A "Royal" day in Hamilton...

Day 13  July 3, 2013

A “Royal” day in Hamilton...

Today we seem to be running into Royals or a link to the Royals all over the city, however no sign of Will and Kate...booo!

This morning we go to the beachfront to get out 6 feet and 30 toes into Lake Ontario, the 3rd of 5 lakes we hope to dip into.  The water is cold and you can hardly see a thing, fog was covering this whole area this morning and as it turns out, it didn’t burn off until around 6pm tonight.  I’ve been taking with me souvenirs from the lakes (rocks actually) and this is the first lake of the 5 that I actually found sea glass on the beach!  So cool!

Lake Ontario

The Royal Canadian Air Force Heritage Warplane Museum had lots of planes, and a B17 Bomber. It was on a stop over for a week, and while here if you paid $850 you could go for a ride in the sky...we chose the $5 tour inside of it instead.  

Lots of places to hold bombs, and to shoot guns (that’s my version) holds 10,000 lbs of bombs, a crew of 10 to man all stations including the ball turret ( the guys version).  I thought the gun in the bubble at the bottom of the plane was cool, but wouldn’t want to be in there during battle.  

Bubble Turret

They had to pee in a funnel that goes into a tube and outside the plane, if you didn’t do that before 10,000 feet you were sunk because it would be froze up by then.  The plane wasn’t pressurized or heated...it could get to 40 below up there.  It’s not a great place for women after all, and I bet the men would say it wasn’t so great for them either.

Inside the B17 Bomber

Dundern Castle was the next “Royal” connection of the day.  

Dundurn Castle

The builder of the home was a McNabb, who was Camilla Parker Bowles’ (now married to Prince Charles of England) great great  great grandfather.  They toured the house in 2009.  

There is a resemblance of Camilla and her GGG Grandfather...don’t you think...???

Mr. McNabb

Docked in the bay is the HMCS (Her Majesty’s Canadian Service) Haida, a destroyer and was responsible for the most surface tonnage sunk by the Canadian Navy in WWII. Again, I see lots of big guns and 4 huge torpedo holds.  

In 2009 Camilla and Charles also toured the destroyer.  There is a picture of Camilla and Charles when they shot the guns, Camilla covered her ears and looks to be chortling, Prince Charles’ expression says maybe he was embarrassed - that’s my take on it. 

The HMCS Haida / Destroyer

My favorite room on the ship was the mess which I learn means not what you think, although it’s funnier!  A mess consisted of 8-9 guys (sailors) per the table and there would be some 50 in the whole mess hall.  

The one I liked wasn’t the officer’s  mess nor second class mess, just the regular mess....something like mine at home in my kitchen at times (insert laughter track here).  It was also red and white and red happens to be my favorite color.  I know....deep right...??

My favourite Mess

Torpedo Holders

Next on our Royal tour was the Royal Botanical Gardens - which was huge and covered acres and acres.  

We see only a small part of it, but what was really nice was the free jazz concert and we could also purchase supper.  So we did all 3 - toured the gardens, listened to jazz and ate supper.  Was really nice.