Rob-n-Hild, oot and aboot eh? Sorry - 2022

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Fun in Val-d'Or (59.9 km. Driving time: 59 minutes, Max elevation: 334)

Today we drove to Canada's biggest open pit gold mine in Malartic and walked up a long set of stairs (again!) to get a view down into the pit. It is so deep now that you can't see the bottom - even from the viewing platform. While we were taking some piccies, a couple climbed the stairs to join us. they owned a house in what is now the pit. They explained that the mine moved the house for them across town (they had an option of just cash for a new house, but as they had just renovated they opted for the move). It was fun to talk to people who knew the area and could talk about how it has changed.

Today we celebrated our 27th wedding anniversary - overlooking the mine pit.

In Australia 27 years ago - in 1995 - we travelled 600 km from Perth to Kalgoorlie. The purpose was to buy our wedding rings in the town that has the "Super Pit", Australia's biggest open pit gold mine at that time. Now Newmont's Boddington mine is bigger.

These two mine pits are large, but can't quite compete with Chuquicamata in Chile where Hild and Kristin visited/worked in 2003.

Now in 2022, near the Malartic lookout (belvedere in French), we also found Parc Belvedere with all sorts of fun things like playground, skate park, baseball batting cages, baseball diamond, and picnic tables.

Before returning to Val-d'Or, we enjoyed a few art installations along Rue de la Paix in Malartic:

Priceless Gem (inspired by a totem pole representing family as a place of joy and love),
The Great Relocation (One layer illustrating the disappearance of one world, and the other layer being the birth of a new world,
Institutions (25 panels of the institutions which were formerly on the site of the mine and had to rebuild elsewhere),
The Miner's Pan (and ode to everyone involved in mining - the breadth of human capacity and technique).

Back in Val d'Or, we had lunch at Baton Rouge - our favourite place to eat something that until recently went moo. It was a walk away from our hotel, but that was good as we had work up an appetite (and quite similar to the walk we have to our 'local' Baton Rouge in Ottawa!). We really like the steak there - so that is what we had - together with Key Lime pie for dessert. It was a nice day for a walk as well and with this being a holiday in Quebec (St John de Baptiste) it was a quiet day. Maybe tonight will be a bit more lively, but talking to a few people, St John de Baptiste is not as big as Canada Day in this part of Quebec - something we are not used to in other cities!

We are on our final day now - back to Ottawa in the morning. It is a bit strange, but as the weeks have gone by, it has become quite normal for us to be moving every few days. It will be nice to wear some different clothes, but apart from the planning involved in working out how much milk we can get in the fridge when we shop, it hasn't been too bad. It was a good idea to do at least two nights in each place (we only do single nights when we have a place to get to) as it was nice not to pack every morning.

May/June 2022

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