We started off with the smoke alarm. The battery was going flat and so after about an hour or so of crashing out, the alarm gave its warning beep.
And then an hour later, after I’d managed to go back to sleep, it bleeped again.
Eventually, once I realised what was going on, I ended up taking out the battery.
And then, after I’d gone back to sleep, Rhys texted me to tell me that all of South Carolina had been washed away in a biblical flood.
And not only that, I had forgotten once again to check the surrounding area for railway lines. And so we had the inevitable.
he net result of all of this was that by midnight I was totally wide awake and it took hours for me to go back to sleep. By the time 06:00 came round and the alarm went off, I was thoroughly wasted,
A coffee and a shower helped me on my way, but here’s a remarkable fact – I’ve driven over 250 kilometres today along Highway 132, one of the principal routes along southern Quebec and through several holiday resorts along the north shore of the Baie des Chaleurs, and in all of that distance along all of that highway through all of these places I’ve not encountered a single Tim Horton’s.
We’re in the gorge of the Matapedia River now, on the southern slopes of the Appalachian Mountains and this is another really beautiful place to be. Once more, I could take a thousand photos of the area around here and I would never be able to do it justice.
And you can see down there the railway line that runs past the motel where I stayed last night. It’s the Canadian National railway line that links Halifax and Montreal and runs along the New Brunswick coast. The VIARAIL passenger expresses run along there, at least it did when I encountered one of them in 2010. Who knows what happens now.
Further on southwards, we pass the town of Matapedia and round about here the land starts to flatten out as it approaches the Baie des Chaleurs.
There are some interesting hills along here and depending upon the viewpoint that you adopt, you can conjure up some bizarre shapes. And not only that, the light is much better for photography too so the photos come out much better.
And despite the important road junctions around here for the roads that bifurcate off to New Brunswick across the river, still no Tim Horton’s.
The Baie des Chaleurs is famous for being the site of a naval battle that effectively sealed the fate of the French in North America. Once the city of Quebec had fallen to the British, two fleets set out from Europe. One was British, to deliver arms and supplies, and the other was French, with supplies and soldiers to reinforce the French forces.
The British fleet arrived first at the city of Quebec and so the French fleet, following closely behind, put into the bay here to regroup and to think of a Plan B. But here, they were cornered by the British and the French fleet was destroyed. And that was that for the French.
A few years ago, an archaeological expedition in the bay had uncovered many relics of the naval battle, including the remains of some of the sunken ships, and a museum has been created to display the artefacts. This was my port of call for today.
However, you don’t need me to tell you what has happened, do you? The museum is “closed for the season” as you might expect and for once, I’m not able to blag my way in.
I just don’t understand why they have such a short tourist season in Canada. There’s a 10-week spell and that’s that. But nowadays with these huge mobile homes that they have, with all mod cons and central heating, and a rapidly-increasing population or early-retired people with a huge disposable income, they could run the tourist season 12 months of the year. It would bring much more income into the area spread out over a longer period, and so create much more permanent employment, but Governments and Civil Servants can’t think beyond the ends of their fingers. They have no long-term vision.
There’s a huge bridge across the river here into New Brunswick but we’ve been on that before, and my old map indicates that there’s a ferry further up the river.
But the ferry is a disappointment as you can see. According to the guy working here with his tractor, the ferry has been closed down for 10 years and the only way across to New Brunswick now is the bridge. But we spent a good half hour putting the world to rights too. Canada is just like everywhere else in the world where people are fed up with the Government, big business, and the whole of modern society.
And so I went off to find a place to eat my butties.
Here I am on the shore of the Baie des Chaleurs overlooking the town of Dalhousie in New Brunswick. In the peace and quiet I enjoyed my butties, and the next thing that I remember was that it was about 15:35. I’d crashed out good and proper yet again due to my difficulties during the last couple of nights and this at least is one way of catching up with my missed sleep.
Now how about this?
This is La Grande Hermine – or, at least, a half-size replica of it. She – the original at least – was the ship in which Jacques Cartier sailed to Canada on his 1534 expedition, and a guy who runs a holiday chalet complex had traced the plans, sent off to France for a copy and then built this half-size replica.
It took about 7 months work over a period of a year and a half to build it, and he’s made a magnificent job of it too.
It’s now a two-bedroomed holiday chalet and I was lucky enough to be given a guided tour of it. And it really is magnificent.
I asked the owner if he had much trouble having the plans passed by the local authority and he said none at all because they haven’t even seen them, never mind passed them.
And so how has he managed it? The answer is that someone from the maritime department has inspected it because it is officially classed as a boat. And it does indeed float too, so he’s okay for whenever global warming overwhelms the bay – provided that he manages to find a pair of every known species of animal to go with him.
And how about this too?
At one time in North America there used to be timber trestle viaducts everywhere but you’ll be hard-pushed today to find one. We did discover one a couple of years ago but that was on an abandoned line, but here is a timber trestle viaduct on a railway line that is still(as far as I am aware) functioning. It’s a thoroughly magnificent beast as you can see and I wouldn’t mind taking this home with me.
Something else that I wouldn’t mind taking home with me is this tracked snowplough. It’s a Bombardier, of course, like the snow cat that we saw in Goose Bay a few years ago, and this would be fun for me to play with on the fatm back home.
It’s for sale too and the price is not unreasonable, but I’d have no idea how I could go about getting it to fit in my hand luggage on the aeroplane and the airline would probably have a fit.
And so here I am tonight on my spec at the old quayside on the River Bonaventure at the town of the same name, watching the sun set over the old lighthouse.
I’ve cooked myself a meal and now I’m going to be settling down for a nice night in Strider to see if I wan catchup on some of my beauty sleep.
Having seen my face in a mirror this morning, I reckon that I need it.
