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[John Saxby]

And some photos of the William Commanda Bridge, mentioned above: Ten days ago, I made a "preconnaissance" of the bike paths on the northern (Québec) shore of the Ottawa River.  I wanted to suss out the state of the bike paths which (I hope) will take me to an overnight camping site in a park about 80 kms east of Ottawa three weeks' hence.  I'm glad I did so -- the bike paths on the Québec side were a prolonged example of Britrail's Carlisle joke.  The standard orange signs read, repeatedly, "Sentier Barré/Bikepath Closed Suivez Détour/Follow Detour".

No matter. Photo #1 below shows an empty Commanda Bridge. This photo is taken midway across the bridge, where the old railway tracks cross a large island in the middle of the river.  The spans of the bridge reach to northern (Québec) shore.

Photo #2 shows the spans of the bridge on the Ontario side, reaching the midstream island. The photos is taken from the eastern (downstream) side of the bridge.

Photo #3 has nothing to do with bridges.  Upstream about a kilometre from the Commanda Bridge is a rock shelf protruding from the southern bank.  A local artist has built a display of balancing-rock sculptures, and flotillas of geese regularly drift through.  The sculptures are rebuilt each spring, because the winter ice and the spring floods knock them over.  As balancing rocks go, they're not a patch on the mammoth rocks in the Matopos Hills of Zimbabwe, but they're much closer to where I live.  And, I'd guess that most Matabele would happily swap their rocks for a huge perennial river.

Lastly, as a sign of Things To Come, on that same ride I saw maple and sumac leaves just starting to turn.  Photo #4 shows those.

[Andre Jute]

Not many cyclists have a bridge as commanding magnificent as the William Commanda. But no cyclists on it, the usual sad story.

Those organic sculptures are quite as stunning as the bridge. Well, I suppose Carrara is an organic material too, but too mannered for words. Those water sculptures, evocative as they may be, never fail to look like rocks smoothed by millennia of water. They're not only original and innovative, they're strangely moving: Here we stand, puny men, against the most inexorable force on earth, flowing water. It's also fitting that every year after they have been knocked down by the water, they are renewed by functionaries whose union no doubt consider them a priesthood.

Kudos for your choices of subject: a nicely varied selection. Do stay away from the horns of the Kudo though, they're dangerous.

Thanks for the vicarious tour, John.

[John Saxby]

Thanks, Andre.  Glad you enjoyed the photos.  My loooong empty photo of the Commanda Bridge was a fluke.  I've been across it several times, in both directions, and it's usually choc-a-block with walkers, joggers, rollerbladers, cyclists, scooterists, etc.

Have attached another photo of the balancing rocks, this time with a flotilla of geese amongst the sculptures.  The geese are such a part of the river, and of the changing seasons.  My wife mentioned that she'd heard a wing of geese overhead early this evening.  I said, "So soon?"  She said, "Probably a test flight, checking orders and formations and so on."  They usually fly south sometime in October, returning in April.

[Andre Jute]

Miserably cold and wet here, so I disposed of plenty of time to select a photo from a rare outing in the summer to paint as a card for my wife's birthday.

[John Saxby]

'Tis lovely greenery from the Holy Ground that you're giving us, Andre, 'tis.  Good on ya, mate!

More seriously [ ], your splendid colours are a welcome break from our uniformly white landscape here:  we had 20 cms of snow last Sunday/Monday (on top of several hours of freezing drizzle [ ], and the temps have dropped since then (-15 last night), so it's all still thick on the ground.  Even the conifers, which usually offer a contrasting hint of dark green, are weighed down with snow.

But hey! In two weeks' time the days start getting longer again.

Cheers,  John