Head South young man! Well, not so young and more South East and West a bit. Today we followed the Rideau canal from Ottawa to Smith’s Falls. Along the way, we observed the operation of locks in several locations with diverse mechanisms, but all uniformly ship-shape and operated by unfailingly hearty fellows and what were evidently students hired by the season for their strong winding arms, resistance to heat and good natures – we decided it must be in the person spec. for being Canadian. It was also “within a whisker of being the hottest day ever in Ottawa.” Our car thermometer showed 40°C, and for once, I was glad of the air con, as the humidity factor took it up to 48°. And me with a bandage on to keep cool. Not. I hope the broken metatarsal will be good enough for bear-tracking in two weeks. Small towns, micro-museums and rural idylls with perfectly manicured lock-keepers’ cottages in regulation white and green did not prepare us for the Hershey Chocolate Shoppe at the factory. The process has barely changed since its creation, and it employs hundreds of bored, nimble-fingered women (How familiar) to make enough peanut butter cups in a day to stretch the 40 miles to Ottawa. Whoopee. We bought some choc, but it melted in the heat, so we got almond monster cluster. The canal/riverside route was lovely. Lush green, perfectly maintained farms and clapboard houses, humorous mail boxes, and always the gentle river, punctuated with rapids and 30-odd locks and falls. Lt. Col. John By was a genius, and much maligned. Back in Ottawa, we visited the Mint where gold coins are made as meticulously as Hershey bars and dined at an Aboriginal restaurant.