Tag Archives: quebec

Sunday 6th September 2015 – I WENT TO … errr … MONTREAL TODAY

But I nearly didn’t, for I was away with the fairies last night again.

Well, not exactly the fairies, but a bunch of young girls, taking them to an audition as dancers in a film. However we arrived on the wrong day – the day when they were to audition the main cast – and one of the young girls said that she would like to try out for n acting role. Much to my (and everyone else’s) surprise, she had the most wonderful singing voice out, and ended up with the starring role.

Yes, who says my bed is uncomfortable and my camp site is noisy? I was out by about 22:00 and didn’t feel a thing. Totally painless.

But yesterday, just messing about, the Lady Who Lives In The Sat-Nav told me that Montreal was just 1:15 away from here on the motorway and so I decided to go. By 07:30 I was on the road and by 09:00 I was at my storage unit, and that includes having a 15-minute chat at the Canadian border with the Immigration Officer. He was a little peevish and sour at first but soon warmed up when he found out that I came from “somewhere near Liverpool” as that is where his father comes from and he knew the area pretty well. And so we had an interesting chat.

The drive to Montreal was uneventful and I’d sorted out my locker and loaded up Strider by 11:45.and after an exciting moment when I was ruthlessly and deliberately cut up by a bad-tempered Quebecois, I headed for home.

That was more interesting than you might think, because roadworks had closed off the interchange between the two motorways that I needed to take and I forgot which motorway I was on – hence having to go around the lengthy diversion twice before I could find my way out.

Having seen the enormous queue to get into the USA this morning, I turned off the Motorway and came around the back way to the tiny (and as yet un-modernised) crossing just up the road from here. But the queue here was enormous too, with just two officers on duty and seemingly having a work-to-rule.

But they asked me all kinds of questions to which (for once) I knew the answer, and the woman fell in love with Strawberry Moose, although she refused to have her photo taken with him.

But there was a depressing incident here. A foreign tourist in a hire-car had to go into the office to pay her $6:00 entry fee and went in through the wrong door. This was right behind the Immigration woman and she turned round startled when she heard the door opened.

“It’s a good job for her that I didn’t go for my gun” she said to me, and so I had quite a few words with her. As I’ve said before, “going for your gun” when you hear a door open is the limit of just how frightened and paranoid the average American is these days. It would be totally pathetic if it wasn’t so sad – Government employees blasting away tourists just because they go in through the wrong door.

It’s a mentality like this, bred into the various law enforcement officers, that has led to the current wave of violence on the streets of the USA as the law enforcement officers gun down anyone and everyone who scares them, no matter what they might be doing.

It’s a time-bomb that everyone is sitting on here, and it’s waiting to explode.

On that note, I came here. It was 15:00 and I started to sort out my stuff. And at least I now have a proper bed to sleep on, even if it is too big for the tent.

-2

Friday 4th September 2015 – WELL, THAT WASN’T …

… a very comfortable night last night. The foam mattress isn’t good enough for what I need and an air bed would have made an enormous difference. But seeing as how I have my camp bed in my storage locker in Montreal, I’m not spending out on one for just a couple of days.

It didn’t help by having noisy neighbours – a couple of guys from Pennsylvania who arrived late, moved around a lot during the night and then drove off early in the morning. And while it didn’t actually rain, the condensation was terrific. Mind you, I must have slept during the night at some point because I was off on my travels again during the night, although I can’t remember now where it was that I had been.

wind turbines green mountains vermontBut it did all have its compensations. At least the view from my tent (or, rather, from just around the corner from my tent) was pretty impressive, with the wind turbines that I had somehow managed to miss yesterday evening when I arrived.

Apparently I’m in the Green Mountains around here and quite a few of the ridges here have wind turbines on them. It’s a symptom of the constant American demand for power, more power, more power.

So having hit the road, my first stop was for some coffee at a service station up the road. And here I fell in with an old guy who was supplementing his meagre retirement pension by driving a lorry for a local farmer.

If you remember a good few years ago now whan I was in Trois Rivieres, I heard what I reckoned to be a two-stroke diesel. This truck was the same type, and made the same noise when it slowed to enter the garage, so that was what made me go over for a chat.

In fact, it’s a four-stroke but it’s the Jake Brake that makes it sound like a two-stroke and furthermore he remembers two-stroke diesels because there was a “Detroit” two-stroke diesel that was made until well into the 1960s, he reckons, and he thought that the sound was familiar too.

green mountains vermont usaHaving resolved the accommodation issue, I’m now officially on holiday and so I went for a short wander (more by accident than design) through some of the Green Mountains.

They really are beautiful – not quite as savage as the Appalachians next door or the Rockies, and this would be a beautiful place to come and explore when I’ve picked up my maps and so on from Montreal, which is planned for Tuesday next week.

On the Motorway, I headed for a rest area. Vermont is well-known for the high quality of its public wi-fi available on motorway rest areas and I was determined to take full advantage. I had a short chat with Liz and an even longer chat with Cecile.

I also had a most extraordinary encounter with a most extraordinary woman. A Quebecoise, she had been living for 9 months illegally in the USA in an old Dodge Caravan, and going back to Canada as her Dodge was about to give up the ghost.

She was one of these “New-Age” spiritualist healer-type of people and she insisted on trying to “heal” me – but I could have told her everything that she was trying to tell me, and a good deal more too, so really she was wasting a good deal of her time. Like most of these “New Age” people, they don’t really understand the significance of what it is that they are doing.

abandoned drive-in cinema st albans vermont uaNow, what do you reckon that this is?

I knew the answer to this straight away, long before I ever saw the faded and derelict sign torn down at the side of the property. It’s an abandoned and derelict drive-in cinema, a symbol of 1950s and 1060s USA. I reckon that more children of that era were conceived at one of these drive-ins that an any other place in the whole of the USA and it’s a shame that they no longer function.

Not that there is anything worth watching at the cinema these days.

But I’d come here, seeing as how I was in the vicinity, to visit another RV dealer. He wouldn’t sell me a slide-in camper back for Strider as he was aware of issues that no-one else knew. And that was that the weight of the camper distorts the body of the truck and causes the doors to fly open when you go over a bump.

I must admit that I’ve not heard of that one before (and neither has anyone else with whom I’ve talked)

goose point campground alburgh vermont usaSo here I am at my campground – the Goose Point campground at Alburgh, Vermont. I’m a stone’s throw from Canada, a mere cock-stride from New York, and I’ll be staying here for four days so that Labour Day can pass me by.

I have a noisy spot, right by the road, but one of the most impressive views that I could wish for – right across Lake Champlain – and all at $84 for the four nights, so beat that if you can. It’s not even the price of a motel room for one night and the camping gear that I bought is now paid for (in spades).

We have free showers, a washing machine at just $1:00 a load (and I’ll be taking full advantage of that in due course just as soon as I’ve found a pile of quarters) and a few other bits and pieces too.

But it’s no surprise that the American people are so … errr … large. Here, we are just 200 yards away from a marina and boat-launching ramp, and the number of people who are travelling from the camp to the marina … on golf carts.

No-one seems to walk anywhere any more in the USA and so the obesity crisis is no surprise. A good walk or two every day would do these people good. How ever this lot became the Master Race totally defeats me.

-2

Thursday 3rd September 2015 – I HAVE FINALLY ABANDONED …

strider tent campsite vermont usa… my quest for a slide-in camper.

This is how I shall be spending a good deal of the remainder of my stay here in Canada – in a tent. The cost of the tent, the mat, the sleeping bag and the fees for the campsite for tonight in the hills of Vermont came in total to less than the cost of a night’s stay in that motel at Auburn the other night. Based on the average of $70 for a reasonable motel and $30 for a campsite, I’ll get my money back in two nights. It’s not quite the camp camp of 2007 and 2008, but it’s good enough.

But it’s only going to be like this for a week or so because I have found a plan C and I’ve put that into effect, based on the plan that what I want will be made and installed on my truck in just 6 days’ time (unexpected delays excepted) and cost me just $1650 installed on the truck and out of the door, taxes included.

This afternoon I found a manufacturer of truck caps in Burlington, Vermont, and they will make me a fibreglass camper back truck cap specially designed for living in, complete with anti-condensation, heat and noise insulation. There’s one window on the passenger side, a sliding window that opens as you like it, and also a sliding window at the front through which you can feed your electrical cables and the like.

What has made me take this step was that I finally found a place with a slide-in camper that would have fitted on Strider. And at $11600 it would have been a good deal. But it wasn’t a pop-up and so the centre of gravity would be all wrong. They could have supplied a pop-up camper if I could wait until Spring, or also a very mini slide-in camper even smaller than a standard slide-in, and that price was unbeatable at $6100

But then comes the rub.

On top of this there’s sales tax. Not quite the 20% VAT but sales tax all the same. And then there’s the fittings and electrics. All in all, we were talking $9500 on the road – $3400 over the list price. And that makes me feel that the deal that I was offered by Harveys RV (a 2004 model for $2750 fastened on the truck and out of the gate) was a pure red herring.

But reviewing weights, fuel consumption and all kinds of things like that, a slide-in camper is not the way to go. With a fibreglass truck cap, I can sleep in that when I’m out in the wilderness, and camp in the tent when I’m near a camp site and the weather permits.

And so there we are.

wells river motel vermont usaOn the subject of motels, this is my room from last night.

The motel is another one which is these days run by Indians (those Indians, not “those” Indians) but it’s clear from the room that its previous owners must have had some very unusual and interesting ideas about their establishment. I did notice somewhere a reference to the “Garden Room” and so I suppose that I must have been in the “Railway Room”.

As for the reference to the “Railway Room”, there’s a good reason for this.

old railway roundhouse site railroad park woodsville new hampshire usaThis area was quite an important railway centre at one time (long long ago), being a junction of two major railway lines, one of which was the famous railway line that connected Montreal to the sea coast in the days before icebreakers could keep the port of Montreal free of ice in winter.

Over there where the kiddies’ park is today was formerly the site of a huge roundhouse with tracks for about 15 or so locomotives and a repair and maintenance depot.

caboose abandoned railway station woodsville new hampshire usaApart from that, we still have a railway station, which is now a gift and novelty shop (and not connected at all to the railway), and also the remains of the platforms and some rails still in situ.

I was half-expecting to find an old steam locomotive on a plinth somewhere but we have to be content with an old disaffected caboose, which everyone knows is a baby Indian. Although that’s not quite true. If a female Indian is a squaw, then a baby Indian is a squawker.

double decker bridge connecticut river wells river vermont woodville new hampshire usaAnother thing for which this place is famous is its double-decker bridge. The railway passed over here and over the Connecticut River at something of a height, whereas the road was on a lower level, having wound its way down the banks a little way.

And so when the railway was built, they built a double-decker bridge with the railway above and the road below. I had a good wander around and came across this bridge, and it is quite a good candidate for my bridge, I reckon, although the road bed is no longer there.

I hot the road and headed further north on my way to my final New Hampshire destination but I didn’t go very far before shuddering to a halt again. I had been following a railway line for a while and coming around a bend in the road just outside East Barnet, I came across this extraordinary sight.

derelict rusting abandoned steam locomotive east barnet vermont usaThere was some kind of circular railway line loop and it was full of old wagons in all kinds of condition, a couple of derelict diesel shunters, but nothing quite as astonishing as the very rusty remains of this steam locomotive.

There are no driving wheels on it so that I can’t say what it is, but it has two four-wheel bogies, one front and one rear and from the distance that I took this photo, I couldn’t tell if they were the original ones.

I would ordinarily have gone to make further enquiries but there were signs all over the place “Keep Out” – “Strictly No Trespassing” and the like and knowing how trigger-happy these paranoid and frightened Americans are these days, the days when you could knock on the door of the average American and engage them in casual conversation are long-gone and the USA is turning into a very unpleasant place.

But abandoning yet another really good rant for the moment, I’ve visited half a dozen more RV dealers, met some friendly and helpful people and yet more unfriendly and unhelpful ones, and some more completely useless salespersons who were completely uninterested in their work.

And hence my decision, which is probably the wrong one and one that I shall come to regret in due course, But I’ve made it and that’s that.

And now that I’ve bought a tent, we’ve had the first rain for about a fortnight.

-2

Tuesday 1st September 2015 – WE ALMOST HAD A WHOLE DAY …

… without any photographs. But I did manage a couple in the end.

sea coast beverley massachusetts usaThis is the coast of Massachusetts at a town called Beverley, and the fact that I am here shows you how far I’ve travelled.

And all to no avail either. I’ve seen one Palomino Bronco 600 in a dealer’s, but it was already sold and had been sold for a week. Mind you, he does sell new stock and he has one coming in next week. But not a Bronco – another make. Brand-new and I’ve seen second-hand Broncos sold for more than a new one of this other make would cost.

Trouble is though that it’s not a folding variety. And that’s not much good to me. The wind resistance is too much on a truck with a narrow track and the weight distribution is all wrong too. A high wind or a bumpy road and that will be on its side in seconds.

I’ve seen something else that might have been of interest and made me question whether or not I had made the right decision in buying Strider. I’ve seen for sale a Chrysler Astro or something like that – a seven-seat luxury minibus rather like the VW microbus, and that was a 4×4 too. Stripping that out to make an even better camper than the Dodge Grand Caravan would have been an afternoon’s work, but at $3200 for a 1994 vehicle, even low mileage, is living in the realms of fantasy.

That was on sale at a dealer’s – the Seacoast RV at Saco in Maine, and I do have to say that if I were ever to see any customer service that was worse than that which I received here, I would be horrified. Totally disinterested in the customer, to the extent that “there’s a customer here in reception to see you but on the way in, will you go and check over this caravan that has just arrived?” And when he did turn up and I asked about slide-in campers, I received a curt “no” and that was the discussion over.

Contrast that treatment with other places where at least the staff has tried to be helpful, and I’ve had coffee and bottles of ice-cold water as well as friendly chats and assistance. But not a slide-in camper for the Ranger.

And so all of this has made me realise thatit’s time to put Plan B into action. Starting tomorrow I’ll be out looking for a truck cap – a high-capacity one, and I’m also going to pick up a tent and sleeping bag. What I had to pay for last night’s motel at Auburn, comfortable though it was, was outrageous and I could have been with my rent and sleeping bag on a campsite for half the price. This is all getting completely out of hand.

royal coach motel hampton new hampshire usaAt least tonight’s motel is much more reasonable, even if I did have to travel about an hour to find it (I declined the offer to stay at the Hampton Inn for reasons that only those born within the sound of Bow Bells will know).

It’s another motel run by a family from the Middle East, who seem to be taking over all of the motels on the east coast as I have said before. Pretty basic, 1970s style yet again, but with kitchenette and diner and the price a very modest $64:00. No complaints from me.

But I am realising (isn’t hindsight wonderful?) that I’ve done this trip backwards. I should have gone to Montreal first, picked up some of my stuff and bought a tent and started from the top of the USA and worked down. That would have been much more sensible, although maybe not as practical.

-1

Wednesday 19th August 2015 – HERE I AM …

prevost orleans express bus montreal riviere du loup quebec canada… at 03:30 at Riviere du Loup, and this is the bus that brought me here – a Prevost.

It took that length of time for the bus to come all the way out here but to be honest I don’t remember all that much about it. I managed to have something of a doze.

But here, I had to change buses as this one that I was on is off down the Gaspe Peninsula. I’m waiting for the Coach Atlantic bus that will be here at about 04:00 ready to leave at 04:30 for Moncton, and that’s going to drop me off at Florenceville.

prevost coach atlantic bus edmundston new brunswick canadaAnd this is the Coach Atlantic bus, an older Prevost, that brought me to Florenceville. We’re at Edmundston when this photo was taken, stopping to pick up and drop off passengers and also parcels because the bus does a parcels delivery.

And that gave all of us the time to have a coffee and to visit the bathroom, which I for one needed after all of that drive.

Strangely enough, we arrived at Florenceville on time, and Rachel and Amber were there to meet me. And I’ll tell you something for nothing, and that is that I will do this bus trip again. It was extremely painless, and much more comfortable than I ever imagined it to be.

I was dropped off at the garage to pick up my new toy, Strider the Ranger, and then took it round for its safety check. It passed okay, but I’ve had a new spare tyre put on it. The one that was there was quite worn and in any case it was the wrong size. I may as well have it done first as last, and it gave me an opportunity to clean and grease all of the spare wheel fittings.

Armed with a valid safety certificate, I went off to the insurance and there I had to lie down in a darkened room while I recovered from the shock. North American motor insurance is horrendous, even worse than Belgium.

I took the certificate back to the garage so that he could have a copy and so that he could register the sale and obtain the number plates. At the moment, Strider only has a temporary registration certificate.

On the way back up here, I noticed that Strider has a chronic misfire on one cylinder so I’ve booked it in on Friday to have a full service – that’s something else that I may as well have done before I go too far.

The three of us (Darren and Hannah are tractor-pulling this weekend) went out for a meal later at Woodstock and a good old chat, to catch up with what we have missed since last October. And then I came back here and crashed out.

Hardly a surprise.

-2

Tuesday 18th August 2015 – LAST DAY IN MONTREAL

Last night’s sleep wasn’t anything like as good as the previous night’s, but that can be explained by the fact that as soon as I came in last night, I drank about a litre of spruce beer.

Being on my travels didn’t help matters either. I’d spent much of the night in the company of a young person who was having gender issues. He or she had half-undergone the hormone therapy necessary to change sex, but then had had a change of mind and not only stopped the treatment but was changing back. This led on from here to me taking a taxi – one of mine as it happens – to go to a white house somewhere. The driver was completely new – I was his first customer – and the journey was interesting to say the least, including undertaking another driver at a road junction and overshooting the destination. The driver said “well that was a bit of a disaster, wasn’t it?” to which I replied “don’t worry. We all have to start somewhere”.

So after breakfast I cracked on with some more work on the computer and this took me right up until 11:00. I had my airport shuttle booked for 11:15 and didn’t want to miss it, so I made sure that it arrived on time by pouring myself a full cup of coffee at 11:14 precisely. Works every time!

It took 5 minutes to get to the airport from where this hotel is, and I spent the time helping out a couple of people who needed to travel into the city. There was a 747 bus already in at the stop and the driver took 10 minutes to sort himself out, during which time a woman with three kids came onto the bus. She told them to sit down “as it’s going to be a long ride”
“And if I know anything about Montreal bus drivers, a wild ride too” I added.

And sure enough, off we shot and arrived at the coach station at the rue de Berri just 35 minutes later, shaken but not stirred.

Ten dollars it cost to leave my bag in the consigne, which is quite expensive, but then imagine what it would have cost in time and so on to go all the way back to the hotel to pick it up and then lug it all the way back here through the city later this evening. This had to be the sensible option – the hotel shuttle to the airport and then the 747 bus directly to the coach terminal.

And I can’t believe this but in a Dollar Store just round the corner from the bus station as I continue my stroll down rue St Catherine Est I find exactly the right adapter for the Swiss electrical plugs. That’s an amazing find, and something else to add to the travel bag

typical flats apartments montreal quebec canadaThis is a beautiful little street isn’t it – a pile of beautiful little houses down there and some typical Quebec maisonettes of the type that you see in all of the urban areas.

Balconies and open staircases – must be beautiful to sit outside on them on a lovely summer’s evening but it must be hell, absolute hell in the middle of a Quebec winter trying to get to your front door.

ouimetoscope cinema rue st catherine est montreal quebec canadaBut why I stopped was to look at the corner of the street at this new building is that it’s the site of the Ouimetoscope.

That was the very first cinema to be opened in Montreal – in January 1906 in fact, and the following year was rebuilt to be come the largest cinema in North America at the time.

piano publique montreal quebec canadaThere’s some kind of scheme going on here in Montreal at the moment – what they call the Piano Publique. They have dumped a load of pianos about in different parts of the city and are encouraging people to sit down and play them.

This guy isn’t too bad at all as it happens. I could sit and listen to him for quite a while, but I just don’t have the time.

complexe bourbon rue st catherine est montreal quebec canadaLook at this gorgeous art-deco building here on the corner of St Catherine and Alexandre Deseve, at 1560 rue St Catherine Est. There’s been a “Club Sandwich” here in the past as well as an Irish bar and the Hotel Bourbon.

It’s the Complexe Bourbon, quite a favourite spot in the city in the past, and at one time was up for sale for $8,500,000, but that was several years ago. It looks as if it will be pulled down before its much older and what a shame because it’s beautiful.

sacre coeur de jesus church rue alexandre deseve montreal quebec canadaThis church was formerly the Sacre Coeur de Jesus down at the end of the rue Alexandre Deseve.

The church doesn’t function as a church any more and the big house at the side, the ancienne Presbytere, is now a centre d’accueil pour les jeunes en difficulte – possibly the Association les Chemins du Soleil which is situated, according to a poster that I saw plastered about the church, at 1155 rue Alexandre Deseve.

parc charles campbell rue alexandre deseve montreal quebec canadaAt the parc Charles Campbell, a lawyer and philanthropist of the 19th Century who left all of his money to create parks for children to amuse themselves in the open air, they are having a Neighbourhood Fair tonight, with entertainment, food and all kinds of stuff going on.

And you might not be able to see him but there’s a guy sitting in that tree just there pulling that banner up at the far end of that rope.

I had lunch at the Subway down here, asked once again if i wanted cheese with my “nothing but crudites”, and ended up by dropping half of it on the floor and making a huge mess everywhere.

olympic stadium rue sherbrooke est montreal quebec canada But after lunch I strolled down to the metro station to tale the train all the way down to Honore Beauregard, the end of the line

That’s the view down rue Sherbrooke est down towards the famous Olympic Stadium and its leaning tower. Anyway, I’ll walk down here for a little while, the old Chemin du Roy, and see what I can find, if anything.

Right by the Langelier metro station is a Motel le marquis. Cheapest room is about $80 – not too bad, I suppose. I’ll have to remember that.

And from here I caught a bus that took me all the way down the Boulevard Langelier towards the Galeries d’Anjou.

value village galeries d'anjou rue jean talon montreal quebec canadaThat’s all of the big buildings near the end of the autoroute at the junction between Highway 40 and Highway 25 there and the Galeries d’Anjou are somewhere to the right of that.

And I’ve found the Value Village! Furthermore, it’s 30% off on Tuesdays for senior citizens! Spend! Spend! Spend! But I could only find one book and one CD that interested me. Rather a waste of a senior citizen’s discount if you ask me.

Canadian Tire have tents at $29:99 and $34:99- that’s the three-seater one which is 7 feet wide so my bed will fit in there quite comfortably whereas the cheaper one is only 6 feet at its widest and that might be a struggle. Then we start to get into the realm of big tents after that. I mean, why would you have a tent to sleep 14 people? I don’t even know 14 people, let alone 14 people with whom I’d like to go away on holiday, but then they do go in for big families in Quebec.

In rue Jean Talon I’ve just seen the rustiest cars that I’ve ever seen, any of mine and the Cortina parked down my field since 1997 included. I didn’t take a photo of it because it isn’t the polite thing to do but it’s so rotten that the windscreen is about to drop out – the whole windscreen surround including the roof corners have just gone. Makes that grey Cortina look good and that’s stood in a field for 18 years.

And it’s suddenly occurred to me what I haven’t seen at all ever since I’ve been in Canada on Saturday, and I haven’t seen a cat.

sports ground rue jean talon montreal quebec canadaThis is the sports ground at the rue Jean Talon and way over there behind the floodlights in the distance and across the motorway behind it is the motel where I stayed the very first night that I was ever in Canada.

But what had caught my eye was the drinking fountain so I had a good wash to cool me down, filled my cap with water and stuck it on my head. All of the cold water ran off down the back of my neck and believe me, it was the best feeling that I had ever had.

I got to see one of the new Transits from close up and I reckon that there are differences to the European ones inside. In fact there seem to be quite a few differences so I wonder what has happened here that the differences haven’t been carried forward, because it is reasonabily impressive.

There’s no model designation on it either, which surprises me – just a ” Ford”, and made in Kansas City judging by a sticker on the windscreen. Body number begins 1FT(or 2)NR1CM

new bank buildings rue jean talon montreal quebec canadaThere’s a little process of gentrification going on in the rue Jean Talon – it’s been a bit down-at-heel in places but in other places there are bits of building going on and it’s all starting to look quite nice

These new bank buildings are on the corner of the Boulevard Viau and rue Jean Talon and are typical of what is going on all around here

I walked on quite a way past Viau, past Pius IX and past a couple of metro stations and by this time I was starting to lose interest. Time was slowly passing on, the only pizza places that I has passed (I really fancied a pizza tonight and I had my cheese all at the ready) were these ethic places full of grease, and I was hot, sticky, exhausted and footsore.

So I hopped onto the metro all the way to Snowdon where I still didn’t find the pizza that I wanted (and I had my vegan cheese all ready too) and eneded up back at the falafel place at the Cote-des-Neiges, for want of anything better.

It was just outside here that I met my first traditional bus driver. There was a bus stop just outside the restaurant and there was a bus just pulling up. I asked him if he was going to the Snowdon metro station down at the bottom of the hill, to which he replied that I was facing the wrong way – the station was just “back there”. And then he drove off.

The station “back there” was in fact the “Cote des Neiges” so I don’t know whether he was having a mental blank or whether he was just being difficult. Anyway, I trudged back up to the Cote des Neiges metro station and went round to the coach station.

Having rescued my suitcase I ended up chatting with two women, one aged 84 and the other aged 91, who were regular bus travellers, even at their age. They were off to visit their third sister somewhere in the USA. This passed the time quite nicely until my bus pulled in, and then I was off.

We went over the Cartier Bridge and then into Longueuil for more passengers, and then we were off. I curled up on my seat and dozed off to sleep.

-2

Monday 17th August 2015 – LAST NIGHT …

… could have been a night just as good as the previous one, and that’s exactly how it was heading. And then it all came to a sudden halt at 01:30, for Bane of Britain here had forgotten to switch off his European alarms.

If I had had a quid for every time that I’ve done that while I’ve been in North America I would be dictating this to half a dozen secretaries draped all over my knee and thereabouts. You would think that I would have learnt by now, wouldn’t you?

To make matters worse, I was away with the fairies somewhere at the time, and by the time I’d composed myself afterwards, it had all gone.

I was still up before the alarm at 06:00 (I’m doing my best to keep to some kind of semblance of time) and after breakfast cracked on with a few things.

And here I am, on the bus heading towards the railway station. First stop is Namur and the Walmart, which comes up with a cap at $5:00, a big bottle of water, and 150 sheets of A4 paper at just $0:10 in the back to school bargain sale and you can’t say fairer than that. A useful thing to have around seeing as how I’ve forgotten my graph paper.

Back on the metro to Berri-UQAM and the long long walk to the coach station to buy my ticket for Florenceville tomorrow. $114 – arrgghh – and that’s with the senior citizens discount too. Heaven alone knows what it might have been at full price. But with 10.5 hours on the bus (changing at Riviere du Loup) it’s not really all that bad, I suppose. But 22:30 I leave, 09:00 on Wednesday I arrive – I am not looking forward to this, but since they ripped up all of the trains there isn’t much of an alternative.

So I had a really good chat to Rachel on the phone, giving her enough advance warning so that she can flee the country, and then a wander through all of the galleries – or, at least, as many as I could find. It’s cooler in there than outside.

That cheap technology shop near the railway station had nothing of interest although I did start to notice in one or two places that Government energy stickers are slowly starting to appear in the shops. A sign of the times, hey?

new ford transit montreal quebec canadaAnd look at this! This is not a new Ford Transit but a replacement for the Ford F-series panel vans. And if you are wondering why many of the very useful white-van-man features of the previous Ford Transit have mysteriously (and surprisingly) disappeared from the new version on sale in Europe, then look no further.

They don’t have white-van-man in North America. His equivalent over here drives a 4×4 pick-up and that’s where you will find the interesting bits and pieces. White vans here are just used for furniture removals and parcel deliveries and a little bit of urban maintenance and so are a completely different breed.

So if any North American has had a hand in designing the new Transit, that will explain why, as far as facilities go, the new Transit is essentially a backward step. I’m convinced that Transits of the model such as Caliburn
 actually had a white-van-man on the design committee and it’s sad that Ford Europe doesn’t have the muscle to have pushed forward their observations to whoever was on this global design panel.

Abandoning another good rant for now I head off down the rue St Catherine where there’s a big new shopping mall type of place on the right as you go down the hill. All clean and bright, with a Subway sandwich place down in the basement. Ahh! Lunch!

fountain food court shopping mall rue st catherine montreal quebec canadaAnd for the first time ever, since I’ve been visiting a Subway, when I asked the Serving Wench for my 12-inch with just crudites (yes, if it’s crudities you want, then I’m your man) she did not ask me if I wanted cheese with it. I made a comment about it, to which the aforementioned replied "well, I’ve been working here for quite a few years now so I’m used to it"

They had a fountain here too so I took a photo of it seeing as how pretty it looked, and as soon as I had started to leave, it erupted, so I came back for another photo.

giant chess board rue st catherine montreal quebec canadaBack outside and down the street they had the giant chessboards out again and so I watched 3 or 4 games in the company of a woman, and we were exchanging comments about the games. One game was ultra-defensive and everyone lost interest after a while, including the two players who abandoned the match.

Another one was however quite exciting. It was a younger girl against an older man and was played in what you might call something of an aggressive spirit, swinging like a pendulum from one way to the next as they traded piece for piece. She made a couple of moves that had mystified me, but then suddenly she caught his king in a trap against her pawns. By this time he just had his king and a knight and she a bishop (or fou as they are called in French, so I discovered) and a king, and they both had four pawns each.

What helped my concentration was that there was an ice-cream parlour right next door, and I can thoroughly recommend the coconut milk sorbet.

Further down the road in St Catherine Est I came across a bookshop selling second-hand books and CDs and so that’s me spent up yet again for another year.

chapel of notre dame de lourdes rue st catherine montreal quebec canadaThe Chapel of Notre dame de Lourdes was erected to the glory of Mary so we are told (but just WHAT is the Glory of Mary?) thanks to the generposity of the local people.

However that generosity does not extend to giving out help to those who ask for it. There’s a big sign outside saying that it is forbidden to solicit alms either outside or inside the Chapel.

Just what kind of Christians are these?

three wheeled batmobile rue st catherine montreal quebec canadaMy reverie was interrupted by the rather bizarre noise of something different coming down the street. Luckily I had my camera to hand to photograph it.

I couldn’t get close enough to this to see what it was, which was a shame, but it looked very much like a three-wheeled batmobile to me. It bore something of a close resemblance to The White Swan that we saw on the Saguenay Ferry in 2011.

3725 rue st denis montreal quebec canadaI had my falafel for tea as well. I walked right up the bank to the rue Sherbrooke and then rue St Denis to where I had had my tea one night in 2014.

Just up the road from here is this magnificent building, the address of which is 3725 rue St Denis, and one day I’ll find out much more about it. It has to be something quite important or have an interesting history.

The metro from Sherbrooke brings me all the way round to the metro DuCollege, and then back on the bus. And I ended up being guide to a couple of French tourists from Picardy on the same bus who were trying to find their hotel.

I had a shower, for by this time I was steaming and then to bed for my last night for a while in Montreal.

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Sunday 16th August 2015 – PLEASANT COMPANY EXPECTED

If you thought that last night’s two drivers were unusually friendly and helpful, then the encounters today have topped all of that off in spades, I’ll tell you that.

I was up at the crack of dawn this morning (lucky dawn!) and after a good shower I set to work. First thing to do was to try to remember my nocturnal ramblings. I was in van somewhere in England (yes, England, not the UK) and I was on a photography expedition going somewhere but every time that I tried to take a photograph my camera fell apart and thos kept on happening with monotonous regularity. There was one place that I particularly remembered – a tiny village in a low valley where the road took a sharp right-hand bend right by the village green where there was a telephone box.

But anyway, enough of that for now.

The breakfast room at the hotel was crowded and we ran out of coffee and jam – and I remembered to make something of a little note about this – but while I was looking for the breakfast attendant I came across a second breakfast room which had apparently been missed by everyone else because it was quite empty.

aeroplanes taking off from pierre trudeau airport dorval montreal quebec canadaWith it being Sunday, the buses didn’t start running until late so it gave me an opportunity to have a good session on the computer and catch up on a few things. I had a good look out of the window too, and I do have to say that the view from here is one of the best that I can hope to have.

It’s not as noisy as you might think with the new generation of jets, and it’s a shame that the big KLM jumbo jet takes off in the dark.

And then it was off to the town.

First stop was to buy some water where the girl at the cash desk gave a big sigh as I was counting out the cash. What a way to start the day, so I gave her a little “piece of advice”, as they say in the Police Farce.

I went onwards to the Tourist Information office for a map (I’d left mine behind) and there I fell in with a woman who was on her was from Vancouver to Newfoundland. She was travelling via the Trans-Canada Highway and so we had a spritied discussion about going via the Trans-Labrador Highway and across from Blanc Sablon.

musi students sunday brunch performance place jacques cartier montreal quebec canadaIn the Place Jacques Cartier just around the corner we were treated to some street musicians.

In fact every Saturday and Sunday during July and August various little groups of musicians entertain the crowds, and these five people are from one of the many music academies around the city. I do have to say that while their selection of music was not my type, I quite enjoyed the atmosphere – which is one of the best reasons to be here.

quai de l'horloge st lawrence river montreal quebec canadaI had a wander off down to the Quai de l’Horloge to sit in the sun, lap up the atmosphere, watch the river and (most importantly) to eat my butties as it was now my kind of lunchtime.

There was plenty going on on the river – lots of marine traffic and the like, but nothing over about 15 tonnes which for me, at any rate, was something of a disappointment. Where’s the 150,000 tonne tanker when you need it?

And, if the truth was known, I had a little doze in the sunshine too. It’s been a long time since I’ve done that, and I find that the water is quite relaxing.

algonova quayside st lawrence river montreal quebec canadaWith nothing here worth photographing, I wandered off down to the Point by the clock tower to see what was in the docks and I was lucky in that the Algonova was there. She had been there for a while too, having come from Corner Brook in Newfoundland.

She might not look it, but she’s quite a modern ship, dating from as recently as 2007, and cost about $43,000,000, which is a lot of money to have sitting idle, tied up at the quayside.

So having mused on that for quite a while, I was all ready to move off when a couple of teenage girls squeezed in next to me. One of them was discreetly trying to look at my map so I let her have it.

We started off a conversation – ohhh yes, I can still chat up the females, even though, at my age, I can’t remember why- and of course, my plans to leave were completely abandoned.

Their parents joined in the chat too. They are from Winnipeg and visiting Montreal for a holiday. The chat quickly led to a much wider field and of course, Labrador came up in the chat. The Labrador Tourist Board ought to be paying me a commission.

Once everyone had cleared off, I went to have a look at my favourite building – the Gare Viger. They’ve knocked down a few more internal walls but that’s about all. Nothing much else is being done.

But here I had another one of those legendary encounters. Some woman van driver needed to do to an address in a street behind me, but it had all been cut off by roadworks and she wondered how she was going to get there. As soon asI openedmy mouth, she said “sorry, I didn’t realise that you weren’t local” – but as it happened, I did know the area where we were and I knew how to get to the address concerned.

And then she drove off with my rucksack and I had to run after her.

water skiing riviere des prairies laval quebec canadaOn the underground, I went to the Cartier metro station at Laval, to see the riviere des Praries. From the Pont Viau there were some lovely views with all kinds of things to see, including a car trying to drive up the cycle path.

There was a lot of maritime activity here too, including some water-skiing. And that I found quite astonishing. If the river has that much of a slope on it, how come Quebec Hydro hasn’t put a dam across it and fitted a few hydro turbos?

montmorency metro montreal laval quebec canadaThe end of the orange line at Montmorency is actually the big University campus at the back of Laval. Leaving the station, I went for a wander around but I didn’t stay too long. There wasn’t anything interesting (from my point of view) to see.

But there was a guy of my age pacing up and down outside.
"You look as if you are waiting for someone" I said
"Yes, my daughter" he replied
"Well, I’d forget about her and take someone else. I’ve seen a few girls that I wouldn’t mind taking home instead of my daughter."

parking spaces montmorency metro station laval montreal quebec canadaParking featured quite a lot on these pages at one time, and here’s a good example of street parking in North America.

Not so much of how the cars are parked but the size of the parking places. Anyone from Europe could park a lorry in spaces as big as this, never mind a compact car. It did remind me of the time that I reversed into a car parking space somewhere in the USA, watched by quite a crowd.

And someone asked me why I’d reversed in, to which I replied “because I can. I’m from Europe”.

There was an incident on the metro and traffic was “perturbed”. But eventually I arrived at Cote-des-Neiges and my plate of falafel, salad and chips. There was a football match on the TV, a Major League Soccer match. And I have to say that I wasn’t impressed. A couple of stars of European football having one last pay-day and a few local players, and it was all about Third or Fourth Division standard

In the Metro supermarket was a note – “due to Quebec Employment legislation, we are only allowed to employ a maximim of four people after 21:00, on Sundays and Public Holidays”. No-one in the supermarket thought that strange. But I can’t imagine any other Government, anywhere else in the western world, putting maximum limits on how many people are allowed to be employed in an enterprise in the middle of an employment crisis.

Another friendly, chatty bus driver on the way back and even though it was only 21.45 I crashed out yet again.

And what a nice day too. I’ve met loads of helpful, friendly people and had a few interesting chats with some very pleasant company.

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Saturday 15th August 2015 – NIGHTMARE AT DORVAL

We had another “sleep of the dead” last night – this change of air must be doing me good. So after a shower I went off to see if my room rate included breakfast, but of course it didn’t. Whatever was I thinking of? Breakfast is another 11:00CHF. It’s a good job that I picked up those bread rolls last night.

view from bedroom window ibis budget hotel glattburg zurich airport switzerland On my way back to my room though, I couldn’t help but admire the view from the window right outside my door. I thought that I could hear aeroplanes close by.

So in a minute, I’m off back to the airport even though there is hours before my flight. I might find a power socket somewhere that I can plug into – there are none here of course.

The tram came pretty quickly (so quickly that I forgot to photograph it) and the journey was quite simple. And while I was travelling to the airport, I came to a conclusion. My really bad experience last night was caused by nothing more than my lack of preparation – and the hotel can take most of the blame for this (just for a change).

Had it been clear in the hotel’s publicity that there was no shuttle to the hotel (but trams 10 and 12, and bus 510 pass in front of the hotel and a 24-hour bus pass can be obtained … etc), that breakfast was 11CHF extra, and that a Swiss adapter was needed for the electricity, then I would have been prepared, and my stay there would have been quite acceptable, instead of the totally chaotic mess.

But to give you one idea of the hotel, the coffee machine in the hotel sold at 3:00CHF. The same machine installed by the same company selling coffee to a captive audience at the airport was selling at 2:50CHF.

Negotiating the maze that is the airport is by no means easy, and we had another pig-ignorant security guard who doesn’t understand the word "please". All these people who were kicked around and bullied at school when they were kids have really been able to wreak their revenge on society with the massive expansion of what is laughingly called "security". The place was totally packed with people too

duty free shop at security check in zurich airport switzerland But on thing will tell you all that you need to know about the mentality of the Swiss – the "security" screening decants you straight into a huge duty-free shop.

And the number of people wandering around the airport carrying "duty-free" carrier bags shows that this shameless selling technique really works. It would probably work even better at the other side of the security check-in too, especially if it were to sell tranquilisers to calm the nerves (and pickaxe handles to deal with the security staff).

swissair airbus 330 300 zurich airport switzerlandI’m here watching them load up my plane. It’s an Airbus A330-300. And what’s more, I’ve even found a plug that will charge up my laptop.

In fact it didn’t take too much finding – rows and rows of empty seats all over the airport but just one row every now and again with hordes of people congregated around it

Boarding the plane was straightforward and, much to my surprise, the plane seemed to be almost new. Luxury wasn’t the word and the flight over to Montreal, although the longest that I’ve been on to date, was very comfortable. My meals were excellent too. The entertainment was not really my choice – I was even offered the chance to see The Great Escape
– however it wasn’t Christmas so I didn’t bother. Instead, I had Shaun the Sheep, The Adventures of Tintin: The Secret Of The Unicorn and Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
.

One downside of the flight, nothing to do with the company of course, is that my neighbour’s idea of personal hygene was even less than my own.

With a window seat, the views outside were superb. With the airport being busy, I’ve never seen a queue like this of aeroplanes lined up in the queue waiting to take off. It was like the M25 at rush hour with all of them here.

The plane in front of us was something quite big and we had a wonderful view from right behind of it taking off. It’s probably the most impressive sight that I’ve ever seen, and there wasn’t much room between the tail of the plane and the ground. You can understand why so many tail strikes are recorded.

Having flown over a great big pile of tundra, we hit the St Lawrence River right at Sept Iles, and I recognised it immediately from the air.

alouette aluminium smelter sept iles quebec canadaThe bay itself was easy to identify, with its seven island and a pile of big ships anchored there, but what gave the place away was the huge Alouette aluminium smelting works and the port facilities that I’d seen in 2012 on my trip up the coast.

I’d wanted to see them from inside, but failing that, a view from the air is good enough.

lafarge quarry highway 132 montreal quebec canadaAnother thing that I have mentioned in the past are the huge LaFarge quarries on the outskirts of the city. They are not very easy to photograph from outside, as I had discovered once when I had driven past them, due to all kinds of fencing, lack of parking and so on.

However, here we were this afternoon, flying right over the top and here I was, sitting by a window seat. This was far too good an opportunity to miss, wasn’t it?

unacceptable passenger delay pierre trudeau airport montreal quebec canada 15 august 2015But don’t get me started on the ariport and Immigration, will you? Every day, during the mid-afternoon, about 20 long-haul jets arrive at Pierre Trudeau Airport, Montreal. If they are all full, that’s about 6,000 passengers (plus however many come in from other destinations).

The Canadian Government’s response is to have just FOUR (and for a short while, just THREE) immigration officers on duty.

My ‘plane was about 8th in, and I had a wait of 2.5 hours. I feel really sorry for the people who came in near the end and who were stacked up on the balcony because the immigration hall was full. Nowhere to sit, no water to drink, not possible to visit the bathroom. I could go on and on … "not with a bayonet through your neck you couldn’t" – ed.

Luckily I had some good music to keep me company, and that always calms me down. But finding, once through Immigration, that all of our suitcases had been taken off the carousels and dumped on the floor (and no-one knew where they were), and discovering that I’d left my cap on the ‘plane too, and I was off again, wasn’t I?.

Luckily the hotel bus was already there so I had to take my leave of my delightful companion with whom I’d been spending a little time just recently since I encountered her in the queue and we drove the half-mile to my hotel down at the end of the runway.

Having checked in, next task was to hit the city, and there’s a bus stop right outside the hotel. The bus 202 took me from here down to the Metro at DuCollege, and the metro took me to Snowdon where I made a stunning discovery – an Indian restaurant. From Calcutta, they are, but it was the nicest Indian meal that I had had outside Stoke on Trent. Beautiful, it was.

Bad news, though, is that my little ice-cream place on the Cote-des Neiges has closed down. A tragedy! So I had to make do with some mandarins from the outdoor office.

halifax nova scotia school buses parked up cote de liesse montreal quebec canadaGetting back from the town is not quite so easy – I have to go miles to find an overpass across the Cote-de-Liesse, but I came across some nefarious, nocturnal dealings here. There’s a whole pile of school buses, all from Nova Scotia and all on temporary licence plates, parked down the road. The drivers are, apparently, staying in my motel.

It seems that they are all time-expired (you can only use school buses for a limited number of years) and are being traded in for new ones, to be driven back to Halifax.

And back here, 22:00 (04:00 in real time), I just crashed out. And that was that.

PS- my phone number seems to be working, much to my surprise. It’s the same three figures as the last 4 years, but then 740-6186. If you don’t have the first three numbers, send me a message.

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Wednesday 8th October 2014 – HAD IT NOT BEEN …

… for the driving rain that started to pelt down at about 05:00 this morning, this would have been another one of the best nights’ sleeps that I have ever had, for I was well gone. Another one of these totally painless nights.

motorway service area highway 40 repentigny berthierville quebec canada september 2014Regular readers of this rubbish will certainly recognise this spec, that’s for sure. This is the motorway service area between Repentigny and Berthierville, the one that’s on an island in between the two carriageways and I’ve slept here on a couple of occasions in the past.

So wide awake at something like 06:30, I sorted out a great pile of paperwork and that took me up to about 08:30. Then I headed for a coffee and an internet connection to upload everything to the web.

Once all of that had been dealt with, I went off to my storage unit and carried on with part II of the tidying in there. Rather cramped it might be, but there’s enough space for three or four more large storage boxes, if I am so inclined, although it is my intention to reduce rather than increase the quantity of stuff in there.

I also spoke to a couple of salesmen. One of them is selling these factory-built wooden houses and the other one is selling tents that pop up on the back of a pick-up, both of which could be extremely useful in the future as far as I am concerned.

From here, it was off to the car wash where I had the very … errr … interesting spectacle of watching two of the workers fight each other. Quite animated they were too, and it gave me something to do while I waited for the Dodge. And for just $30, they made it look as if it had just come out of the showroom. I’ve always been impressed with their service.

However, the tape that I had been using to hold the insulation onto the windows left all of its traces behind. That meant a trip to Home Depot and the purchase of a cheap paint scraper. Just $1:95 and half an hour’s elbow grease and you couldn’t see any of that either.

At the airport, handing the Dodge in was quite painless, as was (just for a change) passing through the border inspection. And it was here that our problems really began. The strong gale-force winds had slowed down the aeroplane on its inward journey and even by take-off time for us, it still hadn’t arrived.

It eventually turned up and we all rushed aboard, but someone was then taken ill and had to be evacuated and their luggage removed from the ‘plane. That looks like my connection at Brussels going up the chute and we’ll see how we sort it all out from here.

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Monday 6th October 2014 – IT’S A GOOD JOB …

ferry st lawrence riviere du loup st simeon quebec canada september 2014… that I wasn’t planning on going over to the Charlevoix. I pulled into Riviere-du-Loup just in time to see the ferry to St Simeon steaming out of the harbour.

Mind you it would have been nice to have been on it, but frankly I hadn’t given the matter any thought at all.

And yes, I’m now back on the road having a leisurely drive back to the airport at Montreal. I can’t believe that my time in North America is drawing to a close already.

I was up early and that gave me an opportunity to say goodbye to everyone here. I’ve been here in Centreville for over a week and that’s not like me at all. Normally, there are places to go, things to do and people to see, but I seem to have gone to ground this year.

I had some recording work to do for Rachel and then went up to the tyre depot to say goodbye to everyone there. And then I hit the road.

The Trans-Canada Highway took me up to the mountains where I stopped for lunch (and a little doze in the sunlight too if I were honest) and then down to the shores of the St Lawrence. At Riviere du Loup, I bought a new storage box to replace the mangy cardboard ones that I’ve had since 2011 and also a $100 telephone recharge. That’ll keep my number active for 12 months by which time I’ll (hopefully) be back. It was extraordinarily difficult to have the phone accept the payment and in the end I had to telephone customer services. That’s not like me, but I suspect that the touch screen in the telephone is on its way out.

I drove along the autoroute following the southern shore of the St Lawrence, but leaving at Riviere-Ouelle for a tofu ice cream (we’ve talked about these before) and then back on the highway. As it grew dark I came to a rest area and this will do me for the night. Rachel had given me the rest of the curry and so that did me nicely for tea, and then I watched a film before having an early night – my last-but-one in North America for the moment.

-1

Friday 26th September 2014 – AND WHAT A WAY TO START THE DAY

st lawrence ferry baie comean matane closed quebec canada september 2014Indeed!

I’ve found out just now that the ferry that I had intended to take was, from Baie Comeau to Matane, no longer running. It seems that they are doing some work at the quayside to accommodate this new super-ferry that they have ordered, and that is that until the spring.

All traffic has been diverted to Godbout down the Gulf and so that’s my next step – to drive all the way down there. Stopping off to take a good look at the Alcoa aluminium plant on the way.

camille marcoux st lawrence ferry godbout quebec canada september 2014I was at Godbout for 10:00 where I was told that the next ferry would be at 14:00. And this is our ship, the Camille Marcoux, coming in about 15 minutes late to take us to Matane.

And it’s a good job that I had the patience to wait in the queue until the Camille Marcoux arrived and not go off a-wandering, because there were only 5 spare spaces for unbooked vehicles and they had to use a shoehorn to fit those in – and I was third. Otherwise I would have had to wait with the 20-odd vehicles left behind for the 18:00 ferry, and then there would be no guarantee that I would cross even then.

The cars were so close together that it was not possible to walk between them in certain places – it was like a labyrinth or a maze. The Dodge was parked hard-up against a wall and I remember that in order to leave the vehicle, I had to open the door as far as I could, which was like 12 inches, reach out and open the sliding door behind, squeeze out into the space where the rear door was, close the front door and squeeze my way past the front of the Dodge, closing the sliding door behind me.

And getting back into the Dodge ended up being something of a performance as well. It wasn’t helped by the plate of chips that I had had in the restaurant. But at least I’m in the Dodge now. And on the ferry too, and that was the important thing.

From here, I drove straight over the mountains to Campbelltown and then to St Leonards. And despite how beautiful everything is here, I didn’t stop to take any photos because I was in a rush. I can do this journey again when I have more time.

evitez frein moteur st florence quebec canada september 2014But it’s not strictly true that I didn’t take any photos. Some photos cry out to be taken, such as this one here at St Florence. Just here on the edge of the town it’s clearly not just Peel’s “View Hulloa” that would awaken the dead.

I stopped at the side of a church in some town in order to make some tea – mixed bean salad with macaroni and tomato sauce. Half-expecting to be moved on but no-one bothered me.

From here I headed off and stopped for a coffee at Tim Hortons in some other town along the road. And here we had an incident that brought a smile to my face. The road over from Campbelltown to St Leonards is the limit of Acadia, and the serving wench, not knowing whether I was an anglophone or a francophone, spoke to me in bot languages.

"Which do you prefer?" I asked her
"It doesn’t matter," she replied. "I’m perfectly bilingual"
"Well, I’m perfectly trilingual" I responded
"Really?" whe asked incredulously.

"Yes indeed" I retorted. "I’m equally at home speaking English, French and b******t".

Once the hilarity had subsided and I had finished my tasks, I set off down the hill to the Trans-Canada Highway at the bottom of the valley and headed off to find a parking place for the night.

-1

Thursday 25th September 2014 – A NATIONAL DISGRACE

I settled down last night in a comfortable little spot in an old abandoned sand quarry on the shore of the lake, but I wasn’t there for long. An hour or so after I had gone to sleep we had a torrential downpour that awoke me, and of course a sodden sand quarry is no place to be in a vehicle like a Dodge.

undercover shopping mall labrador city trans labrador highway canada september 2014I promptly removed myself and set up camp on the car park at the back of the mall – the only covered mall in the whome of Labrador, apparently.

It seems that this car park is however the hang-out for the local youths and so there was some noise going on for a while, but once they all went home to mummy, that was that. I don’t remember a thing, except for the occasional squalls of rain

I was awake before the alarm too, 06:20, having had a really good night’s sleep, and then I went off to find an internet connection.

But it has struck me while I’m here at this shopping mall that places like Tim Horton’s are a huge environmental disaster. There’s a queue of about 50 vehicles at the drive-in (and not just cars and vans – there’s a couple of lorries in this one), engines all idling away pumping who knows what into the atmosphere, and then everyone receives a throwaway fibre cup that ends up in landfill or the local stream or on the side of the road.

Big fan that I am, especially as they now offer free wi-fi to all their customers and I am an eager subscriber (it’s how all of this rubbish gets onto the net when I’m on the road), I always take a reusable thermal mug with me when I go in.

What there needs to be is a couple of severe environmental taxes on issuing a throwaway packaging and for using the drive-in.

labrador city trans labrador highway canada september 2014After the coffee, I went to the grocery shop to buy a few food supplies for the next leg of the journey and wandered off around the city to take a few selected photos. We’ll start the day as we mean to go on and to make up for all of the photos that I took but were lost were lost last time that I was here.

And then after that it was time to hit the road.

world's biggest dump truck fermont quebec trans labrador highway canada september 2014Crossing into the Province of Quebec I paid a visit to Fermont. This is a company town owned by Arcelor Mittal and services the astonishing iron-ore mine at Mont Wright.

The showpiece of Fermont, well, for me at any rate, is the world’s biggest dumper. To give you an idea of the size, my mouth is level with the centre hub of the wheel, and the tyres are 37:00×57 and there aren’t too many any tyres bigger than that.

arcelor mittal iron ore mine mont wright trans labrador highway canada september 2014This is just a small part of the iron ore mine at Mont Wright. Its size renders one speechless, and if it can render me speechless then it really must be something, as any of my friends will tell you.

But as far as I am aware, there is nothing like this mine anywhere else on earth. Its scale is staggering and its proportions are breathtaking. The heap of mine tailings stretches for mile upon mile upon mile.

highway 389 quebec trans labrador highway canada september 2014The Trans-Labrador Highway becomes quite simply Highway 389 once we have passed the border between Quebec and Labrador, and this is what you can expect from the highway. And in places it’s far, far worse than this.

And to prove that a lack of skill and ability in Maths will never ever hold you back in the Quebec Government, we are told on the Quebec Tourist Information Service’s daily road reports that one can travel the 67kms between Mont Wright and Fire Lake in 1 hour at an average speed of 50kph.

Cartier Railway marshalling yard Fire Lake Quebec trans labrador highway canada september 2014Talking of Fire Lake, the old iron mine that was mothballed years ago has been resurrected and now working full-tilt.

So much so that out here at Fire Lake in the wilderness miles from anywhere we have a connection with the Cartier Railway that runs between Mont Wright and Port Cartier and not only that, there’s a marshalling yard here for the freight trains taking away the ore and this was certainly not here in 2010.

abandoned cemetery ghost town gagnon quebec trans labrador highway canada september 2014There is no sadder place anywhere on earth than in an abandoned cemetery, except an abandoned cemetery in a ghost town. And here at Gagnon we have a real ghost town complete with the aforesaid.

Being a mining community, it was abandoned when the ore at Gagnon Mine gave out (sometime in the late 1980s) and many of these graves relate to comparatively young people as you might expect, being a mining community. There are people whose date of birth is later than mine so they would all have family and friends, but I do wonder how many of these still have visitors and whether the Catholic Church sends a priest up here every so often to say mass over the departed souls.

Or are these people abandoned too?

gagnon iron ore mine highway 389 quebec trans labrador highway canada september 2014I made the effort to hunt down the old mine workings and eventually, after much binding in the marsh and scraping the underside of the Dodge (missing the sump by millimetres) I found them.

The mine is just a huge scar in the land that is now filled with water and is nothing but a huge lake now. But I was horrified to find that the mine tailings are piled up everywhere all over the place and absolutely no effort has been made to clean up and restore the land.

gagnon iron ore mine tailings highway 389 quebec trans labrador highway canada september 2014This is a shocking indictment of the Canadian Government’s laissez-faire attitude towards the rape of the countryside and there is an environmental catastrophe up here. But because it’s out of the public view and no-one ever comes up here except intrepid … "and modest" – ed … adventurers such as Yours Truly, it’s quite okay.

I am ashamed to report this, and the Canadian Government should be thoroughly ashamed of itself for having allowed it. The abandonment of the victims of man’s greed and the desolation of the countryside just goes to show to what depths humans will sink. That hole must be hundreds of feet deep.

autumn colours highway 389 quebec trans labrador highway canada september 2014On a brighter note, they were clearing away the edge of the road when I was up here in 2010
 to improve the visibility and to give the local fauna a sporting chance of motorists seeing them before crashing into them, but they seem not to have kept up the work.

It’s all deciduous trees that have thus grown back and the autumn colours here are stunning. It really is the most beautiful place on earth and autumn really is the most beautiful time to see it, especially when the sun is out.

camp queen highway 389 quebec trans labrador highway canada september 2014From here though, it was a thrash (such as one can do around here) down the highway to Baie Comeau and a motel for the night. It’s a week since I’ve had a shower and even I’m starting to notice it. Tomorrow I’ll be crossing the St Lawrence to the southern shore, New Brunswick and civilisation.

And as I go, I’ll leave you with this photo that I took along the route, and let you make up your own caption for it.

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Monday 22nd September 2014 – STRANDED AGAIN

I was out like a light last night, long before it went dark even. I must have been tired last night.

dodge overnight stop brador labrador coast lower north shore canada september 2014
And I was awake long before it was light too. This was an excellent place to choose for the night and I was impressed with this. I shall add this to my list of potential specs.

I was rather hoping that the weather would change today, and indeed it has. It’s changed for the worse. The fog is still here but the rain is now coming down like rain that I have never seen. It started at about 02:00 this morning.

Not only that, we have our howling gale back, and that is that.

This makes me decide that I don’t have much future in Labrador right now. If it’s raining like this here, what’s it doing in the interior up on the plateau? I know that snow has been forecast for today and tomorrow up there and if it’s coming down anything like this, we’ll all know about it.

I decide to make my way to the ferry and see about retracing my steps, but after a very long wait, I’m given more bad news. All ferries are cancelled until this hurricane blows itself out. Out there in the Strait it’s gusting at 120mph. Even the ferries to the mainland at Cape Breton Island have stopped running.

dodge entering labrador coast canada september 2014Braving the dreadful rain I pushed on up the road and across the border into Labrador.

The Labrador Tourist Information Board is a little more hopeful though. Snow is forecast for today and tomorrow in the mountains over to Goose Bay but there will be a dramatic improvement in the weather starting on Wednesday with temperatures reaching 16°C.

Giving the matter some considerable thought, I decide to head north this afternoon. I can travel part of the way up the road and stop for the night. If I have a reasonable start I should catch the road over the mountains on Tuesday afternoon when it’s been cleared but if there’s snow still lying about, I’ll just hole up and wait for the thaw.

I can’t think of another solution, but I do have a great amount of faith in the Labrador Highways Department.

But amongst the improvements along the highway since 2010, more of which anon, travellers on the Trans Labrador can now avail themselves, free of charge, of a satellite telephone to keep in touch with someone in case of emergency. Definitely a sign of the times and of progress. So armed with a satellite telephone, I head north.

First thing that I notice are signs telling me “rough road next 7kms”. Obviously the person who thought of this one has never ever been further north than the gate across the highway at Red Bay. This is nothing compared to what I’m going to encounter further along the road.

harbour l'anse au loups labrador coast canada september 2014This is the harbour at L’Anse Au Loups, a photo of which I didn’t take in 2010 when I was on my mega-voyage around the Trans-Labrador Highway
.

At least there’s one good thing about coming round here taking photos in this kind of weather is that you don’t have to worry about where the sun is. You can stand anywhere and you aren’t bothered about the sun streaming into the lens at all.

I saw some kind of monument at the side of the road in 2010 and I didn’t have time to go to check it as I was rushing for my ferry.

war memorial l'anse au loups labrador coast canada september 2014Today though, I did have time for a look around.

It is in fact a war memorial and the plaque on there says something along the lines of “at the going down of the sun etc etc we will remember them” – the old Kipling line. However it seems that they haven’t been remembered because this is an overgrown, neglected and forgotten war memorial that hasn’t seen an ounce of attention since I don’t know when.

And on my way to see the memorial I was thoroughly drenched and soaked to the skin just walking the 50 yards there and back, even wearing a proper heavy-duty rain jacket. The weather here is grotesque.

modern labrador coastal drive county cat pond labrador coast canada september 2014This was what they must have been building in 2010 when I came here to the County Cat Pond and noticed them carrying out all of these road works.

I’m not quite sure why as there was nothing that appeared to be wrong to me about the picturesque little road around the shores of the Pinware River that I can see about 200 feet below me. It wasn’t a difficult stretch of road by any means and I enjoyed driving it.

I really don’t see the point of this construction at all. It really makes me wonder what on earth is going on because, beautiful and well-maintained though the surface of the road might be, it’s all up and down and watching a lorry struggle up here with an enormous amount of difficulty can’t have impressed the driver.

I arrived at the Whaling Centre at Red Bay just after 17:00. It has two days when it closes at 17:00 and you can guess what one of them is can’t you? And there’s no UNESCO delegation here today to help me out.

And outside here now the wind is howling. This is a wicked wind that I’m in. That forecasted 120mph wind might not have been an underestimation. What I find totally astonishing is that with this howling wind here blowing like dervishes, we still have all of this fog. It hasn’t moved an inch. Normally, the fog is the first to be blown away in the wind

improvements labrador coast mary's harbour canada september 2014The road however is completely different from how I remember it. Parts of the road are much wider and the surface vastly improved. They seem to be digging up the old road that we know and love and replacing it with the one along which I’m driving.

Talking to one of the road workers here while I was waiting at a stop sign, he tells me that they have been widening this road this summer ready to tarmac the surface. That’s good news for the locals and the tourists although it won’t do much for the environment, bringing so many people here

dreaful road conditions labrador coast canada september 2014However, the road isn’t so good in certain places at the moment, is it? It’ll be interesting to see what it will be like this time next year.

Fuel at Lodge Bay is just 152.9 per litre. That’s not unreasonable for round here and while I’m not exactly desperate for fuel, fuel stations are few and far apart on the Trans Labrador Highway and you should never miss out on an opportunity to fill up the tank.

Now, night is falling and I’ll need to find somewhere to park up ready for the morning.

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