… sitting on the coach station in Montreal waiting for my bus to Florenceville, totally exhausted. Luckily there’s a seat right by the gate that I need because I won’t be able to crawl much farther – I’ve had a hectic day!
I had another good sleep last night – which is hardly a surprise after all of the walking that I did yesterday, and then spent half an hour trying various key combinations of the laptop to see if I could fire up the keyboard, because you’ve no idea how inconvenient this external keyboard really is.
But all to no avail.
I nipped out to Tim Horton’s for breakfast and, much to my dismay, we were having a torrential rainstorm. What a way to finish my last day in Montreal.
Back here I started to pack and despite having emptied some stuff out of the suitcase, it seems to be even more full than it was before and it’s becoming something of a struggle to close it up. Either I shall have to dump some stuff or Strawberry Moose will have to go on a diet.
First stop was round at Josée’s. She works as a co-ordinator of some kind of project for reinsertion of people into the mainstream and part of their work includes running a series of craft workshops. It’s Zoe’s birthday tomorrow and I wanted to buy her a present, and I’d seen some stuff there that looked really nice.
So braving the rainstorm off I set, and I did have quite a lucky find. I stumbled across a second-hand computer shop where they had 50 laptops for sale, all of which seemed to be at bargain prices. Far from being the latest spec of course but if this one is about to give up the ghost I can organise a quick replacement.
Taking my leave of Josée I wandered up the hill to see what was going on. I noticed that a corner of the park had been closed off.
It seems that there’s an open-air music concert this weekend and they were all there setting up the stage.
Well, I wish them all the best of luck and I hope that the weather improves because it will be rather miserable if it doesn’t.
These people can give you much more idea of what the weather is doing right now.
I bet that you wondered what happened to all of the Routemasters that were phased out of London. The Londonders might not appreciate them but the rest of the world does and they are scattered all across the globe.
This is JJD274D with its top cut off being used as a sightseeing bus and the passengers are clearly enjoying it despite the rain.
You’ll notice that the rear platform has been “turned” for “driving on the left” operation
The weather slowly started to clear itself up so I headed back into town.
I’d heard about “Chinatown” and on my walk with Josée the other day I’d actually gone past it, so it seemed like a good idea to go into town that way.
But I do have to say that despite the banners and artificial arches it’s something of a disappointment. I’m not sure what I was expecting but I was expecting more than this
By now it was approaching lunchtime so I made my way into the big Complexe Desjardins.
There’s a huge food court in the basement and also this magnificent fountain that’s really well-worth admiring – a performing art in its own right.
I had a good prowl around the different food outlets but ended up as usual at the Subway for my 12-inch vegetarian without cheese, and mustard sauce.
And here’s a thing!
Do you know what the must surprising thing in the world is?
It’s to discover that you are sitting on one of these toilets that has an automatic flush that sets itself off into motion about 30 seconds after you’ve closed your eyes for a little doze.
You may remember from yesterday that there were some ships in port but I was unable to read their names.
The weather wasn’t right for sunbathing so I reckoned that I’d go for a walk along the docks to see what they were.
That was however not counting on some kind of invasion by some kind of colonial troops. Not British “redcoats” quite clearly, but there was obviously something going on somewhere.
But I wasn’t in the mood to go and check it out – despite the depressing weather there’s an ice-cream van selling vegan ice-cream down at the Old Port and I reckoned that I deserved a treat.
We’ve seen the clock tower – the war memorial to the Canadian merchant marine victims of World War I – on several occasions, but never from this angle.
I’ve taken a little detour round to the offices of the Montreal Yacht Club to make “certain enquiries”.
One idea that has gone through my mind on several occasions is the idea about hiring a cabin cruiser for a week or two to have a cruise down the St Lawrence, and the Yacht Club seemed like the best place to make enquiries.
But apparently that possibility doesn’t exist on the St Lawrence, which is very depressing.
There are however plenty of “organised” river cruises something similar to this one, but that idea doesn’t appeal to me too much.
And Josée told me about the cruise liner that sails from Montreal to the Iles de la Madeleine, but regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we saw that ship in dry dock downriver a couple of years ago and we had a good look over it.
We were at the Gare Viger yesterday and although the building is still there, it’s difficult to see where the railway lines ran, due to modern construction that seems to have wiped out part of the track bed.
But not far away is this road viaduct that doesn’t seem to be serving much or a purpose these days.
It made me wonder if the railway lines passed underneath here at one time as they curved round to join up with the lines that run through the port.
There were steps up to the roadway so I climbed up. This was the road out of the city to the east and so I followed it.
Underneath in the shadow of the Pont Jacques Cartier is this weird building that looks like some old steam pumping house.
The slogan carved on the walls is “Concordia Salus” which is the official slogan of the City of Montreal, so it was formerly a municipal building of some description.
This on the other hand is a building belonging to the Quebec Provincial Government as you can tell by the Quebec flag that’s flying from the roof.
If you are thinking to yourself that this has something of the air of being the local nick, you are quite right – it’s the “Prison des Patriotes” – the old “Pied au Courant” gaol where the perpetrators of the 1837-1838 rebellion were incarcerated.
It’s now a museum.
but let us turn our attention to the Pont Jacques Cartier for a brief moment, seeing as we are passing underneath it.
That bit that we see here isn’t even half of it. That’s the Ile Sainte Helene over there – not the south bank of the river, and there’s just as much, if not more bridge on the other side of the island leading over to Longueil
While I was wandering around the docks earlier I fell in with a couple of Port security guards, so I asked them about the Manitoba.
They hadn’t even noticed that it had been there moored up for over a year so they couldn’t tell me what was going on with it.
But they did say that it was attended and that there was the occasional maintenance crew aboard, so it wasn’t abandoned or laid up.
Nevertheless, according to my own research, she’s been in port now for 486 days – since April 17 2016/
The next ship in at the docks is the Damia Desgagnes.
She’s a gas tanker of about 15;000 tonnes and has arrived in port from a voyage around the Great Lakes via the Welland Canal.
You’ll remember that we stuck our noses into the Welland Canal on our trip in 2010
Way over there in the distance we have the huge Algoma Guardian.
Not as huge as all that though – a mere 23;000 tonnes and built in 1987.She’s come in from Quebec, having been on a voyage down through the Great Lakes.
And even as I speak she’s back on her way up the lakes again.
Final ship – at least – that I could see, is the Ferbec, a bulk carrier of just over 27;000 tonnes.
Owned by the Canadian Shipping Lines, as you can tell, she arrived in port almost 3 weeks ago on a marathon journey that started on Christmas Eve in Shanghai.
Yes, I’ve been having my money’s worth here in the Port of Montreal, haven’t I?
It’s a long walk back into the centre of town and so, dodging the hordes of beggars that seem to be on every street corner here in ?ontreal; I headed back down the rue Ste Catherine Est.
And no surprises for guessing what I have stumbled upon here. I’ve heard about the installation of speed cameras here in Quebec and this is what one of them looks like.
But judging by the state of the roads around here, I wouldn’t want to be doing any more than 50kph. I’ve seen parts of the Trans-Labrador Highway that are in better condition than this.
I don’t know where the City is spending all of its money, but it’s certainly not on the public highway.
For those of you with a musical bent, you’ll enjoy Montreal right now.
I talked earlier today about the open-air concert and we’ve mentioned the public pianos when we’ve been here in earlier years.
They are still here – at least, this one in the rue Ste Catherine est is – and the guy who was tinkling away at the ivories wasn’t all that bad at all.
Not only that, while I was having a coffee outside the Tim Horton’s; some giutarist came and set himself up to busk in the street.
“I’ll take a photo of him in a minute when I’ve finished my coffee” I mused to myself” but by that time he had packed up and cleared off. It had been a long day and I was pretty exhausted.
But my luck was in – if that’s the correct phrase – higher up the street.
I happened to catch a performance by the worst bagpiper in the world – and I’ve heard some bad pipers, I’ll tell you that.
Everyone has to learn and that everyone has to start somewhere, that’s for sure, and I’m all in favour of live music, but there ARE limits all the same.
I’d be embarrassed to be out on the streets playing like that for money.
While I’d been on my travels I’d been looking out for a likely place to eat, and I’d noticed another falafel place. That was my next stop as by now it was after 19:00.
But to say that I was disappointed was an understatement. The food was reasonable but the price ended up being utterly extortionate so I’ve crossed that place off my list for next time.
A stagger back to the hotel for my suitcase which I had left in the cupboard, and then off round the corner to the bus station.
The bus was in early so I could grab a comfy seat, which is always nice and useful. Internet and electricity too so that I could listen to some good music.
And the irony of having spent a good hour or so crawling underneath the Pont Jacques Cartier is that we actually drove over it on our way out of town.
Didn’t stop at Longueuil though – no-one wants to board there apparently, so next stop is the Sainte-Foy interchange on the outskirts of the city of Quebec.
