The next stop on our European adventure was the city of Salzburg in Austria. After another day of driving, mostly on motorways, we arrived at our accommodation in Puch, a few miles from Salzburg. I had booked a ground floor flat on the edge of the village. We were welcomed by Bea and her husband who are in the process of renovating the rest of the house. The house was at the end of a lane and had beautiful views of the mountains. The flat was spacious and cosy, with an all im

We spent two nights staying in a cabin at another HU site near Venice and made the most of our time there. It’s a fascinating city, but not the easiest to navigate in a wheelchair. At the tourist information office we were given a map to show the accessible routes, but it was a black and white photocopy which was difficult to read. Water buses were reduced for wheelchair users and one companion which was helpful as we couldn’t get far at all without using them. We found the s

It’s difficult to know where to start with Florence. Such a beautiful city. For the most part I’ll let the photos speak for themselves. We stayed at Firenze HU Camping Village in a wheelchair accessible chalet, which was fairly small but sufficient for us. It was located just south of the city and on a frequent bus route making it easy to get in and out of the city. The chalet had two bedrooms, with en-suite shower rooms, either side of a central living area. The wall between

From Luxembourg we travelled through Germany and France to Switzerland for an overnight stop at Lucerne youth hostel. The journey was mostly on toll motorways, in the rain, with a stop at a service station for lunch. The youth hostel wasn’t anything special, but the staff were friendly and helpful. The accessible room we had booked was tiny, certainly no space between the beds for a wheelchair, so we all ended up in a six bed dorm which was much more spacious and cheaper. A v

Our first base on our Europe trip was the country of Luxembourg. We stayed at the youth hostel in Remerschen, south of Luxembourg city, near the borders of France and Germany. It consisted of two buildings, a large, old house and a modern building, connected by a bridge. We were on the ground floor of the older building which was convenient, but we did have to go outside to get to the other building where the dining room and accessible shower were located. Our rooms were basi

This trip takes in a number of European countries over four weeks. We will be staying in Luxembourg, Switzerland, Italy, Austria, Germany and France, and passing through Belgium. Having driven down to Folkestone, we stayed at the Premier Inn near the Channel Tunnel and made use of their free carer’s room which had an interconnecting door to the accessible room. The next morning we were up at 5.15am, which gave us an hour to get to the terminal. That was a bit ambitious! Even

We had a very early start the day we flew home from Canada. Our alarm went off at 4:30 am, and after a full evening of packing the night before, it felt as if we had hardly been to sleep. Fortunately we had no neighbours nearby to worry about disturbing. With everything loaded in the car, after a quick breakfast, we set off in the dark an hour later, along the island track . In fact it was dark most of the drive to the airport, the sun just rising as we drove into the car par

Land of the silver birch Home of the beaver Where still the mighty moose Wanders at will Blue lake and rocky shore I will return once more Boom did-y-ah-dah Boom did-y-ah-dah Boom did-y-ah-dah, boom Nova Scotia certainly has a lot of silver birch trees, and when we woke up on our first morning in the Fisherman’s Cottage, we realised that we were totally surrounded by them. Beautiful. Our new ‘home’ was at the northernmost point of Big Tracadie Island, and sat high above the w

We were a bit sad to leave the Boathouse with its beautiful views over the river, but it was time to move on. The main roads across Nova Scotia are not really very exciting. Miles and miles of highway or divided highway (dual carriageway), often with little traffic, doing 100 to 110km/hr. The autumn colours are beautiful, but after two hundred miles of the same scenery even they can get a bit boring! We broke our journey, roughly half way, at the Shubenacadie Wildlife Park. T

Our first Nova Scotia was spent in a budget hotel near Halifax railway station. As we only slept, showered, ate breakfast and waited for our hire car to be delivered, I’ll skip straight on to Bridgewater, just over an hour south of Halifax. Our accommodation was an Airbnb in Upper Lahave, a small, riverside boathouse with open plan living downstairs and two ‘haylofts’ above, and our own jetty. Racheal had a double bed, while Summer and I each had a ladder to climb to our ‘be

A short video showing the accessible room on the VIA Rail train from Montréal to Halifax

One of the big adventures on this trip was to take the overnight train over 800 miles from Montreal to Halifax. A scheduled journey of 23 hours, which actually took nearly 26, through three provinces, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and crossing a time zone taking us one hour closer to UK time. The train was due to leave at 6.30pm, so we arrived at the station in plenty of time. On this train we could check in some of our bags to make more space in the cabin. This was a

Montréal has the nickname of the City of Saints because of the numerous churches around the city. We certainly saw a few. Our accommodation in this interesting city was in an aparthotel near Central Station and right in the middle of the city. We had an accessible apartment, though the only difference to the other rooms was a few grab rails in the bathroom. We had a large main room with sofa, easy chair, writing desk, a double bed and open plan kitchen area, the second room w

Our first experience of travelling by train in Canada was not without its challenges but it had a lot of plus points too. First, we were later getting to the station than planned because the person who should have met us at the subway for us to return the car was delayed. Then the station was frustratingly short of signage. Once we found the queue for boarding the train we were able to speak to a member of staff who took us to wait by the lift to the platform, but there was a

Although Orangeville had been our home for 9 days we didn’t really explore it until the last couple of days. The town centre ran along one Main Street, ‘Broadway’, where we found a mixture of independent shops, thrift shops and cafes. On the edge of town, the Island Lake Conservation Area provided a pleasant place to walk, though we did have to dodge runners taking part in a school cross country competition. We were glad of Racheal’s Treki chair to cope with my uneven paths a

There’s nothing quite like Guiding friendships, they stretch across the years and miles. Ann and I met a group of eight Canadian Guide leaders in 2008 when we went to Our Cabana, the Girlguiding World Centre in Mexico. We’ve been friends ever since. We’ve met up with some of them on three occasions in the UK, but this was our first visit to see them on their home turf. Sadly, they lost Ruby a few years ago, but the other seven are still as full of fun as they were 17 years ag

Our trip to Toronto involved various forms of transport, all of which Racheal thoroughly enjoyed. First a ride in our wheelchair accessible hire car to Vaughan, a suburb of Toronto. From there we caught the subway into Union Station, in the centre of the city. All very accessible and with plenty of staff on hand to help. Very impressed that every carriage had two wheelchair spaces, one at each end. After checking where we need to go when we leave Ontario by train in a few day

Elliot Tree Farm is one of the many maple syrup producers in the area. They also have a small museum about maple syrup production, and you can go on a tour of the farm. We had checked that the tour was wheelchair accessible and booked. It was quite nice to find another family on the tour who also had a wheelchair user as part of their group. While we waited to set off, we chatted about other adventures we had each had. I was particularly interested to hear that they had been

On Saturday we were invited to share in Thanksgiving celebrations with a dear Guiding friend and her family. Having never been to a Thanksgiving meal before, we didn’t really know what to expect. The house was full of people and I can’t remember the names of everyone, but we were made very welcome. Margaret’s husband, Terry, had made a ramp to give Racheal easy access to their beautiful heritage home. First, there were pumpkins to carve. Summer and Racheal made a good attempt

Thirty years ago Ann and I visited Niagara Falls in the pouring rain. In fact it was raining so hard you couldn’t see where the rain...