tara ended up buying a ‘growler’ to take home, a big glass jug for $10 that you fill up with your favourite cider although she could have bought a ‘howler’ which is half the size of a ‘growler’ but she didn’t, she went for the ‘growler’.

After our little cider event we went back to Tara’s and sat on the ‘rockers’ out front, met Jared one their workers and the next door neighbour who came to borrow ‘Trevor’ the sit on lawn mower. Tara and Dave have a name for all their machinery (they both own a business,  Tara’s is called Yard Dog and she does commercial gardening and Dave’s business, Customers Choice is in landscaping). We moved from the front garden to the back garden and enjoyed Dave’s cooking, omelette made to order, hash-browns (not like the triangles you get at home) and toast. It was actually very tasty.

Tara brought a new game to the table called ‘First to Worst’ which was really good fun, so that will be another purchase when we get back to the UK. The kids, Kieran, Kerris and Katana all popped in to say hello and then left, which is what we did shortly after.

It’s been such a lovely day and believe it or not our feet aren’t aching even though we have walked almost 9,000 steps….yes, still in flip-flops!