Christine's birthday

Today is Christine's birthday. We celebrated by doing remarkably little. The hotel is in about three acres with several hundred metres vertical distance between the lower and upper boundaries.

We walked to the top where the wind was so strong that we couldn't walk against it and had to turn back. This is the tail end of the weather system that dropped all the snow on the northeastern seaboard of the USA.

The middle slopes are covered in manicured lawns with smooth paviored roads snaking across them.

At the bottom is a spa complex fed from hot sulphurous springs. Mud bubbling in natural upwellings is scooped into wooden pails, from which we plastered it all over ourselves. After letting it dry we soaked it off in the thermal pools accompanied by many Canadian tourists.

Along a boardwalk is a rock face on a river cliff covered in ancient petroglyphs.

The lower area is completed by a brilliant swimming pool complex. Another boardwalk from this area leads to a rather dilapidated wooden building which turns out to be a natural sauna. The building is sitting above a natural steam vent which can be heard bubbling below the slatted floor.