Tag Archives: tim hortons

Wednesday 16th August 2017 – WE HAVEN’T FINISHED …

… with our series of calamities yet.

First thing is that the keyboard on the laptop has now seized. I’m not sure how that has happened – it must have been when I closed the lid in a hurry and trapped a pen in between the keys, and this has somehow triggered off the key-lock combination.

Having tried all kinds of combinations that I (and several gallant friends) could remember, it’s still stuck firmly solid.

I discovered this this morning when I went to type of the results of my travels during the night. I was in charge of two young girls – aged about 9 and 5 – and I had to make a sandwich for them. The 9 year-old was straightforward enough but for the younger one it was the tiniest lump of baguette with next-to-nothing on it. It was clear that this wasn’t going to do her much good but I told her to eat it and if it wasn’t enough she could have a bit more. She was quite clear that she needed more than this. Nevertheless, I told her to eat it “and then we’ll see”.

I was awake at 02:30 this morning but no chance of me staying awake, even had I wanted to. I went back to bed and to sleep. 05:00 was much more like it.

I’d put the Canadian mobile phone on charge in something of a forlorn hope last night. USB data cables clearly don’t work so I’d tried the mains charger and it seemed to have done the business.

But here’s the next problem – in that there’s no credit on it apparently even though I had put $100 on it just before leaving. And so that’s never right. Just one more thing sent to try me, I suppose.

And yet another calamity surrounds the hotel. I’ve stayed here before but that was due to having to leave here at about 05:00 long before breakfast would be ready. This time though, there’s no issues about breakfast so I was quite looking forward to it – only to find that the place doesn’t serve breakfast.

The nearest Tim Horton’s is a fair walk away but nevertheless off I trotted for bagels, coffee and orange juice.

While I was there, and having a think – which I occasionally do – WhatsApp came to mind. using the Tim Horton’s wi-fi service, I downloaded it and configured it on my Europe phone.

My European service provider supplies a service for North America at €29 per fortnight and this doesn’t work out to be much more expensive while I’m here than my Canadian phone supplier would be, and the interesting thing is that I can use that in the USA.

All I need now is for Rhys to tell me the final two digits of the phone number that he’s using so that I can check that I have it and add it in.

Off I trotted down the street to reserve my bus for New Brunswick, and much to my surprise and delight, there are evening buses at the times and on the days that I want them. So I’m off on Friday evening at 21:30 to arrive Saturday morning at 09:00. But there’s a wait at Ste-Foy and … err … 2 hours wait at Riviere-du-Loup.

Next stop was the Dollar Store to organise a North American USB transformer for the phone. It takes about a week to fully-charge off the laptop. And it came up trumps with that and some other stuff too.

And outside, we had a strange sight. Loads of nursery-age kids wandering around the streets with guardians and the like. A couple of groups were in multi-pushchairs like the old “knife box” stage buses of the 1870s and I wasn’t quick enough with the camera, but I was for this arrangement that I thought extremely interesting.

At Bell Telephones I found the reason for my difficulties. The contract that I have has been abolished and, not only that, an upgrade to the system has rendered my phone obsolete.

And when I told the people that I wasn’t interested in buying a new phone, they lost interest in me completely. So that’s the end of Bell Telephones, then. I can’t say that I’m sorry.

It did occur to me afterwards that this was the same Bell shop that threw me out a few years ago. Perhaps it’s just an issue with this place and its manager, but I couldn’t care less now.

Not too far away is a computer shop, so I popped in. And popped out again with the cheapest USB keyboard in the place. If this doesn’t work then I’m stuffed (and it clearly does, because that’s how I’m managing to type this).

I’d arranged to see Josée so off I went to her place of work. The street where she works is a strange one – there’s a southern half and a northern half, with a bit missing in the middle.

And so, of course, Brain of Britain walked along a street that passed through the gap in the street so I had gone miles beyond it before I realised. And so I had to retrace my steps.

That had given me an opportunity to see a part of the rue Sherbrooke that I had never seen before. You might all recognise what that it up there, because we’ve stood on that point a few times before.

That’s the belvedere up on Mount Royal where there is that stunning view over the city that we’ve photographed on a few occasions. We’ve not seen it from this angle before though.

And what we have here is the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts. We’ve not seen this building before either.

The First Nation totem pole – yes, I can go along with that, but the purpose of the pile of used vehicle tyres totally defeats me. It’s nothing that I would call Fine Art, but then regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I do have issues with this kind of thing.

Here’s a view that we all might recognise, because we’ve seen this before too. And had I known that Josée worked right here I would have been here in a flash without all of this messing about.

This is the park in the rue du Parc with Mount Royal park on the left and the Parc Jeanne Mance on the right; and Josée’s office backs onto the big skyscraper where I came in 2011 to talk to those guys about wind turbines and the like. It’s an uncomfortably small world these days.

And who was Jeanne Mance when she’s at home – if she ever is? She was the first lay (non-religious) nurse of the infant Montreal community and is the symbol of nursing here in the same way that Florence Nightingale is in the UK.

What with all of my prevarications, Josée had gone to lunch when I arrived and remembering that there was a “Subway” around the corner, I went and grabbed myself a butty too.

After lunch I finally met up with Josée. And being aware of my plight, she had brought in a spare mobile phone that she had lying around. Not only that, she knew a place where they would do a decent contract for a couple of months at a price far less than Bell could offer and with far more functions too.

That was well-worth a coffee so off we went for a drink and a chat and to catch up on everything that had happened since we had last seen each other.

With it being such a nice afternoon we set off to walk down to the river.

I was distracted on the way by this notice carved onto the wall of this building just here. Near this spot was where Marguerite Bourgeoys had her school for girls.

We remember her – she was the woman who came out with one of the very earliest groups of colonists to Montreal to look after the welfare of the women and children of the colony.

When we were at Troyes we went to see her birthplace, if you remember.

We didn’t actually make it as far as the river. It was a beautiful, warm afternoon and the pedaloes on the little lake looked so inviting. And besides, I don’t have enough exercise as everyone keeps on telling me.

And so we took to the water and had a really good pedal around the lake for half an hour.

There’s quite a strong current in there too so heading upstream was quite a fight. And we ended up being quite out of breath by the time that we finished.

And do I remember this from last year? Or is it new?

Whatever it is, it’s a Big Wheel of course and part of the entertainment that’s provided along the old port of Montreal, although right now it’s not doing very much entertaining because there’s no-one about.

I don’t imagine that the view of the city is up to much though, because we are quite low down here and we are surrounded by tall buildings.

Seeing as by now Josée was exhausted and that I’d paid for the pedalo, she summoned up a taxi to take us to our final port of call – the jazz club in Montreal. There was a live act on and she had booked a table for us.

It has to be said that the live act was, well, not up to the standard that I might have expected given the nature of the venue. Even worse was that despite having ordered a vegan meal, they could offer me … errr … nothing.

I ended up with a salad and that was my lot. And with a bottle of water and the cover charge for the entertainment my bill came to $37!00. I shan’t be going there again, that’s for sure.

We put the world to rights on the way back and I ended up having an early night. My first day in Canada and it was a long one too. I was ready for a good sleep.

Friday 7th October 2016 – ABSOLUTE, COMPLETE AND UTTER TOTAL B*****D

And that’s putting it mildly. There has been a major blow-up here tonight and there are going to be some serious repercussions about all of this.

But first, let’s put things in the correct order.

This morning, I was totally dreadful. I wasn’t going anywhere at all. Despite Hannah having returned from University last night I wasn’t up to very much – just leaving my bed to tell Rachel that I was going back to bed again. I was totally incapable of functioning.

I struggled to my feet again round about midday and Amber, who was staying at home told me that I had a few things to do, such as going back to the border and handing back my entry pass to the USA. That was quite important as I’ve had problems about forgetting to do that in the past.

So I set off down there, with my head slowly clearing the farther along the road that I drove. And at the Canadian border post I had a piece of luck in that I could hand it back there without having to cross the line.

On the way back down the road into Centreville I stopped by the river and ate my butty in the sunshine, having a little doze as I ate. But I can’t stay here for ever – I went back to the tyre depot to say goodbye.

Much to my surprise, my permanent insurance certificate has arrived. I put that in Strider and now he’s 100% legal (not that he wasn’t before of course but now I have all of the paperwork to prove it). I was able to fax to the insurance brokers the registration certificate and a copy of my French driving licence so they now have all of the information that they need. All I need now is for this insurance company not to change its rules and regulations and to keep me insured.

Just so that there’s no mistake or misunderstanding, with what I would have had to pay for hiring a vehicle over the last two occasions that I’ve visited Canada (2015 and just now), then if you calculate the cost of buying Strider, taxing, insuring and maintaining him, I am now in front. And if I do come back next year, I shall start to be well ahead. Buying Strider was definitely the right decision, as I knew that it would be.

And not only that, I have had an e-mail from the insurance company to say that anyone with a Canadian driving licence and with their own vehicle insurance can drive Strider too. I printed out a copy of that and stuck it in Strider just so that it’s there for the record.

But by now it was 15:00 and I had gone again. Completely. To such an extent that I fell off the chair on the office. Rachel picked me up, dusted me off, gave me the key to the house and sent me home where I crashed out completely. I should have gone to Darren’s sister’s husband’s birthday party at 18:00 but I was going absolutely nowhere.

I had to haul myself out of bed at 20:45 because this was the time that I had to go to catch my Maritime Bus back to Montreal. It leaves the Irvings petrol station at 21:3O so I wanted to be there by 21:15.

And so we were. And so we waited. And 21:30 came round, but the bus didn’t. And neither was it there at 21:45. The petrol station closes at 22:00 and so I went over to the girl to ask about the bus and … it had arrived at 21:00 and because there was no passenger there, he had cleared straight off without waiting for me.

The b*****d.

So we rang up the Maritime Bus headquarters using both the numbers provided by the girl in the petrol station – and as you might expect, “we are now closed. Please call back during office hours” – which is of course absolutely no use whatever when you are running an overnight bus service with overnight passengers waiting in overnight bus stops in isolated locations.

And so we phoned the Maritime Bus stop at Grand Falls. And he had just left there too, half an hour early. I thus called up the coffee-stop at Edmundston (a mere 140 kms away) and asked them to hold the bus, and we set off to give chase.

Rachel drove like the wind – I shan’t tell you how fast we were going in case the farces of law and order are reading this – but when we arrived at Edmundston he had left. It seemed that he had refused to wait.

The double b*****d.

We stopped for a coffee at Tim Hortons and Rachel had some business to, which must be done before midnight. And then we set off for the next 110 kilometres to Riviere du Loup. Here is the bus interchange where I need to board the Orleans Express that comes down the Gaspé Peninsula to Montreal. I usually have an hour’s wait there and so at least we had plenty of time to do the final leg.

Although the Coach Maritime Bus was at the bus depot, the driver had long-gone to his hotel, so I wasn’t able to tell him what I thought of him. But the ticket agent was quite interested in my story. He wondered why the bus had arrived at 23:50 instead of the more usual 00:15.

The triple b*****d.

Rachel ended up having to drive a total of 520 kilometres and a journey whereby she would be home at about 21:50 took her until 04:30 the following morning, just because some Coach Maritime Bus driver wanted to get to bed half an hour early. By the time that I finish with him and his company he can have as many early nights as he likes because he won’t be driving a bus again.

The quadruple b*****d.

So now I was ensconced in the bus terminal waiting room waiting for my bus back to Montreal. There would be no confusion about this one.

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.

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 16th March 2016 – HOW WE LAUGHED …

… when the nurse said something last night about it going to snow today. And so would you have done, given the glorious day we had yesterday.

But coming back from Montlucon, and passing through Villebret where you start to climb up into the Combrailles, I saw a few suspicious-looking white flakes being blown about in the sky. By the time I climbed up over the Font Nanaud and down the other side towards St Gervais, the sky was clear again but about half an hour after arriving back here, we got the lot. There’s now about 10mm of snow outside and it’s still falling.

Yes, and I have to go back (GRRRRR!) to Montlucon and the hospital tomorrow too. I arrived there nice and early but had to wait for almost three quarters of an hour before I was seen properly by the nurse. She examined where I’d been injected and where I’d been patched, and told me that there is some reaction so I need to return for further tests.

You don’t need me to tell you what I think of that.

But anyway, off up to the day hospital and the blood transfusion. My favourite nurse and my second-favourite student were there and once more there was a decent and convivial crowd in the room. We all had quite a laugh and a good time, which made us all feel better and helped the time pass by.

Lunch was the usual disgusting muck but at least it was something, I suppose. And although I was finished by 14:30 I told them that I wasn’t leaving until I had had my mid-afternoon coffee.

On the way back from Montlucon I got myself lost in the back streets trying to find the short cut to LIDL. I needed some of my vitamin B12 juice and some sparkling water, and I also bought a couple of big packets of crisps and some packets of sweets to nibble on while I’m driving to Leuven. And they sell 1-litre bottles of orange juice in there and they are just the thing to drink in the van while I’m driving but as usual, Bane of Britain forgot to buy any.

I was going to go back home for a couple of hours afterwards too but it was rather cold and that made me think for a moment, and then with the white stuff, I decided that being back in the warmth and off the road was a much better plan.

And here I am and there I’ll be in a moment – in bed. I’m not going for a walk tonight as I’ve walked far enough today (as well as going all around the hospital I had to go off to find the Records Department to pick up a copy of my file to take to Leuven).

And while I’m on the subject of files and records, I did ask the doctor there to prepare his file and records ready for me to pick up. And so I went to see his secretary and it will come as no surprise to you all to learn that he hasn’t done so. I told her “Friday at the latest” (well, actually vendredi au plus tard, but you get the idea).

So I hope that I have a more interesting and exciting sleep than I did last night. I was out like a light in a very deep sleep and the only recollection of what happened was what was on the dictaphone. And we were dealing with football issues yet again.

We were talking about the Controle Technique in football (well, exactly!) and one of the issues in this is that the player concerned has to take a penalty kick. Now it doesn’t matter whether the player scores or misses, or whether it’s saved by the keeper – it’s all down to whether the player is capable of kicking the ball in that situation. One player having his Controle Technique came out onto the field. He was wearing a red football shirt with his name on the back – a really long name that ended with Platini. He was preparing to take the kick but we noticed that underneath his shirt he was wearing a Father Christmas outfit complete with hood trimmed in white and with a white bobble – and his hood is up on his head. He runs in to take the penalty as soon as the whistle is blown, but almost immediately the whistle is blown again to stop the kick being taken, in order to order him to put his hood down so that the controller could see his head and face. And so he does, and then he runs in and takes the kick again. However the keeper is really quick off his line and manages to block the ball with his knees. The ball thus ricochets off his knees up into the air. Now the goal that they are using for this is actually an over-bridge, so it’s clearly the correct dimensions for a goal underneath it. The ball balloons up and over the bridge past the people who are crossing the bridge and then back down the other side and goes quite a way away. The man who has taken the penalty now needs another ball to do something different and so he climbs up the side of the cutting which this bridge crosses, and plucks another ball that was in a bush that was growing on the top of the cutting, so they can continue this Controle Technique.

After all of that, I was down here early yet again, breakfasted and off on the road at 07:30 with the coffee in my Tim Hortons thermal mug. The drive was pretty uneventful with no-one in my way and even though I stopped at the bank to add to the fighting fund, I was at the hospital for 08:20.

I spent most of the day dealing with my Canada 2014 voyage for the month of September. I’ve now arrived back on Nova Scotia (travelling backwards of course) but then I had to start from the other end at Montreal and reach as far as the Sorel – St Ignace ferry across the St Lawrence because there’s a gap in my notes. I know that they are there because I remember transcribing them and I’m sure that I’ve seen them, but they are probably out of order so I’ll need to find them – and the easiest way to find them is to start at the other and and file the stuff from there, and eventually I’ll come across them.

That’s a nice job for me tomorrow then, seeing as how I have to spend all blasted day in that perishing mausoleum.

Tuesday 13th October 2015 – NOW HERE’S A THING

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that the question of fuel consumption for Strider has been causing me some little concern. Darren and I have talked at length about this, and one of the options that came up in the conversation involved fitting a diesel engine in him.

This is not as strange an idea as it might sound, and for three reasons too.
Firstly, the Ford Ranger is made under licence in Japan as the Mazda B3000 and that comes with a factory-fitted option of 3.0-litre diesel engine.
Secondly, in Europe it’s available with the same diesel engine as is in Caliburn
Thirdly, the engine is based on the old Ford V6 Cologne engine that was fitted in the late Taunuses and early Granadas, Sierras and Transits, and I actually have two diesel engines on my farm – a 2.5 NA and a 2.3 Sierra diesel – that would bolt straight in on the bellhousing.
I would lose a great deal of power of course with a diesel engine but why on earth does a Ranger need 207 hp? 163 hp is plenty.

Not only that, if you’ve been following my adventures around North America, you’ll remember that about 5 weeks ago, I met a guy in Bridgewater, Maine, who has a diesel fetish and has fitted diesel engines into almost everything that he owns, including a motor bike.

And so this morning after breakfast and after spending some time at the tyre place saying goodbye to everyone, I went over across into Maine to see him.

As you might expect, he wasn’t there. But his ladyfriend was and we had a good chat for a couple of hours about this and that.

Back in Canada, I went down to Woodstock and by the time we got … "you said that yesterday#34; – ed … I went to pick up another tote box. Leaving everything in Strider and leaving Strider in an open hangar means that we might attract all kinds of things and so I need to have everything in boxes and properly closed. Walmart had some tote boxes like the one that I bought last year, for just $6:00 and they also had, for $6:00, a three-drawer set of plastic drawers. I’ve been looking for one of those for a while, to put the cutlery and stuff like that in. I wasn’t going to pass that up.

I went to Tim Horton’s to catch up with the internet, and then round to the car wash to give Strider a really good going-over and to vacuum him out. I’d also bought a pile of mothballs and some sheets of Bounce. Folklore in New Brunswick is such that if you scatter them about liberally, they keep away mice, skunks and all of that kind of thing. Consequently, Strider is stuffed full of them.

After supper, we took the battery off Strider and put him away in the hangar for the winter. And it was at this moment that the diesel guy from Maine called me up to say that he needed to see the gearbox bell housing before he could do anything. And so that will have to wait until next year, won’t it?

Rachel ran me up to Florenceville and we had a big goodbye when the bus pulled in at the Irving garage to take me off to Montreal. It’s hard to believe that my 8 weeks in Canada is up already. I feel like I have been here for ever and quite frankly, I wish that I had been and that I could.

The bus journey to Montreal is quite painless. The buses are big, clean and roomy and then there aren’t too many people on them. I had two seats to myself and so I could spread out and make myself comfortable as we shot off to Riviere du Loup where we change for the bus that comes up from the Gaspé.

Sunday 11th October 2015 – I THOUGHT THAT I HAD LEFT …

… the rain behind me yesterday but over the night it seems to have caught me up again and this morning we are all being drenched.

I had to be in Centreville at 11:00 and so I wasn’t in too much of a hurry to leave my comfortable motel, but eventually I was back on the road again, having stopped at Tim Horton’s for a coffee.

I was early at Centreville and so I hung around talking to Bob for a while,and then when Zoe was ready we drove off down to Woodstock and Zoe’s salon. By the time we got to Woodstock we were half a million strong, so we were rather crowded in the Ranger, but Zoe and I spent a good two hours or so down there tidying up, throwing out some rubbish and measuring up for some new furniture that she wants.

Back in Centreville and at Bob and Ellen’s, Rachel and Darren returned from their weekend away and Hannah and Amber came back from an afternoon out. A few other people turned up too and we all had a Thanksgiving meal together, even if Thanksgiving isn’t officially until tomorrow.

I’m back at Darren and Rachel’s now. My wanderings are over and I need to clean and tidy up Strider so that he’s ready to be put away for the winter. Darren is very kindly lending me the bottom end of his hangar now that the big caravan has been sold and that’s where Strider will be kept.

Anyway, I’m off for an early night. I need to acclimatise myself for being ready back in Europe.

Saturday 10th October 2015 – MY QUIET WEEKEND CONTINUES

I had a nice relaxing night last night in my motel room doing not very much at all. At least I had a really good sleep and a nice warm shower this morning.

And by the time that I was ready to leave, the rain was on the verge of stopping but we were having a really high wind and that was depressing.

First stop that I made after driving through the Appalachain mountains was at the small town of Matapedia.

Apart from the town itself and its position on the junction off across the river and into New Brunswick, the interesting thing about the town itself is the railway station. The railway line that runs from Halifax to Montreal along the coast passes through here and, much to everyone’s surprise, there’s a passenger service

But as you can see, the passenger service, run by VIARAIL, runs just once per day (and then not on Tuesdays).

And the station looks like it too. The building is almost derelict, the woodwork is rotting away, it’s overgrown with dust and weeds, and the rails are rusted. It’s really in quite a deplorable state but at least it’s here. Any complaints and a demand for an overhaul, and VIARAIL will probably just pull the service.

And it seems that I’m not the only one to be concerned by the lack of attention that VIARAIL is paying to the Atlantic provinces, and that’s good news.

There’s an organisation called Transport Action Atlantic which seems to be involved in revitalising rail transport in New Brunswick and this organisation seems to be doing something here at Matapedia as you can see here.

It’s not that the aims of this group are utopic – far from it – it’s just that the organisations with which it is dealing is so intransigent that any form of negotiated agreement is impossible. But nevertheless, I wish them luck.

I found a road that led down to the head of the Baie des Chaleurs too, so that I could take a photo of it.

There’s a good view of the Sugar Loaf mountain over there to the right, and the huge pulp mill at Atholville in front of it.

I stopped at Campbelltown to use the internet at Tim Horton’s and then to do some shopping at Sobey’s. And then I was off into the mountains to the western side of New Brunswick

And what do you think about this then?

I can’t remember when was the last time that I saw one of these in the UK, never mind North America. It’s a Hillman Minx, badge-engineered as a “Sunbeam” and dates from the late 50s or very early 1960s and it’s as rare as hens teeth.

But I’ve been saying quite a lot that in the space of 20 years Britain went from selling its cars all over the world to not even being able to sell its own cars in its own country. It’s probably the most dramatic collapse of industry in the whole of the history of the world and has contributed to the decline of the UK from a major world power to an insignificant offshore island.

Seeing vehicles like this in isolated corners of the world just goes to underline it.

I ended up in Perth Andover at a little motel. I always spend my last night on the road in a motel so I can clean and tidy everything. This one is nicely-situated just off the highway near a pizza place (so I can use up my vegan cheese) and I can wash all of my pots, pans and crockery in perfect peace.

-2

Wednesday 7th October 2015 – I HAD YET ANOTHER …

… really bad night last night. Only on this occasion there wasn’t any particular reason for it. I was still awake at 02:00 this morning, which is not like me over here, is it? And worse still, I had no idea why that might have been.

I crawled under the shower and then made a coffee but I still didn’t feel much better.

Anyway, to wake myself up, I made myself another mug of coffee and went down to the harbour for a walk around and some fresh air.

And, strangely enough, this would have been quite a good place to have stayed for the night. There was plenty of space here and there were quite a few boats up on stocks. I could have tucked myself in here quite happily in the peace and quiet and been well away.

Still, you live and learn, don’t you?

Having fuelled up Strider, I set off again and after a good drive I pulled up on a rest area to admire the view and drink another coffee.

We’ve all seen this rock before haven’t we? It’s La Roche Percée, the Pierced Rock, and we came by here before. It’s said to be one of the hundreds of places where Jacques Cartier made a landing and erected a cross.

If he really did land at all of the places that are claimed as his landing sites, he would probably be still out there now, but this time it’s probably correct because no-one could invent a description of this particular site without having visited it and there isn’t another place that resembles this in the whole of the St Lawrence estuary.

I was away with the fairies for about an hour up here too in the lovely sunny late-morning, and then I set off again to continue my travels.

We’ve seen the town of Percé before and so I won’t trouble you with another photo of the town itself. The only thing that you need to remember is that half of the buildings are motels and the other half are tourist attractions.

But all of that notwithstanding, we certainly haven’t seen the town and the rock from this angle. And although you can’t see the hole in the rock, this is certainly the most exciting angle to view everything. But itwas quite an effort to take the photo. There’s nowhere to park except at the side of the road and there’s an endless stream of traffic up the hill.

We finally solve the mystery of the railway when we arrive at the town of Gaspé. All of the railway installations have been swept away and there’s a huge tourist information building constructed on the site.

And parked out at the back of it is the train here. We’ve seen dozens of locomotives like this and so I think that it might be one of the GP38 family, but I’ll need to check up on that.

The girl in charge of the tourist information office told me the story of the train, so now I can tell you all.

VIARAIL stopped running the trains to Montreal about 6 years ago and abandoned the line, so she said. It’s now a tourist scenic railway that runs just as far as Percé and back again in the summer months with no connection to the main line at Compbelltown, which should make life interesting if they ever need to replace the loco or send it away for repair.

But that’s not likely to happen as the service didn’t run this year. It seems that important work is needed to be done on the line but the Quebec Government hasn’t done it. “Maybe they’ll do it ready for next year” she said, and I’m not convinced that she believed it either.

The latest update on all of this is that Jean-François Turcotte told me “that was RS-18u 1849; it’s been trucked-out to the active portion of the line and is now used to haul woodchip, cement and windmill parts along with three other RS-18u’s. The carriages for the former l’Amiral tourist train are still in Gaspé, AFAIK.”

And Anthony Bernard Prince said ” A lot of track maintenance work will be carried out on the 3rd section of our railroad between Port-Daniel and Gaspé this year (2021). The majority of the work will be carried out between Chandler and Douglastown. 15,000 ties will be replaced, many crossings will be replaced, and thousands of tons of ballast will be spread.”

The town of Gaspé is a nightmare to negotiate as the whole road system is torn up for repair. I eventually made it to Tim Horton’s but didn’t stay long. Instead, I moved on and I’m now esconced at the site of the old World War II military defences for the bay. It’s a little-known fact that I had the UK fallen to the Germans in World War II, the Royal Navy would have come and set themselves up over here in the Gaspé.

And on the way out of Gaspé on the way to here here I drove past two motels that I hadn’t noticed in 2010. Where were they when I needed them?

-1

Tuesday 6th October 2015 – WHAT A NICE NIGHT!

Flat out last night quite early on, sung to sleep by a huge flock of geese across the river from here. And I remember absolutely nothing at all until the alarm went off. Definitely one of the best night’s sleeps that I’ve had far quite a while.

a trace of condensation n the ceiling, but considering that I cooked a meal inside here last night, that’s no big deal at all

And so I was up and about quite early and I was able to catch up with a huge pile of paperwork that had been building up.

And do you know what I did after that?

I made myself a coffee, found my breakfast biscuits, and then sat sat down for a whole three hours in the beautiful morning sunshine and read a book. And I didn’t move from my seat at all.

Mind you, I did have company. There’s one in every village and the one in Bonaventure was on the quayside looking in the bins for the cans and bottles that have a deposit (that’s a bit thing in Canada). He came over for a chat, which annoyed me because I really just wanted to sit quietly and read.

after a very relaxed morning I set off, and a little further down the road I came into the town of New Carlisle. There was a sign there for the railway station and so I went down there to have a look around.

I didn’t think that I was going to be in luck though and see a train, I reckoned. Last time I was around here, which was back in 2010, there was some kind of VIARAIL passenger service – once a week to and from Montreal and the town of Gaspe if I remember correctly. But having had a good look around here, there’s been nothing moving on this line for quite a while.

That’s despite the fact that in the station building there’s still some kind of daily train service advertised to and from Montreal. But I’m not taking this sign seriously. There was a sign on the side of the building advertising “bureau à louer – working space for rent – contact VIARAIL” and I imagine that they are referring to the station building. That looks rather terminal to me.

All in all, this paints a rather sad picture of life out here on the Gaspé as far as public tranasport is concerned.

While I was in the area I went into the town of Paspebiac and did a load of food shopping because I was running low on food. I also finally discovered a Tim Horton’s and so I was able to upload a pile of stuff up to the internet.

Having stocked up with food I went off to look for a nice place to have a late lunch. And I didn’t travel very far before I encountered this beautiful sandspit down at the harbour in Paspebiac.

There’s camp site right down there at the end of the sandspit – closed for the season of course – and also a port and some marine installations. And so I went down to the port and sat watching the sea for a good while, ate my butties and read a good book. I’ve certainly caught up with my reading on this trip around Eastern Canada this year.

The road further out along the Gaspé really is beautiful and I could have taken a thousand photos along here – except that I had taken them all when I passed by here in 2010.

But this area is quite busy as far as people go and I ended up being overtaken by the dark before I had found a place to sleep for the night. You have no idea just how quickly – or how early – it goes dark around here. Even though we are farther east than almost any point in New Brunswick, we are still on Quebec time which is an hour behind. Consequently by 18:00 the light has already gone.

In the end, I abandoned the search and ended up in Grande Riviere at an overpriced dosshouse that called itself a motel. This would have been a splendid place to stay 20 years ago, but it’s not had a lick of paint or a new carpet on the floor in all that time and it’s definitely tired.

But at least there’s a microwave, a fridge and a coffee machine so once more I can get some money back by not having to pay for a meal out.

-3

Saturday 3rd October 2015 – START AS YOU MEAN TO GO ON.

I decided this morning that I would have a proper breakfast (of sorts) and so I called into the local Tim Hortons for coffee and bagels. And then promptly dropped the whole lot on the floor, followed by the laptop.

Still, at least it amused the patrons of the establishment.

I was up early after my rather late night last night and did a pile of paperwork in something of a vain attempt to catch up and then hit the road for Rimouski and breakfast. At least they gave me some more bagels and coffee. And someone with whom I was chatting confirmed that the serving wench there asked me 7 times if I really didn’t want butter on them.

I’d never had a proper look at Rimouski before and so I had a little drive around. It’s a typical seaside town with beaches, plenty of motels and amusements – just the place to come for a fortnight if only the river were warmer, because the St Lawrence is a really cold river.

But I was here at Rimouski for other reasons. As Austin Powers once famously said to Basil Exposition, “what’s long, hard and full of seamen?”.

There’s a small maritime museum here at Rimouski and the pride of place goes to the old Canadian submarine Onondaga. I’ve always said that you would never ever get me into a submarine, and at the price that they wanted for a visit, nothing was ever likely to change.

There’s quite a little complex of buildings here and the old port facilities when this area was a major port for all of the coast-hopper ferries that started from here.

Much of this traffic has been replaced by road now and what is left departs from the quayside in the town and so this area is redundant. But there are quite a few maritime souvenirs left to visit and it’s a nice place to walk around and to eat your butties

But it was the new pavilion that I had come here to see – or, rather, it was the contents of the new pavilion.

On the evening of 28th May 1914 the Canadian Pacific transatlantic liner Empress of Ireland set out from Quebec on her way to Liverpool. She stopped off at Rimouski to drop off her river pilot and then set off full ahead for Liverpool.

Just a couple of kilometres out of Rimouski she sighted the collier Storstad and then each ship became enveloped in a fog bank.

What happened after that has never been adequately explained, but it’s suspected that some of the portholes were open and the collision rolled the ship so that the water poured in.

The net result was that the liner took the Storstad full-on in the beam and sank within 14 minutes, taking 1012 passengers with her. And they all lie right underneath where that white buoy lies.

It’s the greatest marine tragedy every to hit Canada and one of the largest losses of life of any marine accident in peacetime. Remember that the Titanic lost 1507 passengers, but she was 4 times as big, and this disaster took place right within sight of shore.

Quite a lot of the ship has been salvaged since her wreck was rediscovered in the early 1960s. Some of it is displayed in the museum (and this was what I came to see). Very much more of it is held in private hands, which is a shame.

But what is even more disgraceful in my opinion, even though I know for a fact that many others, including the museum staff, disagree with me, is that much of it, including one of the massive brass propeller screws, has been sold for scrap. $5,300 the salvors were paid for the propeller and that just goes to show that some people have absolutely no sense of history.

In fact the looting of the wreck became so blatant (there was talk that one team was planning to use dynamite on the hull to make an easier entry into the bowels of the ship) that the authorities “nationalised” the wreck and placed it out of bounds to salvors, although private divers can visit it.

And hence the buoy – to moor your ship and to display the “statutory notice” about looting.

The disaster took place just off the headland of St Luce and there’s a modern Celtic cross on the headland there that clearly relates to the disaster.

In the cemetery however is a concrete and stone cross dated 1920 looking out over the headland to the sea. There’s no plaque to say to what it relates but the date and its position would seem to be significant as being an early memorial to the disaster.

It’s hard to understand how it was that the notion of the earth being flat persisted as long as it did amongst the powerful classes.

While I was sweeping the horizon looking to see what I could see, I noticed a few peculiar shapes and so I photographed them with the telephoto lens at its fullest extent and enlarged the image to see what I could see.

It turns out that it’s the superstructure of a ship, way across the other side of the St Lawrence. The ship is at such a long distance away that the hull has been lost due to the curvature of the earth.

As for the town of St Luce, it’s another seaside resort but much smaller than Rimouski. It’s quite a quaint little place, another small town where I would be quite happy to pass a week or two relaxing in the peace and quiet.

But the shore of the St Lawrence is really beautiful around here with all of the beaches. It’s a shame though that it’s on the south shore and so it doesn’t catch the sun as much as the north shore. And the north shore is a good 5° colder so it’s not as pleasant for sunbathing.

I’ve had a couple of really exciting and involved chats with a couple of people today and we’ve really put the world to rights.

However, it’s made the time pass really quickly and as a result the sun is disappearing rapidly. We’re having a glorious sunset but none of this is helping me find a place to stay.

And while I’m dithering, the temperature has dropped rapidly too and it’s freezing. But I’ve found a type of chalet motel place with cooking facilities and while it’s a little more than I would be happy paying, it’s got absolutely everything and I can cook myself a really hot meal. And so I’m saving there too.

And talking to the proprietor’s wife, she’s a vegan too and gives me a huge bowl of home-made vegan vegetable soup. And that’s the most delicious thing that I’ve eaten for ages.

-2

Thursday 1st October 2010 – I’VE HAD A DAY TODAY …

… where I don’t seem to have accomplished very much at all – at least, as far as distance goes.

But there’s a reason for that – namely that after my week or so out there in the wilderness I’ve had a lot of sorting out to do. And we started off by having yet another red-hot shower. And how much I enjoyed that too!

But working my way through all of the paperwork I was disturbed at 09:40 and again at 09:50 by the cleaners who wanted to attend to the room, even though check-out time was 10:30.

After the second time I gave up and decamped to Tim Horton’s, stopping along the way for a very lengthy chat with a young guy in charge of sales in a caravan place. They are agents for Palomino slide-in truck campers (called caravan autoporté in French) and as that company makes exactly the camper that I want (the collapsible 600 model) it’s always useful to chat to the agents. Who knows what second-hand model might come their way.

Working at Tim Horton’s seemed to take ages and it was, would you believe, 14:00 when I hit the road again. First stop was to the supermarket to stock up on food seeing that I have none left – at least, of bread and salad stuff. Fuel was next and I had a long chat with the woman whom I know who runs the little Ultramar service station opposite the supermarket. I’ve called there every time that I’ve gone past there because I’m sure that she remembers me and we have had some interesting chats.

Third port of call was at Pointe Lebel where I stopped to eat my butty. I’m not buying hummus now, no matter how much I like it. I have a load of vegan cheese that needs to be eaten as it’s been hanging around since last year and it won’t last another year.

From there I went off to look for Outardes One.

There are several big rivers that run down to the St Lawrence, and they are all dammed for the generation of hydro-electric power. We’ve done the Manicouagan and seen some of the dams there, and we’ve seen some on the Outardes too, but Outardes One, the very first one that is close to the shore of the St Lawrence has long been abandoned and is very difficult to find. I’m determined that this year I’ll track it down.

I passed by quite a few places that I’d seen before and before long I ended up at the Pointe aux Outardes.

There are a few houses down here today but formerly this was the site of a reasonably important settlement. The church has long gone but there’s still the old cemetery here and a parking place for the little country park down at the end where there’s an incredible view across the St Lawrence to the town of Matane

the river isn’t particularly wide here, it’s not very deep and it’s a long way down from its mouth. And so it’s very hard to imagine that during World War II two German submarines, believed to be-69 and U-132 – were operating in the river around here and not only sank a couple of ships, made a successful getaway too.

There’s a couple of ferries across to Matane too. One, from Godbout, we’ve sailed on a couple of times but the other, from Baie Comeau itself, i’ve not yet taken but I’m saving that delight for another time. I’m planning to head west upriver.

But it’s a beautiful evening and as the sun sets down in the west, I’ve decided that I’m going to stay here the night. There’s just the odd car pulling in to turn round and I don’t think that that will disturb me too much, and with the little breeze that is rocking Strider I should be quite comfortable tonight.

And it ends up being a late night too. Well after 23:00 in fact. I seem to have been carried away with one or two things that I was doing on the laptop and I didn’t intend to end up this late before retiring. I hope that I have a good night’s sleep to make up for it. And then tomorrow I’ll be ready to continue the hunt for Outardes One.

-2

Tuesday 29th September 2015 – THAT WAS A NICE …

… night too. despite the rainstorm that we had, and despite having to leave my stinking pit twice due to reasons that any man of my age will know, and despite me having a neighbour arrive at some point, I was really comfortable in my little bed. So much so that I was awake and out of the bed long before the alarm went off.

And it was warm (well, comparatively warm), to such an extent that I stood outside Strider, lowered down the tailgate and made myself a coffee in the open air. And it was here that I engaged my neighbour in conversation.

He and his wife were from Newfoundland and had a 1999 Chevy pick-up with a camper back. They’d come round from Baie Comeau and were telling me about the road. We discussed fuel consumption too, and he dismayed me by saying that he could do from Goose Bay to Blanc Sablon on just one tank of fuel. Mind you, it cheered me up to a certain degree when he said that he had a 135-litre tank. That compares to Strider’s 70 litres or something. And how I wish I had that size of fuel tank. But of course I will settle for an improved fuel consumption.

He knows the area here quite well and he drew my attention to the structure under which Strider was parked.

According to him, these are the remains of a cable car. Before the highway – and the bridge – were built, they still needed to pass stuff over the river to whatever settlement was over on the other side and to start the construction of the plant and cabins that formed the basis of the town of Churchill Falls.

if what he says is true, then it can’t be true about the cable car at North West River being the only one in Labrador. But we shall see what they mean by all of this.

Another thing that he knew was the footpath that led to the best view possible of the falls, although it’s not possible to see the falls in all their glory – the best views are just inaccessible.

It’s quite a hike, although not a difficult one, but it’s well-worth the effort. I was pleased to reach the end pf the path because there’s a splendid view of the gorge itself from there. I’ve never seen a view quite like this – the Grand Canyon excepted, of course Apparently, I’m 240 feet up just here, according to the Neighbour from Newfoundland.

He was right about the view of the falls not being spectacular. The falls themselves are spectacular, of course, but you just can’t reach the immediate vicinity of them, or found a spec directly opposite to take a good photo.

In any case, the falls themselves aren’t anything like as spectacular as they used to be. They really were impressive back years ago but the river was diverted to provided the drop for the hydro-electric power plant and so only a small fraction of the water falls over the waterfalls today.

My neighbour also told me of a crashed vehicle that was lying on its roof further on down the road.

And so I kept my eyes peeled, and I found this one here. It’s not on its roof of course but it hasn’t half been knocked about. This gives you yet another clue about the state of the road around here. As for the yellow tape that’s around it, that’s Police marking tape. It shows that the Police have inspected the vehicle, and that it’s sealed off to warn people not to enter.

But it’s not by any means the state of the road that’s responsible for may of the accidents – it’s the state of the drivers.

The speed limit along the Trans-Labrador Highway is 80 kph and I have the speed limiter on Strider set at just 80 kph. But everything on the Highway is going past me like I’m standing still, including these two lorries. And these aren’t just simple artics either, these are two of those road-trains pulling two trailers and these road trains are notoriously unstable at the best of times on the best of roads.

And talking of unusual loads on the road (although road trains aren’t by any means unusual) how about this one? We started off with a police car in front flagging down the traffic and telling us to move right off the edge of the road. And then this came along.

This is some kind of huge electrical unit, and it has two lorries in charge of it. There’s one pulling it, and the one behind it is pushing it along. The purpose of the pick-up in front is to clear the road because with the configuration that this unit has, it can’t even take a bend like this and keep on its own side of the road. It took up most of the road.

I’ve been noticing, as I’m sure that I have already told you, that there’s some kind of urbanisation taking place along the Trans-Labrador Highway. This is the lake that we’ve all seen before, about 40 kms out of Labrador City, when we came by here on previous occasions.

There was a cottage there previously, but now we seem to have a couple of other cottage down by the lakeshore. And this is the kind of place where I would like to live, with this really gorgeous backdrop and a really beaautiful view of the lake in front.

Last year when we were in Wabush, we heard all kinds of sories about the iron ore mine closing down and how people were going to desert the town in droves.

I made a diversion into the town to see what was going on in here, and as you can see, the buildings of the iron ore mine are still there standing. And furthermore, I didn’t see anything that suggested to me that people were deserting in droves. There were no more houses up for sale or to let than you would expect to see anywhere else.

But of course, that’s not to say that things won’t be different in another year’s time.

I stopped off at Tim Horton’s for the internet and a coffee, and then I went on to Fermont, in Quebec, for fuel as it’s the last station before the Northern Quebec wilderness.

I also went to look in the “boomerang”. We saw a photo of it last year – it’s the big, high, long building that has a huge shopping gallery on the ground floor and a pile of apartments up above. I’ve never been in there before (except to sound out the hotel in 2010) and so I was curious to see what it was like.

It’s certainly a labyrinth on the ground floor, but what surprised me was that a good proportion – probably 30% or 40% – of the shops were closed down and empty. At least the Co-op food store was open, which is more than can be said for the one in Labrador City which seems to have closed down since last year.

The road out of Fermont into the Wilderness goes past Mont Wright and the Arcelor Mittal iron mine, what is said to be the largest iron ore mine in the world, and it’s the reason for the town of Fermont being built – to house the workers. Mont Wright was once a mountain, but so much iron ore has been extracted that it’s fast becoming a hole in the ground.

The mine tailings stretch for miles, and from here up on a ridge at the back you can see some of the workings. And I do mean “some” because they also stretch for miles. It’s really impressive from that point of view, but we saw last year what has happened at Gagnon, another huge iron ore mine. When that was exhausted, it was simply abandoned and is now an environmental disaster.

And now, from the beautiful morning that we had today, we have now descended into a dreadful and miserably wet evening up here.

We’re having wind, fog and squalls of rain and although you can’t see it, we are back on the dirt road. And a miserable wet and muddy dirt road it is too, with very little sign (if anything) of any improvement to match the major work that has taken place on the Labrador side of the border.

I’ve found a place to park for tonight. It’s in a lay-by and I’ve dug myself in in behind one of the emergency telephones, with a lorry to keep me company through the night – although he didn’t stay for long.

And the weather seems at last to be improving. There’s a beautiful red sky right now, and so that might promise well for the morning (at least I hope so) but it’s cold, so I’m going to snuggle myself down in my sleeping bag and keep warm like that.

-3

Sunday 27th September 2015 – I’M LOOKING FORWARD TO THIS.

Tonight, I’ll be sleeping in a real bed, in a real room, with full central heating too.

And what’s more, I’ve just stood for half an hour under a nice hot shower and I’ve changed my clothes and had a shave too. I even look human now, and you know how difficult that can be.

So how did all of this arise? The answer is that it’s a very long story.

This morning, I awoke to a torrential downpour of rain and the black sacks with the insulation in were sopping wet (although the insulation itself was dry).

And we had a small amount of condensation inside the truck cap, but considering how wet it was outside and the fact that I’d been cooking inside last night, I’m not surprised by this. The small amount of condensation was quite acceptable.

I hadn’t gone 5 kilometres when the metalled road ended. And while I was on the dirt road, the heavens opened and we were drenched in snow. It had been warmer in my little bolt-hole, but it wasn’t like that just here. This looked quite ominous for the rest of the journey. I wasn’t very optimistic.

Anyway, the dirt road only lasted for 15 kms or so and then we were back on the metalled road again. And I do have to say that in the dirt bit, there were men and machines, including an asphalt layer, all lined up. It looked as if today’s task (had the weather been better) would be to finish the gap.

And hats off to Strider too. I’ve been moaning about his excessive fuel consumption too (and to be fair, it is excessive) and I’d loaded up with 40 litres of extra fuel just in case I needed it. But we pulled in to the Ultramar petrol station in Happy Valley with the gauge just going into the final quarter. Not even the orange warning light, never mind having to refuel.

But I do have to say that the benefits of the new road are readily apparent. Whereas in 2010 when I was here, the difference between a litre of fuel here and a litre of fuel in a more-populated area was $0:34. Today, the difference is just $0:06. That says a lot.

After a coffee and an internet session at Tim Horton’s, I went for a good wander around.

First stop was to see what was happening with my old car – the one that I saw last year. It’s still here, looking definitely the worse for wear and it doesn’t look as if it is going to last for too long if no-one gives it any attention.

It really is sad

I went as far eastward as it was possible to go by road, and then went off for a wander into the bush to see what I could see in there.

This is the bay of Goose Bay, at the head of the Hamilton Inlet, and there’s a lovely sand bar just here in the bay. The beaches really are nice in Labrador. And in the background are the mountains over which I’ve driven this last couple of days.

This wasn’t all that there was to see either. There’s also a tent here in the woods.

There’s a really big Innu community around here and there are casual encampments all over the place. Although the First Nation people have adopted more modern building materials (I saw a hut made of OSB draped with a tarpaulin) the traditional itinerant lifestyle is quite important – and quite right too.

There was nothing doing at the quayside at Goose Bay and so I went on to North West River for a good look around. North West River is the farthest north town in Labrador that is possible to reach by road.

I was here late one evening last year and so this time I intended to have a better look around, even though the weather was dreadful.

And this is where our story begins.

I found a museum – the Labrador Interpretation Centre – and much to my surprise, it was open. That doesn’t happen very often.

I spent hours there chatting to the very friendly woman in charge, and we talked quite a lot about the interaction between the First Nation people and the Europeans.

“It’s a shame that the other museum in the town has closed for the season” she said. That has everything that you would like to see, including all of the papers from Mina and Leonidas Hubbard” … "he set out from here to explore the interior of Labrador 100 years ago and died of starvation – his wife set out 2 years later and completed his work" – ed …
“I’d love to see that” I said. “What a tragedy that it’s closed”.
And so after another long chat, I wandered off to look at the museum, and she came hurrying after me “I’ve spoken to the curator on the phone. If you can be there at 09:00 he’ll let you in for a private showing”.
Well, badger me!
“I don’t suppose that you know anywhere where I can stay for the night?” I said rather optimistically. My last night around here had cost me a King’s ransom, and that was 5 years ago.
She wandered off and came back again 5 minutes later.
“The B&B is full unfortunately, you won’t want to pay $115 at the motel here, but there’s a room free, with communal facilities including washing machine, in the old Grenfell Building. That’s $45 a night”.
Do bears have picnics in the wood?

She said that the best views around here were from the top of Sunday Hill, and so Strider and I went off-roading up the mountain.

It was worth the effort because the view from here was stunning as you can see. And it would have been even better had the weather been kinder to me. It was a really excellent place to eat my butties.

And hats off once more to Strider because he made short work of our little excursion up the mountain, even in just 2-wheel drive. If only I could seriously improve his fuel consumption!

So here I am. In Wood Cottage, or Woods Cottage as I’ve seen it sometimes described. Built in the 1920s, it was first the boarding house for schoolkids at the High School who had come from the outlying settlements, and was later an Old People’s Home. I’m warm and comfortable, I’ve had a hot shower, a nice mug of coffee and all of my washing is now in the tumble drier. I’m going to make some food in a minute and then I’ll be off to a nice comfortable bed.

You just watch the house burn down!

-1

Thursday 24th September 2015 – I MUST BE GETTING OLD

It used to be the case that I could sleep anywhere at any time. At one time I was even found asleep leaning up against a wall in a garage. But just recently, as you know, I’ve been having some sleeping issues, but none such as I had last night on the ship out to Newfoundland.

With some of the nicest reclining seats that I’ve ever sat on, I just couldn’t drop off to sleep. And when I did, I was awake 10 minutes later with aches and pains everywhere. And this went on throughout the night until we docked at Channel Port Aux Basques.

We had a very long wait there too before we could unload. I did mention that we were parked right in the bowels of the ship, and so we had to wait until everyone else was out and gone before we could be liberated.

I went for a coffee and some biscuits at Tim Horton’s so that I could use their internet without any pangs of conscience, and then went over the road to Canadian Tire for a big roll of waterproof duck tape, the reason for which I shall mention in a moment.

You’ve seen plenty of photos of the ship and of the town – Channel Port aux Basques – in the past, but I bet that you have never seen it from this angle before.

I’m a mile or two outside the town here at the Newfoundland and Labrador Tourist Information Office where I stopped to search Strider for the charger for the mobile phone, and there’s a good view of the town across the bay from here. I couldn’t resist taking a photo to add to the archives.

. In the past, whenever I’ve driven out of – or into – Channel Port Aux Basques, I’ve always followed the coast. But today, I’ve driven due north along the Trans Canada Highway and seen parts of the island that I haven’t seen before.

The eastern part of the island has all of the accessible coastline, but the western part has the mountains and the lakes and here, only a handful of miles outside the town, we start entering some really beautiful country. This photo is just typical of the scenery on the southwestern side of the island.

Newfoundland once had a very important railway network – one of the longest narrow-gauge systems in the world. But it struggled along, suffering from chronic under-investment and lack of modernisation despite having one of the most beautiful routes of any railway network ever.

However, as I’ve told you before, it was yet another victim of the ruthless decimation of Canada’s railway network and while very little of the equipment remains, the railway line itself is almost complete and you will see loads of bridges such as this one on your travels.

It’s not long before we start to climb into the mountains of Newfoundland, and the Trans-Canada Highway makes some stunning ascents and descents as we continue northwards.

Here’s one of the most exciting climbs as you can see, a few miles south of the turning for Stephenville. The flattest route is indeed via Stephenville but that puts dozens of miles onto the route and so we take the short cut.

At Deer Lake I stop for fuel again. I fuelled up at Channel Port aux Basques but that’s not enough to reach the Labrador ferry at St Barbe (the short range of Strider is depressing me) and so the Big Irvings at Deer Lake comes up with more fuel and also enables me to fill up one of my big containers. There’s 20 litres in that and once I’m across in Labrador I’ll put 20 litres into the other container. I hope that that will be enough to enable me to do this 418 kms between Port Hope Simpson and Goose Bay.

Deer Lake is the entrance to the Gros Morne National Park and if you think that the road has been beautiful to here, then you ain’t seen nuffink yet. Gros Morne really is spectacular.

This is one of the lakes here, nestling into the foot of what looks like a glaciated valley, and once more, this is just one of a thousand photos that I could have taken of the area. I’ve been here a few times now and I never tire of it. One day I’ll come here and stay for a week, and maybe I will, seeing as I now have transport of my own.

As I was walking by St Pauls, I was seized by this beautiful view. I had to turn off the highway to see it and found myself on a little dockside.

There’s a big inlet here and the harbour is on the inside of the inlet, sheltered from the wind by the embankment for the beautiful metal girder bridge that spans the inlet. This is a typical Newfoundand photograph, isn’t it? The water, the fishing boats, the little harbour and the mountains away in the background.

18:00 is my usual time to start to look for a suitable place to stay (unless something astonishing presents itself beforehand) and tonight, at about 18:30, I’ve found an abandoned cut-off that leads down to a dismantled bridge. The house here seems to be abandoned so the hedges are all overgrown and as it’s a downhill slope to the bridge I’m pretty sheltered. Of the six sheets of insulation, I’ve put two each into a huge bin liner, fitted another bin liner over the open end and sealed them up with the duck tape.

The three packets that I’ve made, I’ve put them on the roof weighted down with the wood.

We’ll see what that is like through the night as far as the condensation issue goes, but the roof does feel much warmer than the sides of the truck cap already.

-3

EPIC HALL

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