Saturday 1st OCTOBER 2016 – I HAD NOTHING …

… like as good a night as I have had on the others that I stayed here. For some reason I couldn’t put the blankets straight on the bed and it was all very uncomfortable. That rather disappointed me. And I was wide-awake by 05:40 too – something that hasn’t happened for a good few days.

But at least I got to see the sunrise for once, and it really was beautiful. Not quite the same as it had been in Greece three years ago, but beautiful nevertheless.That cheered me up for the morning.

I’d been on my travels too. There was some kind of meeting going on – a reward, effectively, for people who had worked for quite a while at a certain company – and this involved staying at a hotel. I’d arrived and been given my key so off I went to find my room – and that took ages to find. Eventually I discovered the room and went in – to find that the bed was all heaped up any old how. And there was a suitcase in there, belonging to someone else. I went back to reception to complain, and it turned out that we were having to share rooms. I wasn’t at all impressed with this and made quite a fuss about it. Eventually the organiser, a young girl, came over to chat with me and I told her precisely what I thought. She added that the place was dirty and totally unfit for what she had planned, and so was intending not to pay them a penny for what we had – or hadn’t – received. Although that didn’t solve my problem.
From here I went as an observer to see something going on in an industrial city. Transport was the big problem here, with a huge Ship Canal that passed by somewhere in the distance and all goods had to be trans-shipped onto railway trains. Some young guy had the idea of building a feeder canal to the city so that barges could sail up the ship canal straight into the city without any unloading at all. So he engaged a firm of contractors who built it, but not how I would have finished it off because he brought it to finish a row or so behind the main street, with buildings in the way. I would have knocked down the buildings and brought the canal basin up to the main street. But then he was given the bill. he was expecting a bill of a couple of million. The bill was in fact 50 million and he started to have a major panic about how was he ever going to pay it off and as yet no freight had actually sailed up his canal.

I was alone again at breakfast but ended up having a really good chat with mine host. But soon enough I was back in my room resting. I’m dismayed at just how easy I’m becoming tired these days, but it can’t be helped, I suppose. At least I’m here.

When lunchtime approached I hit the road, and headed off westwards to Franquelin. That’s a village on the coast halfway towards Baie Comeau. It’s situated at the base of a steep valley and it was where I had my run-in with the farces of law and order the other day.

This isn’t the modern road into the village by the way. The steep drop to the concrete bridge over the river looks fairly modern to me, and the village is canted off to the side alongside the river. This could well therefore be a previous incarnation of Highway 138 from a bygone time.

Looking back in the direction from which the road comes, you can see the road snaking along the side of the river. There is a bridge across the river way in the distance and I was musing to myself that this was the way that the road crossed the river back in the olden days. I was tempted to go for a look but there was a huge hole in the middle of the road where the local council was doing some work.

And another thing that you will notice is that autumn has arrived. The leaves on the trees are turning. It’s the best time of the year to come to Canada, as I have said before.

My landlord and I had discussed old vehicles, and he had told me that here in Franquelin there were a couple of old first-generation snowmobiles. I was half-hoping to see an early Bombarider such as the one that we saw at Goose Bay back in 2010.

I was rather disappointed not to see one of those, but I wasn’t disappointed to see this machine. I’m not sure of the make or model of this machine and it doesn’t appear to be as antique as I was hoping to find, but it’s certainly unusual and quite rare enough these days. I’d have gone over to have a look at it but the gates were all locked up and there were people around.

No such problems with this machine. This was parked up at the side of the town’s workshop in full view.

Anyone of my age will have seen one of these before. In Europe this would be a piste-basher, used on the ski slopes for flattening down the snow and also for transporting goods and supplies about.

It is a Skidozer 302, made apparently by the Bombardier company, and probably dates from the 1970s, not that I would know very much about it, and I would gladly learn more if anyone would care to communicate with me.

Back on the modern main highway and there’s a small pull-in at the side of the road just here, with a couple of tables. This is where I stopped for lunch, with the lovely view along the coast back in the direction that had travelled.

I had company for part of the time – a woman walking her dog came over for a chat, and someone in a nearby house was playing music so loud that it probably vould have been heard in Montreal.

And the bread that I had bought yesterday in Baié-Trinité was totally disgusting.I shan’t be shopping there again.

I drove on towards Baie Comeau and nipped down to Alcoa’s wharf to see if there was anything moored there.

I was in luck, because we did have a ship here. The Federal Nakagawa it is, a bulk carrier of 20,000 tons on her way from Jamaica to Toledo in the USA, on the Great Lakes via half a dozen or so ports along the St Lawrence.

I thought that she might have been the CSL ship that I had encountered on the St Lawrence while I was on the ferry from Matane the other day, but she didn’t arrive here until the 29th, and so she’s ruled out.

usually, in the bay there are half a dozen ships queueing up to unload, but there were none today. But in the main port is the Africaborg, a ship of the Wagenborg Line. She’s not as big as she looks, being of only 12,000 tons and built in 2007. She’s come here from Ulsan in Korea, from where she set sail on 27th August.

Long-term readers of this rubbish will recall that when we were here in 2010 there was also a Wagenborg ship here in the docks but I can’t now remember the name of that ship

Apart from seeing the Africaborg in the docks, I had an interesting walk around the harbour here at Baie Comeau. Winter is approaching and there was something of a rush to remove boats from the water.

I had a very good time watching them try to load up a diesel-powered yacht onto a yacht trailer, and that was very interesting to see. It might be a surprise to you but I’ve never seen this done before so I was quite keen to watch them do it. But while I was watching them, I had an interruption.

My friend Rhys from South Carolina was on the phone. It’s the first time this year that I’ve heard his dulcet tones so I was quite keen to speak to him.

And while Rhys and I were busy chatting about his bus (he’s converting a redundant school bus into a mobile home) and the solar energy system that he’s installing in it, I was busy watching them remove the yacht. It was quite an art to drive (because it was using diesel propulsion) in between the stakes of the trailer and winch itself tightly onto the cradle so that they could pull the boat out of the water with the lorry and park it up for the winter.

And as our conversation rambled on, they pulled the yacht clear of the water and a couple of guys there gave it a thorough inspection.

And then they reversed the trailer back down into the water, slackened off the tethering ropes, re-positioned the yacht so that, presumably, it fitted better on the cradle, re-tightened the tethering ropes and pulled it out of the water again.

This time it passed its inspection and they towed it off around to the hardstanding at the side where, presumably, it will over-winter.

By now, the battery was flat in my telephone and I’d lost contact with Rhys, so I went off on the prowl to the other side of the docks, with a certain aim in my mind.

Baie Comeau is famous for having a small isolated railway network which presumably transports wood and pulp about. It’s not as isolated as people might think though, because there’s a rail ferry over to Matane where it connects with the Canadian National railway network (or such of it that remains after the decimation of the country’s rail network in the 1980s).

There are some railway sidings on the dockside and a couple of old diesel locomotives that move the railway wagons around. This is one of them. It’s SOPOR 4998, a General Motors GP38, one of the very last built and dating from November 1971.

And SOPOR? It’s the Societe Du Port Ferroviaire De Baie-Comeau.

I’ve actually been looking in the past for the dock from where the rail ferries leave, and I managed to track it down today, narrowly avoiding being squidged by a line of cars coming off the car ferry that had arrived a few minutes ago.

I couldn’t go over for a closer inspection because it’s all fenced off. But that’s it just over there, neatly hidden behind the installations for the car ferry. Unfortunately, we didn’t have a ship here, but you can’t have everything

In fact, the port of Baie Comeau is nothing like as busy as it used to be before Highway 138 along the north shore was completed in the 1960s. In those days it was the base for all kinds of goelettes, the boats that used to sail from village to village along the coast transporting supplies, ferrying people about, and returning with the output of the crafts carried on in the various villages.

Nowadays, there’s not even one coastal boat that calls here.

I mentioned wood and pulp just now, didn’t I? Baie Comeau owes its existence, like most of the towns on the North Shore, to forest products and the town was created almost from nothing in the 1930s when they began to exploit the timber in the interior of the region to make newsprint.

It was someone called Colonel Robert McCormick, who was the publisher of the Chicago Tribune newspaper in the USA who created the Quebec North Shore Paper Company to exploit the timber resources of the area for wood-pulp for his journals, and this is the modern pulp mill.

I went off to the shops, which are situated a couple of miles outside the town for a reason that seems totally bizarre to me. I arrived just in time to be thrown out of Walmart which, for reasons known only to itself, closes early on Saturdays. The other supermarkets have more realistic opening hours so the Maxi at the other end of the mall was where I did my shopping.

And why is shopping in North America so boring?

Well, when you’ve seen one bunch of shops you’ve seen a mall.

I’ll get my coat.

Heading back to town again, I went to play “hunt the railway line”.

I had visions of it disappearing way into the wilderness where trains would come back laden with lumber, but it seems to peter out here in the middle of the big industrial estate and I’ve no idea why. I went off to see if I could see anything else that might be railway-related, but there was nothing at all. I shall have to make certain enquiries at a later date in this respect. it wasn’t ‘arf disappointing.

But anyway, by now it was going dark and it was teatime. Seeing as how Godbout is so isolated and I’m never likely to be able to find my Sunday night pizza anywhere in the vicinity, I decided that I would have a Saturday night pizza from the restaurant at the traffic lights.

I ate it in the darkness on the way out of town. It was totally overpriced and totally disgusting but beggars can’t be choosers at moments like this. It was after all the only place in town.

Once I’d organised that, I headed off back to my little room in Godbout.

And here’s something else over which we can ponder.

These are the roadworks on the bridge over the river at Godbout and I know that I’ve mentioned them before. But on the way back tonight (I was coming in the opposite direction) we had some really weird goings-on. The lights on my side were on red so I waited, and a red pickup came through from the other direction, turned round and went back down again, even though the lights were against him.

And then we had a lorry coming the other way that had clearly burnt the red light because it was touch-and-go as to whether I would block him in as my light changed to green. He made it through with about a foot and half a second to spare otherwise he would have had to reverse all the way back downhill again.

And serve him right too.

Friday 30th September 2016 – THEY CALL ME TRINITY

Well, Baie Trinité actually, but never mind – it’s near enough.

We’ve been here before – in 2012on our mega-ramble down Highway 138 to be precise, but I’d only driven through the place without having the time to have a real poke around, and so seeing as it’s quite close to where I’m staying (a mere 37 kilometres – which is “right next door” over here on the North Shore of the St Lawrence River) I reckoned that I would come for a nosy around.

On the way out there, though, I encountered quite a beautiful lake. It’s at round about kilometre 831 and it’s called le Lac au Rat Musqué – Muskrat Lake – and I’d love to know how it is that some of these lakes and other natural landmarks earned their European names.

I didn’t take a photo of it in 2012 and I don’t know why. But there are lakes just about everywhere and I suppose that I was spoiled for choice.

First thing that you notice as you arrive in Baie Trinité is a rest area, right in the centre of what passes for the village and right by the shore. There are all of the usual facilities here, but it goes without saying that they are all closed up for the winter.

But anyway, it’s gone lunchtime, my stomach thinks that my throat has been cut and I have my butties to eat. I’ve run out of hummus but I do have some vegan cheese that I picked up in the Atlantic Superstore in Woodstock.

Baie Trinité’s claim to fame is that it is the home of the Centre National des Naufrages du Saint Laurent – the National Centre for Shipwrecks on the Saint Lawrence. This is a place that I would love to visit, but as you probably realise, it’s closed now until next season.

But one thing about it is that here you can “experience several major tragedies that have marked the history of Nouvelle France” but if anyone thinks that I’m going to experience a shipwreck at first hand just to satisfy my curiosity they are mistaken.

There have been plenty of shipwrecks along the coast as you probably know, and we’ve visited the sites of a few of them. And without any explanatory panel (which wouldn’t do you lot much good anyway because here in Quebec the Tourist Information is written in French only, just to spite the Anglophone tourists), I would say that this cannon is from a real shipwreck.

In 1690 a mariner by the name of Admiral Phips sailed up the St Lawrence in an attempt to capture Quebec from the French. He was unsuccessful, not the least of the reasons being that he lost several ships on the way up. And on Christmas Eve 1994 the remains of one of them – the Elizabeth and Mary – were found just off the headland at Baie Trinité.

And as you might also expect, just like every other village in Quebec, we have a church here, built in 1939.

I forgot to go over and see to whom it was dedicated (I’m really forgetting myself these days) but as this place is called Baie Trinité, apparently because Jacques Cartier is supposed to have visited the bay on Trinity Sunday in 1536, it’s quite possible that this could be the Church of the Holy Trinity – l’église Sainte-Trinité.

As we have said before, the beaches around here are magnificent, with all of the sand that has been deposited by glaciers as they receded at the end of the various ice ages.

I’m not a big fan of the beach here at Baie Trinité though. It’s right by the main highway and while it’s hardly the M25, you’d be surprised at the number of heavy lorries that go past here. It’s too noisy for me.

Instead, I’m going to head up the beach westwards. That’s far more sheltered behind the Tourist Information Centre and the church and where I’m less likely to be disturbed.

Except, it has to be said, by someone on a quad who decides to come for a ride out here as I’m walking along. Still, I do my best to avoid him and think pleasant thoughts instead as I take advantage of the beautiful sunshine.

All of the beaches, shores and river mouths along here are littered with rocks as you have probably noticed, and they too have been brought down here by glaciers (and latterly by rivers) from their places of origin.

Geologists can and do have hours of endless fun tracing rocks back to their original source and thus plotting the paths of glaciers and rivers during prehistory. It’s a fascinating hobby, so I’m told.

But this lump of rock on the beach is quite interesting. It caught my attention because it was glistening in the sunlight so I went over to photograph it. Unfortunately, the glistening hasn’t come out at all.

The rock is totally different from most of the others along here and to me (not that I would know very much about it) it closely resembles a lump of iron ore similar to what we saw when we tracked down the old iron mine at Gagnon last year.

There are many deposits of iron ore in the interior – Gagnon, Fire Lake, Mont Wright, Labrador and Wabush to name just five out of dozens, and it’s interesting to think that this rock might have come all the way down from there.

This river is called, rather unsurprisingly, the rivière Trinité and apparently it’s quite famous for the quality – and quantity – of the salmon that was caught in it.

It was quite popular with some first-Nation Canadians who used to live off the salmon from the river in the summer and off whales and the like from the St Lawrence during the winter. There was no reason for them to live a nomadic lifestyle.

Like most rivers out here along the North Shore, Quebec Hydro has become involved in it and has installed a little hydro-electric generating plant to serve the town and its neighbourhood.

There wasn’t very much by the way of detail to tell me anything about it but although it’s not a very big drop the force of the water makes it quite powerful so I imagine that there’s enough power here to run the village and its surroundings.

“But what about the salmon?” I hear you say. After all, it’s quite a famous salmon fishing river and one time the fishing rights were owned by a club in Quebec, although control was soon wrestled back by the villagers.

In fact, when they built the barrage they also built a kind of fish ladder at the side of it so that the salmon could move upstream and downstream . I haven’t heard whether or not it’s as successful and whether the fish are a snumerous as before.

Meanwhile, I’m back on the beach again heading east. Right over there is the fish-processing plant that we visited when we were here in 2012.

Formerly, it was the forest products that provided the major source of employment in the village. It was quite a hive of industry, with a log flume and even a small railway network, but the 1960s put an end to all of that and the economy collapsed.

Nowadays, it’s fishing and the fish processing plant that provide most of the employment opportunities around here.

One thing that Baie Trinité does have going for it is that it has a fuel station and convenience store, and you can see it peering through the trees over there, left of centre.

I went in there for a wander around and to my great surprise they sold bread. Baguettes too, albeit frozen ones that need to be thawed out before I can use them. But it’s good news for me – it’s a round trip of just 78 kms for the bread instead of 116 kms.

Out on the western side of the village is the Pointe-à-Poulin. I tried to reach there in 2012 as you may remember but was blocked by the snow.

No such problems this year though. In fact I made it all the way down to the Anse de Sable – Sandy Cove – and not only that, I was chased all the way down the road by three Dodge Caravans full of people and that made me wonder what on earth was going on. It seems to be a popular spot this year and so I shall have to make enquiries as to why they are here.

They all went over there to have a play on that big rock, that looked as if it might have been a plaque of volcanic lava. I went over to have a chat to them to see what was going on.

It appears that they were High-School students who were out on a field trip along the North Shore of the St Lawrence – and that made me wonder whether the young archaeologists whom I had seen at Godbout the other day excavating part of that cache of seashells were from the same group.

But anyway, I left them all to it and went for a wander right out to the farthest extremity of the Point.

Or at least, what I thought was the farthest extremity of the Point because each time that I came to what I thought was the farthest extremity of the Point, there was another Point around the corner. I’d heard of a similar phenomenon in mountaineering when people climbed up to what they considered to be the summit, only to find another summit further on.

having realised that I was likely to be out here all night at this rate, I turned round and retraced my steps somewhat, turning my attention to the rocks just offshore.

I went for a clamber about and a closer inspection thereof. I noticed that the rocks were not rocks at all but nice, black, smooth and shiny, so it seemed to me that these might also be plaques of lava.

You might be wondering about the likelihood of volcanic activity around the St Lawrence, but it does appear to be a recorded fact.

The St Lawrence River valley is situated more-or-less along a geological fault line and there is evidence of techtonic plate movement along here as well as some evidence of prehistoric volcanic eruptions. Coming across outcrops of lava, and even lava fused into airgaps in other rocks, is by no means unusual.

But talking of techtonic plate movement, there have been several earthquakes recorded along the St Lawrence in recent years – a score of 5 on the Richter Scale is not unknown. But this pales into insignificance when considered against the events of 1663

Many of you will remember the discussion that we had when we were at Les Eboulements. We mentioned that in that year there had been as many as 33 earthquakes along the St Lawrence, the largest of which caused an entire mountainside to slide into the river.

So leaving the lava beds for now and greeting the students, who seemed to be having endless amounts of fun, I walked right back around the bay to the other end – the end closest to Baie Trinité.

I was hoping to see a shipwreck or two, or the remains of a shipwreck maybe, but I was completely out of luck.But it really was a beautiful beach and I had quite enjoyed my time out here. Given a few more degrees of temperature and bit less wind, I could quite happily have stretched out on one of the lava beds.

Anyway, I called it a day and leapt into Strider to take me back home.

But halfway down the road before I reached Highway 138, I came to a shuddering halt along the side of the road. That was because the view of the bay that I saw as I rounded a bend was quite stunning. Now this is the kind of beach upon which I could quite happily recline in the evening sun, except of course that the sun is setting behind the trees on the left.
And in any case, I was feeling quite tired by now so I was quite keen to return home to my little room.

I made myself a coffee and retired to my room for a repose and relax before I made tea. Baked potatoes, beans and hotdogs with mustard as usual (it was a good idea to buy that bag of spuds and those tins of beans) was on the menu. And then having done the washing-up, I retired foe the night.

I was pretty exhausted after my long walk around the beach. But at least I have my bread for tomorrow.

And you have 2105 words to read tonight. Serves you all right.

Thursday 29th September 2016 – DO YOU KNOW WHAT?

I had the best night’s sleep that I had ever had.

I was asleep almost as soon as my head hit the pillow and I remember absolutely nothing until the alarm went off at 06:00 – with the radio on the laptop still playing. That was a deep sleep.

I came back up here after breakfast (today’s home-made jam was mango, ginger, maple syrup and saffron) just in time to see the F A Gauthier coming into view, with a bulk carrier in the background.

By the time that I had grabbed the telephoto lens she had steamed into a beautiful position and the bulk carrier was continuing her way upstream.

I wonder she is.

I didn’t do too much this morning – it’s not really possible to do too much with the internet connection here but I did what I could. Despite having had a good sleep through the night, I dozed off at some time and so was late going out. I ended up grabbing a bag of crisps instead of my butties.

I went for a walk in the other direction today, towards the west, and I came across the cemetery of the village.

I had a good nosey around at some of the graves, as I always like to do in places like this, and this lady seems to be the oldest inhabitants of the cemetery. She died in 1880, aged 27. There was a gap of a good few years between her and the next-oldest. Maybe there weren’t too many people living around here in those days.

But that wasn’t everything apparently. There was some kind of stele in the cemetery giving a list of names of people who are interred in here and whose last resting places would seem to be lost. It’s a shame that so many names haven’t been remembered too.

But this stele was clearly erected in the olden days when the original inhabitants were still being referred to as “Indians” rather than First-Nation Canadians.

By the way, it’s an error to believe that the word “Indian” when applied to people in Canada refers to the Indian sub-continent and the belief that this might have been the Indies. Jacques Cartier knew full well that it wasn’t.

The word “Indian” when applied here is an English-language corruption of the word “Indigène” which is the French word for “native inhabitant”.

Godbout has a small school here, and also a very impressive church with a presbytery. It dates from about 1908 and much to my surprise, its predecessor of 1840 didn’t actually burn down like everywhere else in Quebec but managed to survive until it was demolished at the end of 1903

I forgot to have a close look at the statue to see who she was. As you know if you have been a regular reader of this rubbish, the different saints are identified by the object with which they are depicted. This might be Saint Mary – but then on the other hand it might not.

There is a park down at the end of the road – the “Parc Intergenerationnelle”. This must be a paradise for young children, with all of the attractions that are available.

I myself would have made a bee-line for the pirate ship. This is an ideal place for the extreme youth of the village to hang out and many British people would find themselves at home here, for having voted for the Brexit they will soon find themselves all at sea.

As for the adults who didn’t vote in favour of the Brexit, there are things to do here too. My friend Liz saw the photo and asked me if this place was a playground or a gymnasium. It can quite easily be both, without any trouble at all.

I was keen to go over and have a look, and maybe a play on the apparatus but I’d wasted so much time already and I had plenty of other things to doso I couldn’t afford to hang around.

At the side of the park is the second of the two rivers here at Godbout. This is the bigger of the two, called (as you might expect) the Riviere Godbout, and nicknamed (as you might equally expect) the “Grande Riviere”. According to mine host, it’s a famous salmon river and some good fish have been taken out of it.

But the climb down the bank to the sandy beach was quite something. The steps down to the water stopped half-way down and it was quite an undignified scramble the rest of the way.

There is a reason for this, as the people whom you can see on the right-hand edge of the photograph explained to me.

Apparently there has been something of a storm that has eroded away a good part of the banks of the river, hence the beach at the bottom of the steps has gone.

However, it’s good news for these people. They are archaeologists and apparently some kind of considerable cache of seashells has been uncovered. There’s a possibility that it might be an old Innu rubbish dump and so they were busy excavating it.

The sediment that comes down the river is caught by the current of the St Lawrence River which is quite slow-moving at this point and so there’s quite a magnificent pair of sandspits.

I’ve told you before where the sand comes from. But in case you have forgotten, it’s the debris from when boulders have rubbed together as they have been transported by glaciers during the various ice ages, and when the glaciers melted, they deposited the sand on the ground.

It’s for this reason that the St Lawrence River up here, and many other rivers in the sub-arctic regions of the world have such magnificent beaches, and those of Godbout are amongst the best that I have ever encountered.

Had the wind dropped, I would have been quite happy to have sat down here with my book to relax for a while by the sea. However I had to knock that idea on the head, for I had already discovered that I had forgotten to pack my booK.

This piece of wood lying here on the beach caught my attention and I went over for a closer look. What had drawn my attention to it was that there was a good deal of what looked like worked joints in it – the kind that a carpenter might make if he had been using the wood as part of a construction.

And not only that. There were huge nails and metal pegs sticking out of where the joints are. I ended up wondering if this had been part of a shipwreck or an abandoned boat.

My guest house is called the Thépi du Bec Sucré and so it comes as no surprise to find that we have a teepee in the back garden. In the summer it’s used as a tearoom for tourists but right now it’s closed until next summer.

It does however remind me of the story of the chief of a Native American tribe who once took part in a tea-drinking competition. He broke the record, as you might expect, but was found next morning, dead in his teepee.

When I returned to my digs, I made myself a coffee and took it up to my room. Glancing out of the window I noticed something big sailing upriver towards Quebec and Montreal.

Grabbing hold of the big zoom lens and with some judicious enlargement, I was able to identify it as some kind of cruise ship.

In case you are wondering, by the way, the river is wider than it looks. So much so that during World War II a couple of U-boats were operating right here between Godbout and Matane, scoring several hits and sinking several ships in the river before making successful escapes.

And so I’ve had my tea – baked potatoes beans and hot-dogs – and now I’m having an early night.

I deserve it.

Wednesday 28th September 2016 – WELL, WHAT CAN I SAY?

Apart from the fact that this is one of the most comfortable beds that I’ve ever slept in. I didn’t take long to drop off and although I was awake again soon after (and for quite a while too) I ended up back in a deep sleep and apart from one visit down the corridor I was well away when the alarm went off.

I’m not sure about all of the layers of blankets though – I can see them giving me problems – and the beaver skin went on the floor (and if I had my way the stuffed otter would be out of the window) and it’s all very twee, with lots of ornaments and everything in just the right place. It must be a nightmare to clean and dust.

But the guy who runs it is super-friendly and I couldn’t ask for anything more than he is prepared to give. It’s a bit overwhelming in fact, because it’s a long time since I’ve been cosseted quite like this. And who knows? It’ll probably do me good.

Breakfast was at 08:00 with my notaire friend and his wife. And I made a mistake yesterday because he isn’t actually the notaire of Pontaumur but the retired notaire of Pontaumur, because he’s sold up and they are now on their travels visiting places that they have always dreamed of visiting in North America. And it’s a 6-month itinerary too, so good luck to them.

Once I’d had breakfast I came back up here for a rest and to do a few things on the laptop. And if I thought that the internet at my house was slow, then it’s like lightning compared to how it works here. And it keeps on dropping the connection too. It’s extremely difficult to work with.

Lunchtime came around and so I went downstairs to Strider to make myself some butties. And it really was windy – very unpleasant. It rather destroyed the effects of it being a beautiful sunny day. But I’m not here to do nothing and so I put on an extra fleece and set out to brave the tempest.

Here’s a nice little pavilion here on the shore, just like a little Chinese pagoda. There are a few of them dotted around here and there. That would seem to be an ideal place to eat my butties, even if the sides are opened and I’m going to be buffeted about by the wind.

I’m not sure about my book though. The pages are being blown about like nobody’s business and so I’m not going to be able to relax here.

Consequently I decide to move on.

Last night I’d seen a white light in the shape of a cross shining from somewhere in the hills. Today I can see a cross over there where the light was. My host told me that there was a path up there, with some stunning views from up on the top, and so I decided that I would go for an exploration.

It’s not quite such a climb as it might appear, because there are steps that lead up there. That should make it somewhat easier to reach the top.

Godbout is situated in a sheltered bay that is flanked by two rivers. This is the river at the eastern edge of the town, the smaller one of the two, and I’ll tell you its name in a minute when I can remember it or whenever I can track it down.

But there’s a footpath that leads over the bridge and along the top of the shore in the general direction of the cross that I saw, and so I headed out along here as a good place to start.

I stumble across a flight of stairs heading up the side of the mountain and so I start to climb up there. This must be the way to the cross.

It was pretty tiring climbing all the way up here because there are quite a few and I lost count long before the top. I had to stop a few times to catch my breath and I do have to say that the view down to the eastern beach at Godbout was stunning from this position. I bet it’s even better from the top.

403 steps in fact, according to the number carved into the top step, brought me up to the very top where I could see the cross. It’s actually an aerial or antenna support which was rather disappointing because I was hoping that it might have been a Cartier cross.

There were crosses erected all over the cost of the Gasoé peninsula and the shore of the St Lawrence at the places where it is believed that Jacques Cartier landed on his voyages of exploration during the 1530s.

But it goes without saying that if he had landed at every place so claimed, he would still be out there now.

And I was right about the view from the top and its a shame that I have the sun shining into the camera lens – the camera can never do justice to the real view.

That’s the view of Godbout down there with the harbour in centre view. You can see how beautiful the area is here and I’m glad that I managed to make it up to the top of the stairs to see it.

And so here I sat for half an hour or so to read my book and to catch my breath.

Back down to the bottom of the steps (with 399 carved at the bottom so something is clearly not correct) I walked on along the road and came to this beautiful belvedere with a view out across the river.

Here I fell in with a very vocal local yokel who spent quite a while chatting to me. he said that he was driving past here in 2002 when his car broke down. While it was being repaired he walked around the village, fell in love with it and once his car had been repaired, he came back later and bought a house here.

While we were busy chatting, the F A Gauthier came steaming … "dieseling" – ed … into port, making quite an impressive photograph.

I told you that she’s the first brand-new ferry on the St Lawrence for a good number of years, but I didn’t tell you that she was built in Italy – which must have been a major blow to Canadian shipbuilders, and also to John Brown’s of Greenock who have built many ships for the St Lawrence in the past.

But anyway, here she is. She’s 133 metres long and 22.4 metres wide, displacing about 16,000 tonnes, although she might not look it.

There’s a carrying capacity of 800 passengers and 180 vehicles, which means that the queue of unreserved vehicles that used to miss the boat on the Camille Marcoux and which we almost joined when we were here in 2014 may well be a thing of the past.

My vocal local yokel told me that there were the remains of the village’s old hydro-electric plant somewhere along the trail. I wanted to have a look at them if I could and so I set out to see if I could find them.

But I was defeated by the steepness of the climb up into the hills and the looseness of the rocks on the trail – by the time that I was halfway up I was going up one pace and sliding down three. However, there was a beautiful view of the docks and the F A Gauthier from where I was standing.

I walked back to my digs via the beach. There weren’t many people about (I counted two) but it was beautiful along here despite the wind that had sprung up once again.

And I did what I had wanted to do by coming here, which was to have a good wash in the water of the St Lawrence. It’s a rather symbolic gesture that I like to perform, and as this might be the last time that I come here, I was keen to do it.

By now I was thoroughly exhausted and so I went back to my room where I crashed out for a good while, aching all over.

And for tea, I was organising my potatoes for baking but my host told me that he had cut far too many chips, so would I like to cook them with my sausages and beans? That was extremely nice of him and it made a nice change from baked potatoes. Only drawback was that I forgot that I had some malt vinegar for them.

And that was that. I came up to my room and I was out like a light – probably gone for good.

Tuesday 27th September 2016 – NO PRIZES …

… for guessing where I am and what I’m doing today.

Of course, there’s only one reason why I would ever want to come to Matane, apart from meeting the man whose limericks never would scan, and that is for the traversier – the ferry that sets sail out of there across to the north shore of the St Lawrence, either to Baie Comeau or to Godbout. And whenever I seem to be on board it, it always seems to be going to Godbout.

And much to my surprise, we have a brand-new ferry. The Camille Marcoux has finally been laid up in the city of Quebec after almost 43 years of service, looking for a new owner.

What we have now is the F A Gauthier and when I say that she is a new ferry, she really is too because, unlike most “new” ferries that have made their appearance in Canadian waters these last few years, she’s not a second-hand boat but brand spanking new, built in 2014.

I was up quite early at the motel – at 06:00 on the dot and at 06:15 I was on my way out ready to put myself in the queue for loading.

And they won’t forget me in a hurry at that motel either. With the kind of presents that I an capable of leaving behind me, I managed to block the toilet and I had to ask for the maintenance crew. That’ll larn ’em.

Now, I have talked in the past … "and at great length too" – ed … about the folly of using steel culverts for streams underneath new road workings and we’ve seen plenty of examples of how they have rotted away and the road has collapsed.

I’ve often said that despite the costs of transport, the use of concrete culverts would save them a lot of money and inconvenience in the long run.

And clearly they have been reading my notes these days because there were several lorry-loads of concrete culverts parked up in the queue to board the boat. If they really are for replacing some of the rotten steel culverts underneath the highway, that can only be good news for the future.

They weren’t the only exciting things waiting to board the ferry either. This is a railway wagon, presumably for the transport of ore.

There are several lengths of isolated railway line on the north shore of the St Lawrence River and in the past we’ve seen the ones at Baie Comeau, Sept-Iles, Port Cartier and Havre St Pierre. I imagine that this is on its way out to one of those lines – although there are rail ferries over to Baie Comeau and to Sept Iles.

It’s been a good while since we’ve had a Ship of the Day and so I didn’t miss out on the opportunity to photograph this Canada Steamship Lines bulk carrier that was heading upstream, with the village of Godbout in the background.

Unfortunately I couldn’t read her name from here even with magnifying the photo, and without knowing to which port it was heading, I wasn’t able to track it down on one of the ship tracking sites that I know. She will have to remain anonymous.

Over there is the village of Godbout. That’s the destination of the ferry and where we will all spill out.

You’ve probably read what I have written about the north shore of the St Lawrence and for me, it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth. I desperately wanted to come here while I still could and I am lucky to have been able to make it while my health is still holding out. It’s important to me.

We were heaved out of the F A Gauthier after a crossing of 2 hours and 15 minutes, which cost (for the benefit of UK Channel-hoppers) a mere $45:00 for Strider and me. That gave me an opportunity to drive around to the side of the ship and take a photo of it.

And in cse you are wondering just who F A Gauthier might have been when he was at home (if he ever was), he was a Quebecois who once stood on the toe of an Anglophone tourist.

And for that heroic act of Francophone defiance, the Quebec authorities will ensure that his name will live on for ever (given how often they replace the ferries around here).

It took me ages to find the place where I had booked to stay. It’s called one name on the internet but there’s another name over the door and that was what confused me.

My arrival was expected but it was quite early – 09:30 in fact – and so the previous tenants were still having breakfast. My room wasn’t ready either and so there was no point in hanging around. I decided to head off to Baie Comeau to do some shopping and to fuel up.

I had a rather depressing incident at Franquelin. Franquelin is a small village in a cove along the coast between Godbout and Baie Comeau, and to reach there, there’s a stunningly steep descent into the village, and right at the bottom is a 50kph speed limit. It’s impossible to slow down to the speed limit by the time you reach the sign.

Just after the speed limit sign is an alley. And in there was a Quebec County Mountie with a radar gun.

Of course he took off after me, but much to my astonishment he overtook me and continued to drive onwards. That took me completely by surprise, I can tell you. I couldn’t be this lucky, could I?

In Baie Comeau, my friendly neighbourhood petrol pump attendant wasn’t on duty at the Ultramar which was a disappointment, and then I went over to Tim Horton’s for a coffee. I hadn’t had one since on the boat.

Once I’d organised that, I went to the IGA and did a little shopping. And then I headed back towards Godbout, stopping on the way to eat my butty.

Here on Highway 138 – the Route des Baleines – there were several roadworks and it too hours to negotiate them. I could have sat, made my butties and eaten them in the time that it took me to negotiate them.

And that vehicle heading towards us from down at the bottom of the hill is a new Ford Transit. We encountered quite a few of them last year as they are also sold in North America, replacing the old Ford F-250.

Globalisation is, unfortunately, even catching up with White Van-Man.

So now I’m installed in my comfy digs, and here’s the view out of my bedroom window – a little canted over to one side as the ferry is directly oppoite which willcome in handy when I’m rushing for the boat.

I have a small double room with a very comfortable bed, and I share a bathroom. I also have use of the kitchen, which is quite useful, because apart from a very ephemeral canteen, there is absolutely nothing whatever in the way of facilities in the village.

And that suits me fine. It’s what I’ve come here to find. I made myself baked potatoes, beans and hot dogs instead.

And we’ve talked about globalisation just now, and how it’s catching up with us. You may or may not believe what I am going to tell you now, and if you don’t believe it I don’t blame you because I didn’t believe it at first.

However truth is far more strange than fiction, and so it is with no qualms at all that I tell you that my co-habitee in the second guest room here is the notaire from Pontaumur, just 30kms away from where I live in France.

You couldn’t make that up either.

Monday 26th September 2016 – I MUST HAVE BEEN …

… tired last night. I was in bed at 20:00 and away with the fairies straight away for a good half hour. It didn’t take long. But I couldn’t stay asleep and the next hour or so saw me lying there reading a book. Eventually though, I closed my eyes and there I was, gone. And apart from one trip down the corridor, I remember nothing whatsoever until the alarm went off at 06:00.

It took me quite a while to gather my wits and then I set to and tidied up my things because I’m moving on today. I’m feeling better today so I want to take advantage of it while I can. Rachel and I had breakfast together and then I loaded up Strider and we set off.

A brief stop at the tyre depot for a coffee and chat with everyone there, and then I hit the road northwards. At Grand Sault I stopped for fuel and then headed off cross-country towards the Baie des Chaleurs. At Kedgwick I stopped to buy a baguette and I’m glad that I did because they were at half-price in the sale. I stopped off a little further on at a nice quiet spot off the road, right up in the hills, and ate lunch.

Near Atholville I came out of the mountains and this was where I had to make a decision. I was planning to look for a motel here – it’s been a long drive from Centreville – but as I was still feeling up for continuing so I diverted myself up the Matapedia valley and into Quebec.

One thing about Quebec is that no-one obeys the speed limits. It’s 90kph on the main roads and I had the cruise control set accordingly. And after about 30 miles through the mountains I had a queue of about 20 vehicles – lorries and all sorts – right behind me in a long crocodile. But when I turned off at Amqui to head north, I left them all behind.

Matane was my destination, and how peeved was I when I pulled in there. The ferry across the Gulf of St Lawrence was just pulling out – wouldn’t it have been something had I arrived here an hour earlier? I could have been well and truly gone, and quite by accident too. But never mind, hey?

I had a little errand to do here, and then I went to look for accommodation. My choice of motel – the cheap one on the waterfront, was closed for the season, as you might expect, and so I had to look elsewhere. By now I was feeling rather out of it, having driven about 450 kms today, and so I ended up in somewhere expensive. And expensive it was too, because I have stayed in many better places and for much less money too. And I would even miss breakfast, because that starts at 06:30 and I’ll be gone by then.

There was no microwave in the room either, and so I had to look elsewhere for food. A tour around Matane, which took me past a few motels that would have been much better than where I was staying, found me a pizza place where they did me a pizza – one which was quite expensive but which was one of the best that I have ever eaten.

So now I’m settling down in my room (and I do have to admit that the bed is super-comfortable) ready for my really early start tomorrow.

Sunday 25th September – I MUST HAVE BEEN TIRED …

…last night. Crawled into bed round about 09:30 and I remember nothing whatsoever – not even going to ride the porcelain horse – until the alarm at 06:00.

But being awake is one thing, being out and about is quite something else and I couldn’t summon up the energy to leave my stinking pit for a considerable number of hours. It was definitely something of a strain this last few days.

In the living room Amber was watching the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and so I went to join her. Darren was there too so we had a good chat about this and that too. When Rachel came back we attacked a huge mound of washing up followed by a pot of coffee but I couldn’t keep going and it wasn’t long before I was back in my room again and that was that for a couple of hours.

Later in the afternoon we had to empty the trailer of everything that was in it. The pulling season is over and everything needs to be cleaned, tidied and put away. I grabbed my tote box with all of my stuff in it and put it back into Strider and then joined in the general mayhem.

The garage needed to be cleaned and tidied too because the engine is being taken out of the pulling truck. Every year or so it’s taken out and dismantled to be checked for wear and tear. After all, it’s an impressive high-performance alcohol-fuelled racing engine and subject to incredible strain. The garage has to be scrupulously clean so that dust doesn’t enter any of the working parts and so that wasn’t the job of five minutes either.

Eventually we had the garage clean enough and we could winch the pulling truck out of the trailer and have it ready for dismantling, but by this time it was tea-time so we all knocked off. I had a lovely vegetable stir-fry.

We had quite a chat later – about all kinds of things but mainly about what I intend to do when I return to Europe. Of course, I have a few ideas but they are all unpleasant ones and quite disappointing but it helps to put things on the table and discuss them. But by this time I was out of it again and after a brief attempt to watch another film with Darren and Amber I was back in my little room.

And for good this time.

Saturday 24th September 2016 – WELL DONE AMBER!

And quite right too!

But first, let us turn to this morning. And when I awoke at about 05:30 I was frozen to the marrow. I’ve never been as cold as this for a long time, not even when I was up in Labrador last year, I reckon.

But here’s a thing – I was locked into the trailer. That was necessary because with all kinds of items of considerable value in the trailer with me, you never know what is going to happen through the night when you are parked up in the Wilderness.

And what made things even worse was that Darren and Amber in the truck awoke at about 08:00 and fired up the engine to warm up the truck, and thinking that I would be still asleep, they left me to it. When they finally let me out, I was in no state at all.

A big plate of beans on toast soon brought me round and then we had work to do. First, though, I walked down the field and round the corner to have a look at Mount Katahdin. It’s the highest mountain in Maine, at just over 5,250 feet, and it’s always impressed me, even if it does happen to be shrouded in cloud today.

But back at the ranch, we pull the tractor out of the trailer, started it up and tuned it up, and then Darren let Amber have another little run around the field in it, because he has a cunning plan.

You may have noticed that earlier this morning when we awoke, we were alone on the field here by the airstrip. But a couple of hours later, you can see that there has been a dramatic change in circumstances.

There are over 60 trucks and tractors pulling here at Millinocket today, apparently. There are about 8 different classes of tractors, but Perdy in the Pink only has one competitor in its class, and that’s it just there.

One of the classes is for diesel 4×4 trucks, and that’s quite interesting to watch. Not for the puling itself because, to be quite honest, I’ve seen sports that are much more exciting than this, but because of the plumes of smoke and diesel emissions from the trucks, that blanket the whole arena

I’m not quite sure what the local environmental inspectors would make of all of this, but remember that this is the USA and the Environment is not all that high on the agenda.

By the time mid-afternoon came around, it was time for Perdy in the Pink and the 2-wheel drive modified truck competition.

And do you recognise the driver in the truck? It’s not Darren, and it’s not Hannah of course because she’s gone back to University. In fact, young Amber is making her competitive debut behind the wheel of Perdy in the Pink in front of quite a large crowd of people.

And here she is down the end of the field at the end of her first competitive run. She confused herself a little somewhere along the road and had the steering wrong and as a result, could only manage a run of 287 feet at a maximum speed of 32.1 mph. The other competitor in the class made 324 feet.

But what you have to remember is that this is only her third ever time behind the wheel, and the very first time that she’s actually been coupled up to a load. As a result, she can be very proud of what she has managed to achieve today.

After that, while other competitors were lining up to take their runs, we went back to the trailer for an inquest on the first run, with Amber walking on air! Darren chatted to Amber and gave her a few more tips, and then we went for some food.

I discovered that the chips had been fried in oil which was good news for me, and so I went to buy a plate, only to find out that they had sold out.And the coffee, the first of the day, was totally disgusting. Back home, I wouldn’t even wash Caliburn’s windscreen with it.

We didn’t have too long to mess about though, because as the sun went down in the evening, it was time for Perdy in the Pink’s second and final run.

And so off set Amber down the track again, with the beautiful Mount Katahdin silhouetted in the setting sun in the background.

And I wish that they had started the competition an hour earlier today so that we would have had some light to see what was going on.

And she makes it down to the end of the track in one piece again, much to everyone’s delight, especially Darren’s.

And with very good reason too because Amber had taken on board her father’s advice she managed to increase her distance. Not by 10 feet, or 20 feet, or even 50 feet, but she covered a magnificent 357 feet – an increase of 70 feet, at a maximum speed of 30 mph.

Her competitor managed to increase his distance for the second run, but only by about 20 feet, which meant that Amber had actually won the second leg, in only her second ever pull, and that is an astonishing achievement against someone of 40 years experience.

of course, as we pulled the tractor back to our little camp, Amber developed her own little fan club of supporters and I noticed a discreet exchanging of e-mail addresses going on.

And here’s another thing – there were competitors here today by the name of Pelletier, Voisine, Michaud and a few other names of French origin, all of whom lived in Maine, New Hampshire or Vermont. It just goes to show you how much of Upper Canada the British signed away at the Treaty of Webster-Ashburton

Just so that that there is no mistake or misunderstanding, Amber can’t be only 13 years of age because the minimum age to drive a vehicle in this competition is 14. So now you know.

We loaded up everything into the trailer and then set off for home. And finding a new way through the lanes that completely missed out the town of Millinocket, we were back on the highway heading north in no time at all.

We passed a few of our fellow competitors on the way back, and then turned off at Bridgewater to go down to the border crossing. there, we had to re-do the paperwork and reclaim our documents, and then we could cover the remaining 5 miles or so back here.

Once we were safely installed, I grabbed a couple of rounds of toast and that was me, gone. I was totally wasted and went straight to bed.

I’m not as young as I used to be.

Friday 23rd September 2016 – I WAS OFF …

…so early and in such a rush this morning that I forgot to take a photo of my motel at Caraquet last night. I’d had a communication during the late evening to say that the lorry had been fixed and the tractor pull was on. It’s only about 350 kilometres from here to Centreville but it’s over some dreadful roads through the mountain and they were planning to leave at 15:30 so there was no time to hang about.

Not only that, the weather was dreadful. It was freezing cold and the gorgeous sunny day that we had had yesterday was now miserable, grey and wet with this freezing rain that was getting in everywhere. I wasn’t going to enjoy this drive one little bit.

But stil, the sooner we start, the sooner we finish and I hit the streets. Leaving behind me my breakfast cereal as I was to discover later. There’s always something that I leave behind me, isn’t there?

The drive as far a Bathurst was quite uneventful, apart from the dreadful weather, that is, and I found a cheap Ultramar service station where I could fuel up Strider. Shortly afterwards I found a huge Atlantic Superstore where I could stop to lay in supplies for the next few days, and where fuel was even cheaper that at the Ultramar – but then, that kind of thing always happens, doesn’t it?

The road from Bathurst over to the Saint John valley goes right into the mountains and through the Mount Carleton National Park and some of the roads through there that we will have to take are quite dreadful.

It’s all up and down, through the rainstorms and the low hanging clouds and with a good length of dirt road that I remember driving on back in winter 2003 through the pitch black and the snow … "no you didn’t – you came a different way" – ed

Further into the mountains and the weather hadn’t improved any. In fact I was beginning to wonder if we would be having snow any time soon – that was what it was looking like to me.

In fact I was starting to become rather worried. If the weather doesn’t improve any, we can forget all about tractor pulling and I will have had this long and exhausting drive for nothing. And after a good spell on the dirt road, Strider was looking disgraceful. He’ll be needing a wash.

Hitting the Saint John valley I drove along the old route of the Trans Canada Highway for a while and found a place to park for lunch right by the river, at the back of the seasonal camp site. And having demolished my butty I was back on the road again for Centreville, completely forgetting that I needed to go to the bank at Florenceville for some US money. I shall just have to do without, I suppose.

We went back home and sorted out the tractor and Amber hopped into the driving seat to move it around.

It’s the first time that she’s actually been behind the steering wheel under power so Darren kept her under close supervision. After all, it’s a mere 3,500 horsepower so I was told, and it’s not every young girl of Amber’s age who will have the opportunity, never mind the confidence, to handle that kind of power.

She was doing really well too. She wasn’t just along for the ride

Eventually we set off and had the usual histrionics at the USA border. There’s an extremely long and complicated (and expensive) procedure to be undergone and as a result no-one has really bothered with it in the past. But a Canadian tractor-puller took his vehicle across into the USA – and sold it. And these things are worth hundreds of thousands – the engine is worth $80,000 on its own. And because the border crossing wasn’t registered he escaped paying the import duty and the sales tax.

As a result, the people at the border post had their derrieres very soundly kicked by Head Office and so now everything is done by the letter of the law. And it takes ages to do.

But we were soon back on the road and headed off down towards Millinocket, stopping off for diesel and also for some food. And as we headed south, the clouds blew away. By the time we arrived, the skies were clear and you could see millions of stars.

It was also freezing cold.

What might have been a major problem was that the raceway was all chained up and padlocked – there was no way in. But regular readers of this rubbish will remember from several events that have occurred in the past that a chain and padlock isn’t going to keep me out for long. Five minutes and we were inside, and no-one would ever guess how we managed it.

Darren set a methanol fire – about two inches of methanol in an old saucepan and he tossed a lighted rag into it. The liquid doesn’t burn – just the gases – and the evaporation is slow enough that it lasted for about an hour or so. We were crowded around it to try to keep warm and that wasn’t easy. After a while I could smell something burning, and I was shocked to realise that it was me! I had to move my chair back into the cold.

By now I was pretty tired and so I sloped off to bed. Darren is having the front seats of the lorry, Amber the rear and so I’m having the mattress in the trailer.

I’m glad that we are only staying for the one night.

Thursday 22nd September 2016 – WHAT A HORRIBLE NIGHT!

There I was, lying in bed trying to go to sleep, and time was drawing on. I remember 02:30 and I remember 02:45 and I hadn’t been to sleep at all. I’m not sure when I finally dropped off.

When the alarm went off at 06:00 as usual, I was wasted. It was a good job that there was a repeater at 06:15 and that was almost as bad. But nevertheless I crawled out of bed and ended up chatting away to a friend of mine on the internet.

I managed a shower and that was excellent, especially the shampoo which was the best that I have ever used, and then I hit the streets.
Before I left the hotel, I went down to the end of the drive and took a photo. The town of Miramichi is on the Miramichi River, one of the longest in New Brunswick, and it flows by on the other side of the road from where the Fundy Line Motel is.

It was such a nice day too as you can tell from the photos.

Having handed in the key I headed off to Tim Horton’s down the road – the first time that I’ve been to a Tim Horton’s this year. I treated myself to a coffee and a couple of cinnamon and raisin bagels, and then went out to face the world, still not feeling too much like it.

First stop was only a mile or so up the road towards town. This chimney here had attracted my attention and so I pulled up for a butcher’s.

There was a park here, called the French Fort Cove and I didn’t remember this at all when I was here before. But that was easily explained – it wasn’t here.

Where we are is in a former quarry that was mined, and there were also iron workings here (hence the chimney) with all of the output being loaded onto ships just down there at the cove. These workings eventually closed down and the land was given to the town in 2002, being subsequently developed as the park.

While I was here, I heard in the distance the familiar wail of a diesel locomotive. No idea where it was, which was a shame, otherwise I might have gone a-chasing after it.

Instead, I continued on into the town to find a parking place by the river where I might be able to have a good shot of the bridge across the Miramichi river.

And if you are thinking that the bridge looks familiar, we have seen something like this before. The Seal Island bridge on Cape Breton Island over which we have driven on several occasions was built to the same design.

This is the Centennial Bridge, so called because it was opened in 1967, the centennial of the formation of the Confederation of Canada in 1867. Previously, there was a ferry, latterly the Romeo and Juliet, that plied its trade across the river here.

I suppose that I must have travelled over the bridge when I came here in 2003 but I really don’t remember it. And do I decided that I would put that right today, and to take a photograph to prove it.

And so off I went, onto the highway and across the bridge. And when I reached the other side, I turned round and came back, with Strawberry Moosetaking a fine photograph of the view from the top.

But coming back wasn’t as easy as it might have been. Half of the population of Miramichi was in Tim Horton’s, and the other half was driving across the end of the road where I was trying to turn round.

Having done that, I headed off down the coast for a nice leisurely drive to the sea, seeing as it was such a beautiful day

Round about 13:00 I stopped for my butties at Tracadie. I found a really nice spec at the side of the river where I could sit in comfort and read my book.

And it was such a nice day that I closed my eyes for a couple of minutes to relax in the sun. And there I was, gone, for a good half-hour. In fact, it took me quite a while to sort myself out. And that’s not a surprise seeing as how I’d had such a bad night previously.

But I was eventually back on the road continuing my drive along the Acadian Trail, and took the deviation out towards Shippegan. After all, if there’s anything to do with deviation, then in the words of the late, great Bob Doney “I’m your man!”.

The road down to Shippegan leaves the main highway near a beautiful church situated on the banks of a large river and the scene was certainly quite photogenic.

We’ve noted before that Canada seems to be littered with old Jaguars and we keep on stumbling across them. It did occur to me that we haven’t noticed one yet this year and so here’s the first, at Saint Simon, with a boat painted in the “Star of Acadia” in the background.

We can’t miss out an opportunity to photograph it – just to prove the point that, as I have said before … "and on many occasions too" – ed … at one time the UK was selling its cars all over the world. 20 years later, it couldn’t sell a single car in its own country.

The collapse of the British motor industry is a spectacular example of the decline and fall of the United Kingdom, and those Brexiters hoping to bask in the glory of the United Kingdom’s future in a free market economy are are heading for an extremely nasty shock.

From here, I headed off to the coast and Caraquet. I’ve found another cheap motel, the Motel Bel Air, and I’ll be staying here for the night. No microwave unfortunately, so I’ll have to eat out tonight, but apart from that the room looks as if it’s another one of these “good value for money” places.

I hope that I can have a good sleep tonight.

Wednesday 21st September 2016 – I’M BACK ON THE ROAD AGAIN

After something of a disturbed night last night, I was up and about fairly early on. And after a light breakfast, I started cleaning the motel room and tidying up the place, as well as chatting to a couple of people on the internet. And by chucking-out time, 10:00, I was ready to go.

I dumped the rubbish and took back the keys, and then headed off into town and the Sobeys supermarket for some shopping for lunch. And as most North American motels these days have microwaves, I also bought a bag of spuds and some more beans. It’s as well to be prepared.

I headed off northwards along the Arcadia Trail, and the first place that I visited was Cap Caissie. This is a small fishing port at the mouth of Shediac Bay.

It looked as if the tide was going out here so we’d be having a beach here in a couple of hours. And if you look at the weather that we were having this morning it would have been nice to have hung around for a while and done some sunbathing. But I had other things to do.

There’s a harbour here at Cap Caissie were no boats in there this morning, but there was a refrigerated lorry standing by.

Talking to the driver, it turns out that it’s lobster that is the catch here, and all 14 boats registered at the port are out at the catch. The driver was telling me that the catch hasn’t been so good this summer but over the last week or so things have been pretty good.

From the port at Cap Caissie there’s a good view of a lighthouse half a mile or so away. And so when you see a street name – Chemin du Lighthouse or Lighthouse Lane, you have to go for a look (or, at least, one of us does).

And if you think that Lighthouse Lane is going to lead you to the lighthouse you are mistaken because nothing could be farther from the truth, as you can see in this photo.

Further on round the trail is the mouth of the Cocagne river, and guarding the entrance at Cap Cocagne is another port.

This is another small commercial port and there is plenty of lobster fishing, judging by all of the lobster pots out there in the estuary, but there’s a considerable presence of pleasure boats here too.

As an aside, the word Cocagne in France has several meanings, two of which are completely contradictory.

You have the Pays de Cocagne, which is the Land of Milk and Honey where there are abundant harvests, a warm climate and all that kind of thing, and then we have the Mât de Cocagne which is the greasy pole that you try to climb up but you always keep on sliding down to the bottom

One of the games that we play while we are out on our travels in North America is “100 uses for a redundant school bus”.

School buses are only allowed by law to carry school kids for a certain number of years and then they have to be retired from school operation. There’s not much of a market for old school buses and so you find them littering the North American countryside not doing very much.

Here’s one from the 1950s or 1960s that’s been painted white and is being used as a summer house by the side of the sea. That’s certainly a novel way of making use of one.

After lunch by the river at Bouctouche I went for a drive around the Bay of Bouctouche. We’ve been here before a few years ago and so instead of the famous sand spit, I’ll show you something else.

This is actually a shop that’s been extended by the addition of a bow and a stern from some kind of wooden seafaring vessel and a couple of masts have been plated in it.

I was hoping to find out more information about it so I went to make enquiries, but despite all of the doors being open and the stock being lined up outside for inspection, there wasn’t a soul about. That made me think that maybe this was what became of the Mary Celeste.

That wasn’t all that there was to see around here either. Just across the road were a coupe of old motor vehicles. We’ve not had too many of them to date.

The coach is an old Prevost that looks as if it might have been built in the late 1940s or something like that, and the car is a Dodge that dates from 1928. It’s been painted in the colours of Arcadia, which was the name of the area around the New Brunswick – Nova Scotia border during the time of the French occupation.

Further on along the coast you can catch a glimpse of Prince Edward island away across the Northumberland Strait.

With a telephoto lens you can come up with some kind of shot of the coastline over there, and the Prince Edward Island wind farm. And note the wind turbines too because one thing that you will notice about New Brunswick is that there aren’t any, despite the magnificent weather.

New Brunswick is still tangled up in the mess of the Lepreau Nuclear Power Station and trying desperately to go to any lengths to justify the massive expenditure that has been poured into yet another one of the Province’s white elephants.

We saw this bridge near Rexton back in 2013 and so I won’t post it again, but I do remember making a remark about the state of the carpentry.

And so I can show you a photo of one part of the bridge as it is today, and you cans ee how much it has deteriorated. and I thought that it was bad three years ago. I wouldn’t like to be driving on this bridge in another three years time

I stopped off on the edge of Rexton to fuel up – Strider still has his unhealthy fuel consumption – and this ship in the Richibucto River caught my attention. I went across to photograph it.

It’s not a real ship of course. it was constructed in 2003 as a symbol of Rexton’s ship-building industry. They reckon that in a period from 1819 to the turn of the 20th Century some 105 ships were built here, of which 94 were built in just one shipyard – that owned by the Jardine family.

My road north took me to the town of St Louis de Kent, a town that has a claim to fame in that the world’s largest Acadian flag is flown in the town.

St Louis de Kent is quite a hotbed of Acadian nationalism, a movement that took hold at the end of the 19th Century, mainly due to the efforts of Marcel-François Richard, to resurrect the heritage of the Acadian settlers – the French settlers of the mid-18th Century who were abandoned by the French empire during the Seven Years War.

Whilst no-one will deny the events that occurred subsequent to the fall of Acadia, no-one should lose sight of the fact that we are discussing a period of history 250 years ago and it’s a mistake to judge historical events by today’s standards.

Many colonists of French origin were indeed expelled from Acadia, but only those (at first, anyway) who refused to take an oath of allegiance to the King of England. But there was nothing unusual in asking citizens of captured colonists to take such an oath and even more so when a war between the two colonial powers was still taking place.

Displacement of recalcitrant colonists was nothing but normal behaviour back in those days and if you remember being with me in the Czech Republic last May, we discussed the displacement of recalcitrant Germans of many generations of settlement from the Sudetenland as late as 1948 – 200 years after the displacement of the Acadians – and no-one thought that what took place in Eastern Europe after World War II and which affected 30 million people was a major issue.

That’s not to take issue, of course, with the cultural traditions of the descendants of the Acadian settlers – I’m all in favour of celebrating culture and tradition – but St Louis de Kent is another place where all of the information on the tourist information boards is written in nothing but French – and that’s in an officially bilingual province too.

There’s a statue here to Marguerite Bourgeoys and we all know who she is. We visited the house of her birth in Troyes in 2014 and we’ve mentioned her many times on our journeys round Montreal.

She organised the women and girls of Montreal with their religious and educational needs during the crises of the early days of the colony there, and it was the organisation that she founded, the Convent of the Sisters of the Congregation of Our Lady, that was asked to open a convent here in the late 19th Century.

You’ve all seen this place before. It’s the Fundy Line Motel in Miramichi where I stayed in winter 2003 and this is where I ended up last night.

It’s quite basic and a little tired but then so are its prices, and it’s scrupulously clean. It scores very highly on my value-for-money index and I’m happy to stay here for the night.

It has a microwave, which is good news, for I have a bag of potatoes and a can of beans, as well as a vegan burgerleft over from when I was in Shediac.

That’s me organised for tonight anyway.

Tuesday 20th September 2016 – BLASTED SEAGULL!

There I was today, at the supermarket buying the baguette for lunch, and when I came out, I noticed that Strider had had a visit. A passing seagull had scored a direct hit, and all over the windscreen too with an accuracy that would put Bomber Command to shame. It was certainly an impressive strike.

Talking of Bomber Command, I do recall my erstwhile neighbour back in Crewe, “Blaster” Bates, telling me that he once witnessed the RAF bombing an oil slick with thermal bombs in order to try to set it alight and disperse the pollution, and deciding that on the basis of what he had seen, if the RAF ever decided to bomb anywhere else at any time, he would flee for safety not into an air-raid shelter but into the epicentre of the target. That was where he considered the safest place to be during an RAF bombing raid.

We had the usual night, as it seems to be developing these days. Straight to sleep almost as soon as I went to bed, awake after thirty minutes or so, back to sleep until about 02:00, a restless half-hour or so and then flat out until the alarm went off at 06:00.

We had been on our travels again too – this time to Derby although it was nothing like the Derby that I know. I had to find an address (the name of the street I have now forgotten although I did know it during the night) and my wanderings took me to a street on the south side of the centre of the city where there were some really big and impressive sandstone houses of the rich Victorian period, all now used as offices. But this wasn’t at all the place where I wanted to be. I eventually found a street map and found that where I wanted to be – right across to the north-east side of the city. My route took me through the central railway station past the taxi rank, and there was an old white Hillman Imp being used as a taxi, passing up the outside of the queue. It had been stripped out inside s if it was planning to be used for the transport of luggage. Where I had to be was a street halfway up the castle mound and I had to pass under a railway line out of the station and onto a footpath that had formerly been the trackbed of an old railway line that had circled the city. The view of this particular area reminded me of the view from the Oak Street car park across to the Mill Street Bridge in Crewe.

And this was where I was when I awoke. I had a light breakfast and then came in here for a relax and ended up chatting to a friend for a few hours. When she went off to do other things, I headed off to the supermarket and my appointment with a seagull.

I made my butties and then headed for the beach. It was grey and miserable when I set off but astonishingly, as I unfurled my chair on the beach the sky dramatically cleared and we had some blue sky. That was totally unexpected.

Right down at the end of the beach somewhere near Beaubassin and Cap Pele was an object that in the distance looked as if a cargo ship had run aground on the beach. As I couldn’t identify it properly I took a photo of it so that I could enlarge it at a later date.

And here it is. It’s not a ship at all but some kind of building on the shore and one day I might have a wander down there to see exactly what it is. But it won’t be today – or tomorrow either.

I wasn’t out there for all that long. The sun went in, the sky clouded over again and the wind got up. I went back to Strider and took myself down to the quayside at Pointe du Chene.

I wasn’t alone there though. We had a coach pull up to disgorge a pile of tourists and they flocked on board the sightseeing boat.

I didn’t mention it before but there is a pleasure boat that does a regular tour around the bay – one of these “three times round the lighthouse for five bob” things, and while that kind of thing doesn’t really interest me all that much, it’s certainly popular with the tourists as you can tell.

And to think that it’s out-of-season here too.

We had loads of fishermen here today as well and I did actually see two of them catch a fish each. That was something!

And there might have been more but I was … errr … having a little rest during part of the afternoon with my eyes closed to protect them from the clouds.

Back here I had a shower and then washed all of my clothes and the towels and everything. I’m supposed to wash the towels before I leave (which is tomorrow) and so I took the opportunity to stick everything else in there too.

I also attacked the food and managed to reduce all of that to manageable proportions. I’m not sure where I’ll be tomorrow and whether there will be a freezer or a fridge there.

And now I’m off to bed. An early night yet again, for tomorrow I’m hitting the road.

I’ve no idea at all where I’ll be tomorrow.

Monday 19th September 2016 – YEEUUUCCCHHH!

That was how I felt when I awoke this morning. One look through the window to the heavy grey sky outside was quite enough for me.

But my night wasn’t as bad as I expected. I was out pretty quickly but soon awoke. But not for all that long. And once I’d gone, I’d gone and that was how I stayed until 05:10. And having been for a walk on the parapet I was out once more until the alarm went off at 06:00

I’d been on my travels too – back to my days in Brussels. I was living with someone, but I can’t remember who the girl was and we were sharing a room with one of my former colleagues from those days as well as someone who used to hang around Pionsat football club. And who should turn up to see us but Anne-Marie, one of the girls with whom I worked and with whom I was quite friendly. This was followed by being back in Crewe and I had bumped into a couple whom I know who live on the Wirral but the husband comes originally from Crewe. They were living down at the end of a very tight cul-de-sac in Crewe that was crowded with cars. We were talking about house repairs and they were having to dig a trench six feet deep at the side of their house to shore up the foundations. I mentioned that I had a digger that they could borrow and although they said that they had already borrowed one, I could see the woman’s eyes light up when I mentioned it. They asked where it was because when they had been around to my house it wasn’t there. It suddenly flashed into my mind that Terry had borrowed it to take to Normandy, but that was not what I was worrying about. What was concerning me was how I was going to pull the trailer and digger through the maze of cars that were parked so tightly in the cul-de-sac.

There was no point in being in too much of a rush to be out of bed, and so I wasn’t. It was another bit of a lie-in. But when I did finally leave the comfort and safety of my stinking pit and had breakfast, I just sat on the comfy sofa and that was that.

About 10:00 the weather showed no sign of improvement and so I decided to go for a drive. Moncton and its shops were beckoning me and I may as well go this morning instead of on the way home. Who knows? The weather might be different by the time I come back.

It was an uneventful drive down there. The Salvation Army c&me up with a couple of books, for which I received a 10% pensioners’ discount. I must be looking my age. Value Village came up with a few more (but it’s not Pensioners’ Day there until tomorrow), and Princess Autos supplied a few more toys to take back home with me.

But at Home Depot, Ryobi came up trumps. They have a new design of portable Ryobi Plus One portable air compressor and I can find some use for that back home. That will suit me.

On the way back home, I called at Sobeys for some more shopping. It costs a fortune to do your shopping here.

But I did have some good luck there – they had some vegan burgers (complete with bread) that tasted like chicken. Not that the taste meant anything to me, but it was a change from my usual diet and it just goes to show the range of vegan food now on offer here in Canada.

I was right about the weather too. It had changed, just as I predicted, but changed for the worse. It was now absolutely streaming down. I had my butties right here in my room.

It might have looked better a little later and so after I’d had a bit of a crash-out, I went to the beach and sat under my shelter there, where I ended up chatting to a fellow traveller from the Motel. But I wasn’t out long. The weather opened up again and even under my shelter I started to become even more wet than I usually am.And so back to the hotel I headed.

I tried these new burgers with my beans and chips, and they weren’t too bad at all. I’ve had much worse than this.

So now let’s see what tomorrow brings me. That’s my last day because on Wednesday morning I have to leave. I have a choice of places to go, a choice of directions to take.

I just hope that I have another decent night tonight.

Sunday 18th September 2016 – HERE ARE SOME MORE …

… heroes. They are out there canoeing and surfboard swimming and although one or two of them are wearing wetsuits, the others are not.

And that wasn’t all either because about ab hour later, two old people turned up and went for a swim in the water.

I was so impressed with all of this because you would not have enticed me into the water for all the tea in China.

You’ve probably noticed that the weather has changed. Thick grey miserable clouds. The sun has gone. But it was even worse this morning. When I awoke (at 05:50 this morning) there was a torrential downpour going on and that was the kind of thing that made me reluctant to leave my bed. In fact, it was 09:30 when I finally crawled out of my stinking pit.

I had good reason to too. I was in bed early, as you know, and it didn’t take me too long to drop off. But I was soon awake again and had endless trouble dropping off again. It was long after midnight (Atlantic Time) and I was still awake.

Once I finally did manage to drop off it wasn’t a peaceful night either. I was up at least once for a trip down the corridor and when I did eventually wake up, I was all bunged up and it was really uncomfortable. I just can’t seem to shake off this streaming cold.

During the morning I went and liberated the guitar from Strider and had a little play around. The idea was that it would give me something to do this afternoon given the state of the weather. It also goes without saying that given the night that I had had, I was away with the fairies too for a good part of the morning. THis is a lovely and comfortable sofa.

After lunch, the weather eased slightly and so I decided that despite everything I would hit the beach. At first I was the only person out there, which was hardly surprising given the clouds, and when it started to rain a little there were even fewer people. I headed to a shelter where I could see the beach and the sea, and watch the surfers and swimmers when they turned up.

When I finished my book I headed back to Strider to find that it was only 16:40. But never mind – I headed back here anyway and prepared my pizza for tea.

And here’s something that I haven’t done for several years, and that was to watch the gridiron. The Colts versus the Broncos. It’s been along time since I’ve done that.

But the adverts on US television are hilarious. Never mind the disclaimers in the adverts, that are often quite longer than the meat of the adverts, there are two makes of motor vehicle that you will never find in Europe, namely a Knee-sonne and a Hunday.

And not only that, going on from something that we discussed the other day, I learnt that Bell offer you the best satellite TV coverage at the cottage. Any British person who had gone to the cottage wouldn’t have gone there to watch television, although back in the old days going to the cottage might have meant that you were hoping to find a 17-inch Murphy.

And so I’ll be having another early night. But my nose is streaming already so I imagine that this is going to be a very long night.

Saturday 17th September 2016 – NOW THIS IS WHAT …

… I call “courageous”.

The weather looks really beautiful in this photo, but in fact there was a cold wind blowing and you could certainly feel it. So much so that I had my fleece on while I was sitting out there.

There was certainly no way that I was going to go for a dip in the Northumberland Strait and so hats off to those (and there were quite a few people in the water today) who had braved the sea.

And so last night, having finally dozed off to sleep, I only had to leave the bed once during the night. And then, there I was, gone, right up to when the alarm went off at 06:00. That was a good sleep.

And once more, I’d been away with the fairies during the night. I’d had a really exciting time although I forgot most of it as soon as I awoke. What I do remember though is that I was on the docks at Liverpool, climbing over a wire fence into an area where there was a line of half a dozen or so derelict steam locomotives parked in a parallel fashion on railway sidings, with an overhead traversing crane carrying a large, heavy object, passing overhead.

For an hour or so I caught up with a few things that I needed to do and then I left the comfort of my stinking pit to go for breakfast.

Once breakfast was out of the way I had things to do and they took up my time for a while. Subesequently, with it being Saturday, I was following the football results on the internet. It was a fairly good day for the results except for Bangor City who struggled for a hard-earned draw out at Carmarthen in the Welsh Premier League.

I made my butties and then headed for the beach, having an interesting encounter down at the entrance to the park. It’s one of these four-way stops where everyone has to stop when they arrive, and depart in the order in which they arrived. And I arrived at the same time as a taxi, so we both stopped at the same time – both started at the same time and so both had to stop again. In the end, to avoid any misunderstanding, I waved him on.

At the car park I gathered up my coolbox with the butties and drink in it, my bag with my books and camers and my folding chair, and hit the beach.

It was much busier than yesterday and there were dozens of kids there, all of them having a really good time which was really nice to see. It was hard for me to concentrate on my book in fact, watching some kids of about three or four running round chasing the seagulls. I was exhausted just watching them.

By the time that 17:30 came around, I was ready to leave. The wind was getting me down and it was clouding over.

I went for a walk down to the far end of the park, which wasn’t as far as I was expecting it to be. There were still quite a few people out on the beach having a good time.

For me though, I went a-looking for the gentleman’s restroom and found one in a complex of buildings down at the far end but, as you might expect at this time of the year, was closed.

But there were also some public showers and changing rooms too, and that can’t be bad for the people who visit the beach.

There was also a cantine, which, presumably, as Canadian for a fritkot. And as you might expect at this time of the year, this was closed for the out-of-season too. I really wasn’t having much luck.

And so in the end I walked back to Strider where I noticed, with dismay, that somehow, presumably on the car park last night, someone had put a dent in the driver’s side door with their door. And judging by the height, it was the door of a full-size pick-up.

Back in Strider, I went down to Sobey’s for more sandwich stuff, bottled water and the like for the next few days. And I found some grated vegan mozzarella cheese. Yes, now I can have pizza tomorrow night. But somewhere along the line I seem to have lost the hummus that I bought. No idea how I managed to do that.

Tea was oven chips with Heinz beans and burgers followed by the ice cream stuff and fruit salad.

Now I’m off to bed – early again, but I’m going to make the most of it. This bed here is really comfortable.

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality