Tag Archives: halifax

Friday 31st August 2018 – THIS EVENING JOSEE ASKED ME …

… what I had done during the course of the day and, do you know what? I was hard-pressed to remember.

I’m definitely cracking up, aren’t I?

One thing that I do remember was being awoken by the fridge and the air-conditioning, which seem to be programmed to come on together at about 04:30 or something like that.

However I was quickly back to sleep again until the alarm went off at 05:20.

For some reason or other the morning went really quickly. I had just the usual amount of work to do but there just wasn’t enough time to do it, even with only a short pause for breakfast, and in the end I ran out of time to do it.

Instead, I went off down to the Jean Coutu chemists in rue St Catherine Est. And this is another place where the staff are so unhelpful.

It’s a huge chemist’s with all kinds of stuff on sale – just the kind of place where you need some professional advice – but there was no-one on the floor. In the end I buttonholed a shelf-filler and she told me “aisle 6” – but there was nothing in aisle 6 that I could see that was of any use to me.

As I have said … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I just don’t know what has happened to North American customer service.

Having dropped off my purchases (such as they were) at my hotel room, my next stop was the bus station. I need to book a ticket from Florenceville-Bristol to Montreal.

But even here I didn’t have any luck.

Montreal is serviced by the Orleans Express coach company, and New Brunswick by Coach Atlantic. And as my trip starts in New Brunswick it has to be made with Coach Atlantic and not Orleans Express. So that was rather a waste of time.

Still, you live and learn.

The next stage of my walk took me down to the port.

Having had to go into the Berri-UQAM metro station to renew my transport ticket and being confused about the exit, I found myself a-wandering down through the CHUM (Centre Hospitalier de L’Université de Montreal) campus, where I had never been before…

Bursting out into the sunlight at the back of the hospital it took me a second or two to get my bearings.

And then I realised that I had come out at the back of the Champ de Mars.

I walked along the Avenue Viger for a moment to admire the buildings across the Boulevard Ville-Marie. These are some of the Government and the City’s administration buildings

From there I wandered down to the harbour for a good stroll. MSC Alyssa had gone, but Oakglen and Gullwing were still there.

We also had a new arrival.

Moored up at one of the inner berths near the entrance to the Lachine Canal was a ship called the Chestnut. There was a good view of her from up on one of the upper piers

Although she might not look it, she was built as recently as 2010 and has a gross tonnage of about 20,000 tonnes. She had called in on her way from Bayuquan in China to Hamilton, Ontario.

There were quite a few good views from up here too.

One of them was of the promenade and the park down on the quayside. I’d not seen it from this perspective before.

I also saw in the distance two railway locomotives heading down towards the port. So I waited for them to arrive. But just before they got into range they stopped, reversed and never came back.

We’ve seen one of these before, haven’t we?

Back in Halifax when we were there in 2010 of course, wandering around the town with fare-paying passengers on a sightseeing tour.

And so there’s another one here in Montreal doing a similar job. And if I’m not mistaken, I might have seen if before.

I’m not sure if I’ve seen this building before though.

It’s not the building that interests me – nice though it is – but it’s the fact that on the spot where it’s situated is said to have been the site of the first school run by Marguerite Bourgeoys

We are told that her school was created in 1658 and was in an old stone stable given to her for the purpose

This is even more exciting.

Of course, 2CV citroens are two-a-penny (figuratively speaking) back home in France and so hardly noteworthy. But here in Canada, this one is only the second that I have ever seen

and if the registration number on it is correct, it comes from the Ile-de-France – Paris-Banlieux district of Val-de-Marne.

By now it was long-after lunchtime so I stopped off at a Subway for a sandwich and a drink. And something of a rest because it seemed as if I’d been on my feet for quite a while.

Another thing was that I needed a few bits and pieces to make my sandwiches for the flight. Not that I might need them because, after all, we were only going to be a couple of hours in the air, but I’ve been caught out like this before, as regular readers of this rubbish will remember.

One thing that I’ve been doing while I’ve been on my perambulations around Montreal is to go to the terminus of each of the metro lines to see what happens there.

I didn’t recall having been to Saint-Michel before so now seemed to be as good a time as any.

But I was in a sense disappointed because I recognised it from some time ago. Once when I’d been out to the Galeries d’Anjou and I had walked back.

But never mind that now. I took a photo of it and walked back in the oppressive heat to the metro Jean Talon, making a few stops in the shade on the way back for a rest.

Josée was awaiting me at the Metro Place d’Arts. Apparently she had been able to leave work early.

Hearing some kind of noise from within the Centre Desjardins, we went in for a look around to see what was going on.

It turned out to be a group of no fewer than four drummers giving a free concert.

Not the kind of thing that you might have expected, but it was certainly interesting. I actually enjoyed it.

We went to watch the pavement chess for a while and then headed off for food and drink.

First stop was Josée’s favourite bar – the one that we visited on a previous occasion where they have the rather artistic toilets.

Next stop was the food, and having had a late lunch, I wasn’t all that hungry so settled for a bag of chips. Josee had a hamburger

Now here’s a thing.

Anyone who has ever known anything at all about will know that due to certain events in my childhood I have a horror of musicals. I shan’t dwell on it here, except to say that when Josée invited me to the Opera I was perturbed.

But as I have said before, it’s not where you are or what you are doing, but who you are with that counts so I tagged along.

Whether or not I like opera, I can always recognise good music and good singing when I hear it and there’s no doubt that even given the weaknesses of the story in Madame Butterfly, the performance was excellent. Josée wasn’t a big fan of the direction but I thought that it was particularly good.

All in all, it was a far better night that I was expecting it to be.

Josée wandered off home again and I went to my hotel. First job is to make my butties.

Second job was to make sure that everything was packed.

Third job was to do my best to crash out. I’ve an early start in the morning.

Saturday 2nd September 2017 – I’VE HAD A COUPLE …

… of worse nights than I had last night I’m sure. But not many. Curled up on a reclining seat is not my idea of spending a night, and I ache in places that I didn’t even realise that I had places.

But that didn’t stop me going on a mega-ramble during the night. And I wasn’t on my own either. I started off with Alison but at some point I ended up with a young girl with very short ginger hair, and I’m not sure when the changeover took place. We were in a hotel somewhere in Italy and it had only taken us two and a half hours to get there too – the kind of thing that you can do on a nocturnal ramble even if the people out there were as surprised as they might have been in the real world. We went out for a walk and ended up along a sea coast but you couldn’t see thesea because of these rows of terraced single storey tenements all in a damp dark red brickwork. All very run-down and depressed. I explained to my partner that this was how Italian families lived – in a big room with a little add-on annex of toilet and cooking space. We walked through and found that all of these habitations were abandoned and there was domestic refuse and rubbish all over the place. By this point I had some kind of four-wheeled vehicle and I’d changed one of the front wheels for another that was of a better style. And in all of the rubbish lying around here – old cameras and all kinds of things – were piles of old motor bikes – the 50cc type of moped and a couple of them were worth recovering, including one in particular that would furnish the front wheel that I needed for my machine. Nevertheless, I wasn’t convinced that it was a good idea to liberate them even though they had the air of being long-abandoned.
A little later I was on my own with a few different people, one of whom was a girl and one of whom was a boy who was quite interested in her and, I suspected, she in him. He was asking all kinds of questions about things and I was replying in my usual cynical manner and it wasn’t until long afterwards that I realised that he was trying to ask specific questions about this girl and my replies would have been exactly the kind of replies that would have frightened him away and that wasn’t my intention at all.

So crawling off into the bathroom for the usual reasons, I then made my way onto the deck for my first glimpse of Newfoundland – and the huge storm that was just about to envelope all of us.

And here’s a weird thing.

Looking at the messages on my mobile phone there was one from my French network provider “Bienvenue au St Pierre et Miquelon” – the last French possession in North America.

Had we passed so close to there in the night?

And as we approached closer and closer to Newfoundland we could see that there was a major storm brewing along our way.

I’ve heard about these sudden Newfoundland storms before and I didn’t much like the look of this one.

I could picture all of the sailors dashing out to batten down the hatches and all of that, and casting all non-essential gear over the side.

So while the sailors were dashing outside, I went a-dashing inside out of the rain.

and here I collided with Mike Averill who was just setting up shop for another performance on his guitar. I stayed and listened to his performance and even bought a CD.

I must be mellowing in my old age – but I really did enjoy his music.

I told you that Atlantic Vision, in her previous existence as Superfast IX had been built to provide a ferry service in the Baltic on behalf of the Swedish Government

Here on the car deck are several signs that are clearly a relic of those days.

This one is written in English, German, Swedish and Estonian – a sad reminder of one of the shortest-lived ferry routes in the whole of history

Having been decanted out of Atlantic Vision onto the mainland I drove off round the headland to find a suitable spot to take a photograph.

Also sitting at the quayside is the extremely controversial freighter called Jana.

She limped into Halifax three years ago with a load of rails from Poland and a misfiring engine, and has been stranded in Canada ever since as no-one knows quite what to do with her.

The last time that I had been here was in a driving rainstorm and none of my photos had really worked.

But today, with the squall that we had had offshore having passed by so rapidly, I was able to catch up on what I had missed of the bay here.

It really does have an extraordinary beauty.

And so does the rest of Newfoundland really. Not quite as rugged or as grand as Labrador but beautiful all the same.

I could have taken 100 photographs to show you what I mean, but one will have to suffice.

It should give you a really good idea of just what I mean

So braving the Newfoundland roads, because they really are unbelievably shocking, I found the Trans-Canada Highway and headed for St John’s.

On the outskirts of town I found a Tim Hortons where I could have a coffee and use the internet, and also a Sobey’s where I could stock up with a few more bits and pieces of food. After all, in a week’s time we’ll be in Labrador.

Driving all the way through St John’s I headed for Signal Hill and the absolutely beautiful view of the town and its harbour.

It’s the ideal place for me to eat my lunchtime butty, for it’s one of the most stunning views in the world.

You can understand just why the early English and Portuguese seafarers of the 16th Century chose this spot as their favourite harbour in North America.

Having had a good look around and eaten my butty I headed back into town for Donald’s house.

He’d very kindly invited me round for the afternoon and seeing as how we had never actually met in person I reckoned that it might be a good idea to go and catch up.

So braving the potholes, the trenches and the other pitfalls in the road I headed off back through the city.

Donald lives on the edge of town in an upside-down house that backs onto the former Newfoundland Railway tracks, although he wasn’t there when the Newfie Bullet used to go puffing by.

We spent hour chatting about all kinds of things to do with Canada, Newfoundland and Labrador and North America in general, and then I invited him out for a meal.

We ended up in a Chinese restaurant where I had a stir fry of vegetables with rice. And trying to remember my chopstick-eating habits from 40 years ago, I ended up with more on the table than I did down inside my stomach.

They also gave me a fortune cookie. Apparently I am “very sociable and welcome the company of others”. It got my age wrong too.

Donald asked me if I would like to stay the night. And to be honest, his sofa did look rather large and comfortable. I didn’t even have to nip out to Strider for my sleeping bag as Donald rustled up some blankets and the like.

So here I am, in all luxury like a King and I shall be sleeping the Sleep of the Dead.

Good night.

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

Thursday 8th October 2015 – THAT WAS ANOTHER …

… sleep of the dead last night. I was watching a film on the laptop but after about 20 minutes I gave it up as a bad job and that was that. I didn’t feel a thing until the morning and I was awake long before the alarm went off.

I’d been on my travels too, and they really were travels. I’d started off back on the buses, doing the regular Friday night run that I used to do for Shearings – up around Central Scotland and that area. Then Cecile and I were living somewhere in Belgium and it was midwinter. We had a day and a half spare and so I suggested that we go off to the Arctic Circle. I had three Cortinas in various conditions (all of them running, after a fashion) and I chose the worst one to do the trip, if I could remember where it was and if the Council hadn’t towed it away. But although it took me about 30 seconds to pack (and I was amazed at how little I needed) it took Cecile almost all of the day and a half to make herself ready.

Finally, I was in Stoke on Trent with someone whom I used to know and we were just stilling around doing very little and talking. And Zero put in an appearance too.

All in all, I’m surprised that my journey through the night hadn’t thoroughly worn me out. And on waking up I noticed that there was no condensation on the roof even though I’d been cooking in here and it had rained during the evening.

There’s no photo of my spec from last night, because while I was putting away everything into Strider I noticed through the trees some movement in the bay away in the distance, so I shot over to see what it was.

I know that there’s a sawdust barge that works the coast around here collecting the waste products from the sawmills to take to Matane and while I wouldn’t recognise a sawdust barge even if I were to trip over one, this one looks as if it could be something to do with that.

I went back on the road, having forgotten about photographing my camp, and instead of going around the coast I ended up in the mountains taking a short cut.

The autumn colours up here really are magnificent. You can understand why it is that I enjoy travelling round the eastern part of Canada at this time of the year. And to live in one of those cabins over there would be superb. If only I could see the sea from there.

I rediscovered the sea at Riviere au Renard and found myself head-on in a howling gale. I parked up and went for a walk around the harbour but the wind blew me back to Strider and so I didn’t get to see too much.

The harbour was however quite full of fishing boats but many of them were up on stocks. The fishing around here these days has been having an enormous struggle since the collapse of the cod industry in 1992

The north coast of the Gaspé Peninsula – the southern shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence – is really beautiful.

The road along here is something comparatively new. It’s all up steep headland and down into deep inlets, and in almost every inlet there’s a small fishing village with a quay and a church, and is usually called St-Something or Anse (Cove) au Something Else.

Every one of them is extremely photogenic but the difficulty that you have is finding a good uninterrupted view of the place.

Prior to the roads being here along the coast, the only access to these small villages was by sea and you’ll remember when we were in Matane the other day we visited the marine museum that was situated in the old quay from where all of the coastal boats used to depart.

And if you know anything about cloud formations (which you will do if you’ve been reading this rubbish for any reasonable length of time) you won’t need me to tell you where the northern shore of the Gulf of St Lawrence might be.

While I was stopped and having my lunch, I noticed this object way out in the gulf. And it was moving too, and so with the telephoto lens I squeezed off a good long-distance shot.

You can’t tell what it is from here, but from the headland at the back it was easy to identify. It’s the superstructure of a large bulk carrier heading down the Gulf of St Lawrence towards the Atlantic. As I said before, it’s hard to understand why so many people were unable to believe that the world was round when you see evidence like this.

Talking of ships, we haven’t had a real ship of the day for a couple of days. And so when I saw this one steaming (or rather dieseling) past the foot of the headland upon which I was standing, I had to take a photo.

She’s too far out for me to be able to identify her name but she’s one of the fleet of Maersk Container Ships and according to the company’s interactive fleet map, 24 hours after I saw this ship, the Maersk Carolina was leaving the Gulf of St Lawrence and the Maersk Palermo was still in the river.

It’s more likely though to be the Maersk Penang that had arrived in Montreal from Antwerp and was now on its way out to Halifax.

From here I went off to find a place to stay. As I said, it’s becoming darker earlier and earlier and I don’t want to be caught out again.

-6

Wednesday 16th September 2015 – AND THE ANSWER TO YESTERDAY’S QUESTION IS …

… just about everybody.

Actually, that’s not quite right.

First port of call was the Scotia Bank. One of the things that I need is a bank statement with my name and Canadian address on it. And so to the Scotia Bank on the north side of Fredericton, and as you might expect, it was closed.

After a coffee however, it was open, and the bank quite happily obliged with the information. You can’t say fairer than that.

Next stop was Service Canada. They don’t have an immigration service office there – it’s in a separate department elsewhere and callers are only accepted by appointment. But they did have a telephone number and eventually, after a considerable wait and jumping through a great number of hoops, I was put through to a human being.

I need an immigration form 1M1442 setting out my entitlement to be in Canada. This can be applied for on-line, but the waiting list is … errr … three months, by which time I shall be out of the country. I can however obtain it at the border when I cross in.

And so after a great deal of discussion, there was only one solution – and that was to go BACK to Houlton where I crossed in yesterday, and pick it up from there. Of course, that will take a good few hours, but you spend more time debating the issue than actually doing anything and I am playing for high stakes here, so off I went.

And at the border we had the most astonishing arrangement that makes European bureauocracy look like nothing at all. I could only pick up the document as I ENTERED the country, so I had to leave the country, go and annoy the American immigration people (who were not in the least amused, and who can blame them?), do a U-turn, and then go back in to Canada.

Back in Canada, after much discussion, I ended up with the manager of the Canadian Immigration office there. They do indeed issue IM1442 forms there, but only for immigration purposes, not for demographic purposes. However he did accept that laws and rules and regulations change according to events, and he would have been quite happy to issue a document to me, but he needed something in writing from the Insurance Company.

And here’s the rub – the manager of the Insurance Company REFUSED to put the details in writing and to fax them to the Immigration Office – so that was that. I was there for a good few hours in earnest discussion, but I’m a miserable pleader at moments like this. However, I am in possession of the address of the Insurance Company Head Office (it’s in Dartmouth, opposite Halifax) and so I shall go to Home Depot and sort out a suitable pickaxe handle, then go for a drive.

Despite everything that the manager of the Immigration Service did for me, Service New Brunswick wouldn’t budge either, although they did give me the phone number of the Appeals body. I shall just have to apply on-line for this form – which of course takes much longer than the time that I’ll be spending in Canada – and the Insurance Company will still honour the policy as long as my application is ongoing.

Back at Fredericton (good old Strider), the Festival proper started tonight with two tents opened – the Blues Tent and the Mojo tent.

First up on stage at the Blues Tent were the Mellotones.

First thing to say about them, as you can see from the photo here, is that there are far too many musicians up there on the stage. Four too many in fact. I’ve no idea why they needed a brass section but there you are.

I mean – they were good at what they did – there’s no denying that of course – but it’s not my kind of music at all.

It certainly wasn’t blues, and as for jazz, well, jazz can be very good if it IS very good, but working over a few Bar-Kays numbers and that kind of thing isn’t really what I was expecting to hear. In fact, I found it all rather a dismal proceeding

From here I popped into the library. I’ve been writing quite a bit on certain occasions about the railway lines in New Brunswick and I went to see if they had any old maps of the area. And sure enough, they produced a set of old maps that showed quite a few railway lines, but it was dated from the late 19th Century and there were many lines which I know existed but were not recorded. I had been hoping for a map of the 1930s, but they had nothing from that era.

I wandered on from the library to the Mojo tent, in time to catch the start of the Downtown Blues Band.

We’d had the Bar-Kays in the Blues tent and so in the Mojo tent we had the Blues Brothers. The Downtown Blues Band played a re-hash of numbers from the film of the same name.

This was another occasion of far too many musicians on the stage. I’ve absolutely no idea why many of these groups want to have brass sections, and indeed why the organisers of the Festival want to book them. It beats me.

But then, as I have said so many times before, the rest of the audience enjoyed them. I’m clearly in a minority of one here.

The female singer was clearly enjoying herself on the stage. She was having a good time too.

And it has to be said – they were quite good at what they did. But to my mind, it’s not jazz and it’s not blues either. There’s clearly something that I’m missing here.

Back to the Blues tent and we had JJ Grey and Mofro from Florida. They’ve played the Festival before, but I somehow seem to have managed to miss them.

They started off quite well and I was feeling that I might actually enjoy this concert. But my feeling of elation didn’t last long.

They played a number that was crying out for a lead guitar solo, and they built up to this over a period of a good five minutes, or so it appeared to me.

And then we got it – the solo. But, would you believe, played on a trumpet. Well, I suppose, you would believe it after having read what I have written up to date. It was so disappointing as far as I was concerned.

And so back to the Mojo tent, and this was the Halifax group Paper Beat Scissors.

They are now living in Montreal and recording CDs, and they weren’t all that bad. They were something similar to Sigur Ros, but singing in English of course, and I didn’t mind at all staying here for a while to listen to them.

The one big drawback that they had was that they had a brass section.

When they wheeled on the French horn of whatever it is during the warm-up, I feared the worst. And I was right too, because even though the player started off on the keyboards and shaking his maraccas too, it didn’t take too long for him to get on the horn.

However, the singer had a good voice for what he was doing, and they were definitely the best band that I have seen here so far this year

But then again, that doesn’t say all that much for them. They haven’t had all that much competition to date as far as I was concerned.

Back again at the Blues tent, and we had Galactic on stage.

They started off with an instrumental number, and of course we did have the brass section that has featured in every act to date and it’s thoroughly dismayed me, in case you haven’t guessed

However, we were soon joined by a singer, a young lady from Louisiana if I remember correctly.

And their second number was a scorcher too. This was much more like it, even with the brass section and I quite enjoyed that. I was quite optimistic with that and was quite looking forward to the rest of the set.

But it was not to be, unfortunately.

Despite the energy that our vocalist was putting into her show, the third number degenerated into a rap number and if there’s one thing that really grates on my nerves, it’s rap music. This kind of stuff isn’t for me at all, and I beat a rather hasty retreat.

But not before we had had a little excitement on stage.

We had a small, lightweight platform on stage and they had an organ and a heavy drum kit crammed onto it. And I mean ‘crammed” too because there was no room for anyone to move and the drummer was extremely enthusiastic to say the least.

With the platform bouncing around, I was betting with myself about how long it would be before all of this went pear-shaped and sure enough, just a couple of minutes in to the performance, part of the drum kit collapsed across the stage. We had the roadie trying to rebuilt it all the time that the drummer was playing with what was left of the kit, and in the end they weighted it down with sandbags.

Now this is very much more like it.

At the Mojo tent we had Wintersleep.

I’d missed the start of their act because the performance of Galactic had started late, and so I can’t tell you all that much about them. but what I can say is that they were a four-piece band and I enjoyed their performance very much.

There was no brass section – or mouth organ – in sight while I was there and they were playing real music from my point of view.

Nothing quite as electric or as lively as Samantha Fish or the 24th Street Wailers, but then again, what could ever be as lively as all of that, but it was good enough to hold my attention for quite a while.

And so we definitely have a winner of today’s entertainment – something that was looking very unlikely after the first couple of acts this evening.

I’ll have to go and have a look for these and see if I can’t lay my hands on a live performance for broadcasting on Radio Anglais sometime in the near future. It would be quite enjoyable, that’s for sure.

And so I went back to Mactaquac Provincial Park and my tent.

I’d had a good night’s sleep last night for once and that had certainly helped with all of the issues that I had had to deal with during the day. I don’t suppose that tomorrow is going to be any different and so I’ll need to have a good night’s sleep.

And by the way …

… the photos that I’ve posted for tonight’s acts at the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival are only a small sample of the dozens and dozens that I took during the evening. If you want to see any more of those that I took, you’ll need to contact me. Leave a comment and I’ll be in touch.

Tuesday 8th September 2015 – WHAT AN ASTONISHING STORM!

It went very hot and humid late at night and then about 23:00 he wind got upand we had a howling gale for 20 minutes, and then the most tremendous thunderstorm for ages and ages – at least I know that my little tent it waterproof. I sat there for hours (probably 20 minutes in fact) wondering whether I should evacuate the tent but I’m not sure at all what happened because the next thing that I realised, it was the alarm going off at 06:00. Yes, the bed, even though it is too small for the tent, has made a world of difference.

But I couldn’t stay here lounging in my stinking pit all morning. This is the morning when I need to be moving on, so I have to pack everything away. And I’m pleased that I packed away everything yesterday so that today’s packing is a simple (well, relatively simple) half-hour’s job once I’d dealt with everything that needed dealing with on the internet.

Then a shower, followed by the laundry. There was a machine and a dryer available, both at $1:00 a go, and I could have put myself in there with the clothes. Everything took a while but it all came up clean and dry and you can’t argue with that. I just wish that I’d brought the washing from home.

And the result of my little stay at Goose’s Point campground? Covered with (harmless) whitefly and my spec wasn’t up to all that much. However, the internet connection was the fastest I’ve ever had in a public place and it was just $21:00 per night. I’d more-than had my money’s worth just here for sure.

First job after leaving the campsite was to go down to the Isle la Motte, or la Motte Island or whatever it’s called. The woman I met the other day recommended it.

This place is important for several reasons, not the least of which being that it’s yet another place where Samuel de Champlain is said to have landed. And it might be true too, although if de Champlain landed at every site that is claimed for him, he would never have found the time to get back into his ship.

The second claim to fame is that it was the site of one of the French forts – Fort Sainte Anne – that protected the Lake Champlain / Richelieu Valley supply route from attacks by the Iroquois. Built in 1665-66 by Pierre la Motte, it was garrisoned by about 300 soldiers (the first “European” settlement in what is now Vermont) and only lasted for three or four years before the French pulled back, destroying the fort as they left.

Nevertheless, a great many artefacts from this period have been unearthed by different archaeological squads over the years. It’s a shame that they haven’t rebuilt a replica of the fort around here.

But I have been told a story about the time that Hawkeye and Chingachgook came around here on a spying expedition for the British

“How many soldiers do you see in the fort?” asked Hawkeye.
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground. “About 300” he replied
“And how many cannon?”
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground again. “About 30”
“And how many horses?”
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground yet again. “About 60”
“And how many native allies?”
Chingachgook lay down and put his ear to the ground once more. “About 200”
“That’s incredible” said Hawkeye. “Can you tell all that by just lying down and listening to the ground?”
“Ohh no” replied Chingachgook. “If I lie down here like this and turn my head so that my ear is to the ground just like this, I can see right underneath the gates of the fort”.

In its short lifetime, the fort was aid to be an “exciting” place to be if you craved for contact with the native Americans.

Its third claim to fame was that it was the site of the first mass said in this region – in May 1666 as the fort “opened for business” and a shrine to Saint Anne, mother of Mary and grandmother of Jesus, was dedicated.

Although the fort itself was abandoned, the shrine lived on and since then it’s become a place of pilgrimage for many people. There’s also a retreat here, where people can come to seek peace and quiet, and communicating with nature, although if the racket that I heard coming from the unsilenced hedge trimmer used by one of the gardeners was anything to go by, I would have done my communicating with a pickaxe handle.

I’d seen this sign a few times as I had been driving up and down the road between Alburgh and Rouses Point and so I had to take a photo of it, just to prove that the street did exist.

And sure enough, down at the end of the road were a few derelict nissen huts and a few bits and pieces of other stuff, but nothing exciting in the way of ordnance like an A4 rocket or something. The place was however sealed off with chains and padlocks and so a really good exploration was out of the question.

It wouldn’t normally bother me as you know, but bearing in mind the paranoia and fear that is gripping all Americans right now, I’d probably wake up in an orange jump-suit in Guantanamo Bay – if I ever were to wake up at all.

I went into Rouses Point after that to buy myself a coffee and something for lunch (yes, it was that time already) at the big petrol station in town.

And just to prove to many people that bad parking isn’t just confined to Liverpool, here’s some pretty shocking car parking in Rouses Point New York as Madam abandons (because on-one can say that this is parking) her vehicle across two parking spaces, one of which is a disabled bay. It’s hard to believe just how selfish and thoughtless some people are.

Over the road from the petrol station is another historic site, of which there are thousands all around this area.

This promontory where this derelict motel is situated is a former quay and over there where the lighthouse is is another quay. And this was apparently the route of a sail ferry that plied its trade across the head of Lake Champlain. I’m not sure how long it lasted but the first bridge across the head of the lake wasn’t, apparently, until the 1930s so I suppose that there had to be something going across here until then.

From here I retraced many of my steps from the other day and ended up in a town called Plattsburgh

And once again, it’s amazing the things that people leave lying by the side of the road isn’t it?

Never mind the FB1-11 that was parked up here, this is a B47 and to see this kind of thing parked up here must be something pretty exceptional. Where we are in fact seems to be at some old military complex with loads of decaying and abandoned barracks-type of buildings. apparently there was an Air Force base just outside town and the two planes here were of the type that flew out of it.

And now, almost my final destination for today.

This is the harbour at Port Kent and why it’s important for our journey is that it’s the terminal of the only crossing of Lake Champlain that I have not yet taken. It’s another one of these places that was very important once the area calmed down in the late 18th Century, becoming a thriving port and holiday resort, because there are some nice beaches here.

But the coming of the railway here (and, very much to my surprise, there is still an Amtrack railway station here and that just about beats everything) took away much of the river trade and the port declined in importance.

According to a very friendly old guy with whom I had a lengthy chat, there are three scheduled goods trains that pass by here every day, as well as the once-per-day passenger service between New York and Montreal.

And of course, I missed them all.

I’d also missed the ferry too. Only 4 per day and the one that I wanted was steaming (or dieseling) out of the bay as I arrived.

But never mind. It gave me a good opportunity to go for a good wander around and admire the local sights, including some of the famous local beaches. And they were quite nice too. But many of the hotels that used to be here no longer exist or else have been converted into private houses, such as those up there on the cliff behind.

Eventually, after a two-and-a-half-hour wait, the Good Ship Ve … err … Valtour came steaming back into harbour from its trip across to Burlington and we made oursleves ready to cross.

$30:00 to cross for a 45-minute sailing, which is starting to become excessive, but with just 7 cars, one motorcyle and a dozen foot passengers, they need the revenue. It’s a seasonal service too, that’s why it’s not very well advertised, but yet it sails right into the harbour in the centre of Burlington.

As we sail out of Port Kent harbour, I have to tell you that it’s ironic really that we are on our way to Burlington, the largest city in Vermont and whose metropolitan area includes one-third of the State’s population, and the railway line there has long been pulled up. But you can still reach Burlington by rail, in the summer months at least, if first you take the train to the little station here and then take the ferry.

It did make me wonder if they synchronised the times of the trains to correspond with the ferries? Knowing how public transport works, I doubt it very much. But they could make quite an impression on Burlington’s public transport if they were to make an effort

“Twas on the Good Ship Ve .. errr … Valtour”
“By God you should have seen us”
I know that I shouldn’t have let His Nibs near that bottle of rum.

Strawberry Moose and Strider are here enjoying the relaxing crossing, which was nothing like as rough as I was expecting, given the weather that we were experiencing. It had changed dramatically for the worse since this morning.

While you enjoy the rapidly-deteriorating weather, I wandered off to check out the facilities on the boat.

And much to my surprise, there is actually a ship’s cafe on board – the first that I have encountered on a North American short sailing. But it’s down in the bowels of the ship and you have the disconcerting sight of watching the water splash against the portholes which are round about your eye level.

I don’t mind being below water level if I can’t actually see it, but this was getting to be a little too near the knuckle for me. I’d rather be out on deck in rough weather where I have a good chance of escaping if we turn turtle. What kind of wimp am I?

We eventually make it over to Burlington in one piece, and I end up chatting to a guy and his wife who are doing a tour of the North-Eastern states on a Harley Davidson. I asked him what the fuel consumption was like, because I’d head the stories.
“Depressing” was his reply.

Anyway, they are planning to end up in Halifax and so we had quite a lengthy chat about the city which, as you know, is one of my favourite places in the whole of North America. I really hope that they enjoy it.

Having left the ship, I made my way out of town to the campsite at North Beach – and it really does have a beach too!

But I didn’t show you this cloud that was looming away in the distance as we were crossing the lake. It was in fact right over the campsite and we were having a torrential rainstorm and high winds there when I arrived. I quickly put up the tent (you’ve no idea how quickly I can do that when I’m being soaked to the skin) and crawled inside.

That’s all that I’m doing tonight!

-2

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.

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

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).

I’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.

The 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.

Another 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?

But 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.

Getting 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.

Thursday 27th February 2014 – THIS IS WHERE …

… I spent the night. The “Grain de Sable” in Ares. So called because all of the walls are lined with bottle containing sand from different beaches throughout the world.

A little on the expensive side, but you would be surprised how difficult it is to find any hotel here in this tourist area, never mind one that is open. Camping and chalets and flats seem to be the order of the day.

But you can see what the weather was doing. Cold, wet and miserable. It caught me up during the night. But not as cold, wet and miserable as last night in the mountains of Nova Scotia where I wqs picking up bits of the Swissair flight that blew up over the Atlantic just offshore from Halifax. Must have been a strong jetstream to get aircraft parts onto the mainland, that’s all I can say.

I had a slow, leisurely drive all the way around the bay and to the town of Arcachon. There I was disappointed as it really is a “twee” place. No chance to park as firstly the weather was so bad and secondly, parking is very strictly controlled and it wasn’t easy to see a space, let alone reverse into it seeing as how the streets were so narrow (well, they weren’t – it was just that the roadway was deliberately narrowed so that pedestrians would have more room to walk about, not that it stopped them stepping off the road in front of the traffic without even looking or caring whenever the fancy took them. How was it who once famously said “There are two types of pedestrian – the quick and the dead”?)

I did stop a few miles out of Arcachon because I reckoned that from there I would be able to see the Cap Ferret lighthouse across on the other side of the bay.

So there you are – that’s where I was yesterday afternoon. Round by the lighthouse across the bay.

And you might have noticed that the weather has improved sightly too.

As you come out of the bay and hit the Atlantic coast, the effects of the currents going in one direction and the wind blowing in the opposite direction has created some immense sand dunes, such as this monster dune near Pyla sur Mer. It’s enormous.

I was going to have a close look at it but it’s all fenced off until you come to the car park, which is a “pay to leave” car park with ticket control, automatic barriers and the like. I did a U-turn and drove out of the entrance – I’m not being caught for parking like that.

Next stop was Biscarrosse Plage in Les Landes. Odds-on there being loads of hotels here seeing that this is one of France’s major unsung holiday resorts.

But why it is unsung is that there are in fact only 5 here (and a couple of enormous camp sites) but none is open. And not only that, there isn’t a single open boulangerie in the whole town.

The beach is closed too, but there’s a reason for that. There’s been a howling gale blowing here for the last month with enormous waves. This area is the neck of the funnel that is the Bay of Biscay and the whole of the Atlantic Ocean is trying to fit into this little coastal strip. There’s nothing out there until the south-eastern seaboard of the USA. IMpressive, what?

So with no hotels, no bakery, no nothing, I drove on and on and now I’m in Mimizan Plage where not only is there a little democratically-priced hotel but also a Morroccan restaurant that has made me a delicious vegan couscous.

-2

Monday 28th May 2012 – DOWN TO THE RIVER

It’s Monday today – time I was heading for the hills.

Consequently I went round to the tyre depot to say goodbye to everyone, and then I set off northwards.

The first bit of excitement today occurs at St Basile.

It looks as if that pickup has pushed that trailer into the tyre place here at St Basile to have a tyre fitted or something, and as it’s drawn away from the depot, a wheel has come off and gone hurtling across the yard.

They are going to be there for a little while while they sort all of that out.

On the outskirts of Edmundston is a big Ford garage, and there on the front they had a Ranger 4×4, black, 2000, extended cab.

It was a bit tatty, painted over rust and that kind of thing with a few new bits recently fitted, like a drivers side rear spring hanger rear mount. Sold as seen, they wanted $5900 which is flaming extortionate if you ask me.

Nevertheless I approached a salesman and he came over with the keys. And as you might expect, the Ranger had a flat battery and so he couldn’t start it up. And so he went to fetch the battery pack and it wouldn’t start with that.

His response to all of that was “il ne start pas” (he really did say that!), baissé’d his bras’es and wandered away from the scene.

So what is all of this for a garage? Cars on the forecourt at that kind of price and not only can they not start them up to show to an interested customer, they couldn’t even be bothered to make an effort. It’s a fine advertisement for a garage, that it.

When I came by here in 2011 I somehow managed to miss out on visiting the town of Degelis, up in the foothills of the Appalachian Mountains just over the Quebec border.

I needed to put that right, and so here I am, even if I don’t have a great deal of time to be diverted from my mission. This is the view of the town from the hill towards the north end of the town.

“Dégelis” in old French means that it never freezezs, and this is a reference to the volume and force of the local water which creates too much friction for the river to freeze over.

And when you see a street called “chemin du barrage”, you know that there’s going to be a dam and hydro-electric turbine somewhere in the vicinity.

The road down to there follows the track of the old Temiscouata Railway that we encountered at Cabano in 2011, and this takes me after a couple of miles to the barrage and turbine. It’s a nice place to go for a wander, and also to eat my butty.

I drove through Cabano and out the other side and went to visit Fort Ingall, something else that I didn’t manage to see in 2011.

This is a reconstruction of a fort, built in 1839, after excavations in the 1960s had revealed its exact layout. Back in those days, the USA claimed all of the land up as far as the lake here and the British were having none of that – hence the area was quite heavily garrisoned.

You can see the attraction of fortifying this particular area. Not only is this the site of the main portage between the St Lawrence and the Saint John watersheddings, the view down the lake from the roof of the watchtower is stunning.

Any group of people fortifying this spot not only would control the portage, but would control the water traffic travelling up and down the lake and thus cut off all of the communications and trade between Lower Canada and the Maritime Provinces.

After much binding in the marsh, my road takes me back to the Trans-Canada Highway over the Appalachians.

When you look at all of these lorries coming along here from Halifax and Saint John, it really does make you think about the people in charge of the Témiscouata Railway who couldn’t make the railway line pay back in the 1980s.

Put the loads of just a quarter of these lorries onto the rails, powered by the electricity created by the hydro plants along the line, and not only would you have a thriving railway line, you would also have a great deal less pollution and environmental scarring of the landscape.

And the way that oil prices are going and all of the electricity that Canada can create, Canada will come to regret slashing its rail network to shreds.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall the yard of Les Oakes in Cheadle, Staffordshire. I always thought of that place being unique in the world,and so I was astonished to find the same place here in Quebec.

It’s another old guy who travels the country looking for “exhibits” to collect and restore, just like Les Oakes, and he took the trouble to show me around.

I was speechless (which doesn’t happen all that often, does it?) and I made a note of the address so that I can come back here again to scavenge stuff for my property.

Oooohhhhhh!!! Look what I have found!!!

At one time, the entire railway network of North America was built on wooden trestle bridges and viaducts but little by little, they have been replaced. You will have to look long and hard to find one that survived.

And here we are, in the Appalachians on an old dirt-track road and the trackbed of the old Temiscouata Railway passes overhead on a trestle bridge. This has cheered me up considerably.

My route to the river is going over some impressive roads, thanks to The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav.

But it’s not just the roads that are impressive, it’s the weather, and in particular, the cloud formations. This is one of the most stunning cloud formations that I’ve ever seen, Spanish Plumes not excluded.

And you’ll notice that the light is now slowly starting to go. I need to put my foot down.

At last I encounter the St Lawrence River – right down there between the towns of Riviere du Loup and Trois Pistoles, as taken from a ridge just outside the town of St Paul de la Croix.

Once I hit the shore, I’ll be looking for a place to stay the night and then head to Montreal. This will be my last night of sleeping in the Dodge as tomorrow night I’ll be in a motel so that I can properly wash all of my crockery and cutlery before I file them away in my storage locker until next time.

I can’t wait to come back.

Tuesday 13th September 2011 – HERE I AM …

… in my overnight parking space just off the motorway and this morning I reckon that I am just about to witness a major accident.

There is a car just driven up the slip road towards the highway on the westbound side and now he’s had a change of mind – he doesn’t want to go down there now and he’s reversing back down the slip road despite other vehicles actually trying to drive up there. And that can only have one outcome.

Yes transfer the New Brunswickers to Tennessee and neither the New Brunswickers nor the Tenesseeans would notice the difference

That wasn’t such a good night that wasn’t because I was being eaten alive by something or other all through the night. Not only that, we had a load of traffic on the motorway although that didn’t disturb me all that much and then we had two diesel trains that went past in the night. Obviously there’s a railway nearby with a few level crossings in close proximity. The truck that was parked in front of me also cleared off too at about 06:00 but of course you have to accept that.

But it was the insects eating me that was the problem. I’m just covered in bite marks. I probably let them in at the swamp at Irving’s. Who was it who said something about Arctic Canada – 9 months of snow and ice and 3 months of mosquitoes?

I went off into Moncton to find some coffee. And I also found the Motor Auction – it’s in Mountain Road opposite no 1758 and takes place on Wednesday at 18:00.

Princess Autos didn’t come up with much of interest except a 760-watt digital sine wave inverter complete with USB port, all for $74 dollars which is less than 50 quid and that is astonishing. Zellers and K-Mart were practically empty – of customers, staff and stock. It doesn’t look to me as if they are long for this world.

So I headed north on Highway 126 and picked up the railway line. And while I was idly passing the time of day hardly concentrating on what was going on, I encountered head-on the VIArail train from Montreal to Halifax. It took me completely by surprise and I didn’t have the camera ready.

12:02 it was, so it looks as if the train sleeps over in Halifax – there won’t be enough time for it to turn round and come back the same day

Onto Highway 116 because, despite whatever The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav wants to tell me, this is the road to Fredericton and that’s where I’m going.

Highway 116 is apparently known locally as Salmon River road, and so I imagine that this river that has been running alongside me for the last 20 minutes or so is actually the Salmon River, although don’t quote me on that.

Whatever it is, it’s quite pretty but there isn’t anywhere to pull up clear of the road to admire the view. My stomach thinks that my throat has been cut right now.

This is a suitable place to stop and make my butty, and I’m glad that I found it. I’m just on the edge of a small town called Ripples and this where I am is the site of one of the 26 Internment Camps in Canada during World War II.

It was originally a work camp for the unemployed during the depression but in 1940 it began to be used to house German and Austrian civilians. Later, Canadian citizens whose affiliations where suspect came here too.

Possibly the most famous, and certainly the most contentious inmate of the camp was Camillien Houde, mayor of Montreal. His “crime” was to call upon all Quebeckers to resist conscription and this was deemed to be sedition.

Although this is controversial, it needs to be looked at in the context of events at the time. There’s no place for looking at history through modern eyes. Leaving aside the question of conscientious objection to war and killing, which is quite another matter, one can understand the lack of willingness for Canadians to involve themselves in the Boer War (an “Imperialist” war against “fellow colonists”° and World War I (a European War involving the UK’s pledge to Belgium), it’s difficult to understand the position about World War II

That really was a World War, with German shells and torpedoes landing on Canadian soil and Canadian civilians being killed while going about their normal business. Everyone was involved in it, whether they wanted to be or not.

Add to that the fact that the Nazis were well-known to infiltrate disaffected minorities and use their disaffection as a way of undermining their national Governments. The Sudeten Germans, Danzigers, the Flemish, the Croats, the inhabitants of the Baltic States.

No-one can find any proof to confirm that Houde had been “got at” by the Nazis, but one can certainly understand, given the tenor of the times, why the British were very suspicious of Houde’s position which reflected that adopted by so many covert pro-Nazi groups in Europe

It’s possible to wander around the camp but although there are little signposts everywhere, there’s very little in the way of remains to see.

There are a few however if you look long and hard. I imagine that this is part of a fire hydrant or some such.

But there’s a delightful story doing the rounds about how well the inmates ate here. Not in terms of the volume of the food, but the fact that a couple of chefs of some of the finest hotels in the Maritime Provinces ended up being interned here.

20minutes down the road from Ripples I come to the Saint John River and there across the river is the city of Fredericton, the provincial capital of New Brunswick.

This is a beautiful small town – I drove through here in 2003 and quite liked the place, so I was determined to come back. But it won’t be today as I have a lot to do.

Firstly I’m off to the Mactaquac Provincial Park about 15kms out of town. That’s a headland where the land has been flooded by the Mactaquac Dam and is now a golf course, forest and primitive camp ground.

There are no rooms anywhere in any motels in the city, and I’ve been told that during the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival, the police clamp down on any informal camping in the vicinity of the city.

I suppose that a little bit of luxury won’t do me any harm, and I might even manage a shower. It’s been a while.

Monday 12th September 2011 – THE FUNDY SHORE

After I pleasant day at Colleen’s, I was back on the road once more

But I didn’t get far. It was lunchtime and I found a fish and chip shop.

And this place is noteworthy for two reasons

it sold real chips. Nice proper lumps of potatoes, not these horrible matchstick things
it was the first place that I have ever encountered in North America that had real malt vinegar on offer.

And they were delicious too. And it was really nice sitting outside in the sun.

First stop this afternoon was at Black’s Harbour where the ferry goes over to Grand Manan Island. And look what’s parked up over there. I’m sure that it’s the ferry that was under repair in Pictou last October when we there there.

And as a matter of fact, she is. It appears that there are two ships that ply across the waters, but only one in winter. And last winter she was laid up as her replacement was due in the spring. However the arrival of her replacement was rather late, and then the other one was involved in an accident back in May, so she was pressed back into service.

Her ultimate destination seems to be hauling gravel for a company in Quebec – the usual fate of many old ferries out here.

Whenever you see a road called “lighthouse road”, that’s a cue for a deviation – or, at least, it is in my case.

And I’m glad that I came down this road too because some of the scenery is magnificent. According to the church in the distance, this area here is called Beaver Harbour and if so, that’s an old Quaker settlement where a bunch of United Empire Loyalists came to settle.

And you can see why they came to settle here, cant you?

The road to the lighthouse was all closed off so I couldn’t go down there, but a thing like that isn’t likely to put me off.

Where there’s a will there are relatives, and so here I am round on the next headland down with a telephoto lens.

It’s Drews Head lighthouse, so I’m told, there has been a lighthouse on here since as recently as January 1876 although this is not the original. It was replaced by a skeletal tower-type of construction in the late 1960s and the fibreglass skin that you can see dates from 1984.

What we see right out there is the nuclear power station situated out on Point Lepreau. It’s the only nuclear power station in Atlantic Canada and is something else that was quite controversial in New Brunswick.

After years of debate, the New Brunswick Prime Minister Richard Hatfield announced that it was going to be built, regardless of whatever conclusions an Environmental Assessment committee reached. It was built in the early 1980s and cost three times the estimated amount.

It’s suffered all kinds of problems caused by, amongst other things, poor maintenance and employee sabotage, and there has been a variety of work-related accidents and illnesses. An 18 month overhaul, started in March 2008, took four and a half years to complete.

I went out there for a drive around to see what I could see, but it’s hidden in a forest so you can’t see it from close up.

Instead, I went off to see if I could find the famous waterfall on the Lepreau River.

The river is only about 30 kms long but has quite a descent over that distance, culminating in a drop of about 6 metres over this granite ledge.

Below the falls is the tidal limit of the Bay of Fundy and on the incoming tide you’ll find salt water down there. In fact, you can’t see it in this photo but the tide is coming in as I’m standing here.

When I was here ten years ago, I arrived after dark and left before light so I didn’t take a photo of my motel that night.

So here we are. This is the Island View motel where I stayed, on top of a hill to the south of the city of Saint John. I seem to remember that there wasn’t that much to write about this motel, but I don’t remember criticising the price either so it must have been a reasonable deal.

There’s a convenient hill just a little way around the corner and so I wandered off to see what I could see.

And sure enough, there’s a beautiful view down the river towards the city of Saint John (and you mustn’t forget to always write the name in full – that’s quite important).

You’ll notice all of the modern skyscrapers there. Saint John is the second-largest city in Atlantic Canada (after Halifax) and also one of the wealthiest

I can’t believe that I’ve managed to time my arrival so badly – when the tide is at mid-point.

Over there are the Reversing Falls – at low tide the level of the tide is about 4 metres below the level of the river and at high tide, it’s about 4 metres higher. Consequently, at either high or low tide, you have a spectacular spectacle right underneath the bridge.

I took thousands of photos here at Saint John, and one day I’ll post them all somewhere for you to see.

You’ll remember just now that I posted a photo of the city taken from distance, and showed you the tall modern buildings on the skyline. And so here, right in the centre of the city, we can have a view of them from closer up.

With there being water around, there are bound to be ships. And I’m not disappointed either because this is a huge harbour and there are dozens about.

However, never mind the ship for the moment – take a look beyond it at those shipping containers with the word TROPICAL written on them? They are, would you believe, going to feature in our story in a few days’ time.

But I hope that you aren’t expecting to see anything really historic in the city because, beautiful as it might be from this perspective on the waterfront, there’s very little in the city dating from before 1877

In that year, there was, for the benefit of those of you who know very little about the history of Canada, a devastating fire raged through the city and destroyed 1612 properties and caused $28,000,000 of damages.

Not like the fire that raged through Bentilee in Stoke on Trent, destroying 1612 houses and causing £30 worth of improvements.

Saint John was in the front line during the disputes with the USA. In the early days, the border between Canada and the USA had not been resolved, and the USA was claiming as far up the coast as the mouth of the Saint John River.

Of course, Britain was having none of that and the mouth of the river, especially on the shore, was quite heavily fortified.

This is Fort Howe, built during the War of American Independence following the Siege of Saint John in 1777, the “Howe” being the Commander of the British forces in North America at the time. It has the distinction of being the first site in Canada to be designated a National Historic Park.

Way over there in the distance (thanks to the zoom lens) is the Carleton Martello tower, one of only 9 now remaining in Canada.

This dates back to the War of 1812 and was built to guard the entrance to the harbour. It was in use during World War II as an anti-aircraft gun tower (the Canadian Government had more faith in the Luftwaffe’s technical abilities than the Luftwaffe did) and observation post, and during World War I had been a prison for deserters from the Canadian Army.

I did say that Saint John was one of the wealthiest cities in Atlantic Canada, and you can tell that by looking at some of the buildings around here.

This is the old city market, situated on Charlotte Street. and dates from 1876. It’s the umpteenth Market Hall in the city, and regular readers of this rubbish don’t need to be told what happened to the others.

The building deteriorated considerably after World War II but underwent a major renovation between 1987 and 1990.

Churches are always a good indication of the wealth of any community, and no-one is going to be disappointed by this church. This is the Trinity Anglican Church in Germain Street and was founded by United Empire Loyalists who fled here in 1783.

This imposing pile dates from 1880, and you don’t REALLY need me to tell you what happened to its predecessor, do you?

There’s a beautiful park right in the centre of the city – King’s Square, it’s called. And right in the middle is a bandstand, the King Edward VIII bandstand, dating from 1908.

It’s not very well-known, (so I shall publicise the fact) that I once made a bandstand. That’s right. I set fire to all of their chairs.

I’ll get my coat.

I said that there was plenty of evidence of former wealth in Saint John. And there is also plenty of evidence of current poverty too. This street here would not be out of place in any industrial city in the north of England.

If that’s not all, I stumbled upon a bingo hall which had a game actually in progress. The hall was pretty full too. Just how sad is that? It really did remind me of Stoke on Trent on a bad day.

And some ageing hippy has just come up to me. He was having a good look at my telephoto lens and, pointing to it, said “hi – you must be one of those long-distance photographers”.
“I’m from the UK” I replied. “Is that long enough?”

Bravely battling against the lack of light, I rejoin my vehicle and head out of the town, continuing my journey to the north-east and leaving behind me a load of photographs that I must deal with some time.

Just outside the town is the immense KC Irving oil refinery and LPG processing plant. It really does look like a desperate scar on the landscape, but as long as people want to drive around in cars, what do you expect?

A phrase involving omeletttes and eggs springs to mind.

And now it’s dark, I can’t see what I’m doing, but there’s a truck stop ahead. That’s going to be as good a place as any for me to lay down my weary head.

Saturday 3rd September 2011 – CHARLEVOIX

This is my spec from last night – the big Tourist Office on the slope down from Cap Tourmente into the Charlevoix. And it was just like home too with a huge hanging cloud hovering over me.

And while parking up at a place like this might be a good idea in theory, it falls down in reality because there is no coffee machine, and that is unthinkable. What kind of welcome is this for tourists?

By the time that I had driven down the hill, through the town of Baie St Paul and up the hill on the other side, the hanging cloud had gone.

There’s a big parking place just along there with a magnificent view of the bay, the interior and also the town, and anyone standing on this point for more than 30 seconds will immediately understand why it is that the Charlevoix is the most beautiful place in the world.

A beautiful drive along the coast brought me to the town of La Malbaie. I came past here on my first journey to Canada but I was in a little hurry and so never stopped. However, today I took the opportunity to stop and go for a wander around.

It’s a really nice town, quite pretty too, and its claim to fame is that it was here that I handed out my first business card to a potential client.

As the mid morning sun cleared away the fog in the river, the views became spectacular. especially across the St Lawrence River.

And there is the distance is the St Lawrence Ferry that crosses between St Simeon and Riviere du Loup. We sailed on that on my first trip here too, smashing through the ice on the way across. But this year, I have another ferry crossing planned.

And I don’t mean this ferry either.

We’ve been on this ferry quite a few times and we are going on it again. It’s the Saguenay Ferry that crosses the mouth of the Saguenay River on the north bank of the St Lawrence at Tadoussac. It’s a symbolic ferry in that the river formerly marked the unofficial dividing line between “civilisation” and the backwoods.

It’s symbolic for other reasons, because look what else I’ve found here.

This is called a T-Rex and it’s a car, believe it or not, made in Quebec. About 50 of these are produced every year and if I lived here in Canada I would be the first in the queue for one of these. And of course, it would have to be called “The White Swan”, for the most obvious of reasons.

And that’s not all of the excitement either. There was a mobile home and caravan on board the ferry and you will notice the number plates. It’s come all of the way from Munich in Germany.

I went over to interrogate the owners and it appears that they have crossed the Atlantic with a company called Seabridge, the vehicle being shipped by Atlantic Containers in a service that runs from Hamburg and a few other places over to Halifax and Montreal.

I shall have to look into this.

This rusting hulk that has come sailing into Les Escoumins is the boat that is taking me over to Trois Pistoles on the south bank of the St Lawrence.

It’s quite an interesting ferry. Tickets are sold in the petrol station in the town, check-in is done by a man who drives up in a car, uses the inside of his hatchback as a desk, and then drives off again afterwards

As for the ship – well, she’s seen better days, and that’s what makes this crossing really interesting. Anyway, I pick up my oar, I’m chained to my seat and off we go.

Just by way of a change, there were all kinds of exciting people on the ferry and I fell in with this American couple from Massachusetts.

Strawberry Moose won some new admirers of course, because he is such a gregarious moose, and the feeling was mutual.

We had a lengthy chat, during the course of which they mentioned that they just driven the Trans-Labrador Highway. They had done the trip in reverse, so they said, which made me think that they must have had a really good pair of rear-view mirrors, because there was no obvious crick in the guy’s neck.

As the sun goes down on the St Lawrence River, Strawberry Moose surveys the scene.

Trois Pistoles is getting closer and closer and night is drawing in, so I won’t have much chance of finding a home fortonight. What I’ll have to do is to drive over the mountains tonight to the other side of Quebec on the New Brunswick frontier and see what presents itself.

I’m full of optimism, so all is well.

This is just a short account of everything that happened today. I took tons of photos and wrote loads of notes, so if you want to see it all, you need to go to this page and follow the account from there.

Monday 8th August 2011 – I’ve finished …

… my Halifax pages. You can read them here and find out why I think that Halifax is the most beautiful and interesting city in the whole of North America. You can always add your comments on this blog and let me know your opinion of the place. I’d go and live there if I had the chance.

Anyway, that took most of the day, but I wanted to get it all finished. And that’s not all I did either. I spent a while on the phone sorting out Terry’s windscreen (although we are no further forward) and then getting my French SIM card unblocked. Apparently you can’t use it outside the EU (that’s why I was having so many issues lst year in Canada) unless you tell them and ask them to unblock it.

My Canadian phone number, that one I’ve had all of the issues with, is now up and working, and so I’ve ordered some signs from Vistaprint. They are magnetic and they will fit nicely on the hire car that I will be having.

No harm in a bit of publicity and after all, I’m going there to work. It’s not a holiday.

I couldn’t get yellow and black, would you believe? That’s sad. But I like this layout and even if they are small, they will still stand out, and that’s what it’s all about after all.

I’ve also had notification that my money has been paid into my UK bank account for the sale of Expo – my big apartment in Brussels – and so I’ve had to send a string of letters (snail mail too) to tell people what to do with it. With the stock market in freefall now is the time to invest before it starts to climb back up.

I also managed a couple of hours tidying in the barn, sorting a few things out and putting more stuff on the shelves that I built the other day.

Tomorrow I’m going to bring the radio blog up-to-date and copy all of my music onto my 8GB memory stick to take with me. I’ve done it all on to CDs but I reckon that with battery issues with laptops, some non-moving media will be better.

And then I’m going to do some more work on the guttering

-6

Wednesday 3rd August 2011 – Well, I’m exhausted this evening.

I had another early start for a change and then attacked the web site. I’ve almost finished the Halifax pages and it won’t be too long before they are on line.

After that, seeing as the weather was miserable, I attacked the Sankey Trailer. That’s now empty at last, and I’ve fitted the new bracket for the jockey wheel. That meant drilling the chassis, seeing as it’s a heavy duty bracket and doesn’t fit into the holes of the lightweight one, and the huge inverter, a LIDL 300-watt electric drill and sone decent bits (stepping up from 3mm, 5mm, 8mm, 10mm) made short work of that. But the problem isn’t really the bracket – the jockey wheel just isn’t strong enough for it. But never mind – there will be one on one of the old caravan chassis that I can use.

After lunch I set about cleaning out the room that is over the bread oven in the lean-to. Full of tiles, dust, straw, all kinds of stuff in there since God knows when. That took a while and I’m now on the way to building a pile of wooden shelving to go in there. I’m going to store in there everything that won’t be spoiled by rats – such as engine oil, paint, all kinds of things like that. It’s high time I had a go at getting my storage sorted out.

So that took until about 18:30 when I ran out of easily-available wood. What I did then was to move the Sankey trailer into its new home. And I rather wish I hadn’t because you have no idea how heavy it is, and it’s all uphill as well. I finally got it to move and then I realised that I couldn’t let it go as it would roll back down right into Caliburn. A Sankey (these are the old British Army Land-rover trailers in case you are wondering) weighs about half a ton and that is blasted heavy going uphill on your own when you have a pulled muscle in your shoulder, I can tell you. But it’s now in place and I had to go and lie down for an hour afterwards. It’s a long time since I’ve hurt like that.

This evening I’ve been surfing the web. Shopping on IKEA Montreal, Walmart Montreal, a Solar Panel shop in St Laurent, and a few other places besides. I’m having to do all of this on my own of course, the way things have turned out, but it’s still exciting all the same.

With regard to a mobile phone, that scam company never got back to me, as I suspected that they might not. I was looking on eBay for a triband phone for North America but the prices are absurd, and then I saw a battery for the ancient Nokia 6110 that is hanging around here – just £2:49 plus 35p postage. What I’ll do is just pile loads of credit on my French mobile number and use that with the Nokia. It would have been easier with a proper phone and a proper phone number but there are some things that you just can’t do remotely.

One thing that I realised years ago, and I can’t ever remember why I keep on forgetting it, is that at the end of the day I just have to be self-reliant, do what I can do myself, and not lose any sleep about anything else.

-1

Monday 1st August 2011 – Actually I’m quite astonished …

… by the people who read this rubbish, and how helpful they are. Having published yesterday about my missing morning, the farmer who owns the field next door came roaring to the rescue this morning on his tractor – at 07:11 exactly as it happens. And I didn’t even know that he read my blog!

And so after crawling out of my bed at a reasonably-indecent time, I spent a few hours on my website. I’m now finalising the pages on Halifax ready to publish them. I’ll let you know when they are on line and you can read them, and you’ll see why it is my favourite city in North America.

But before that – you might remember me saying that I have made a few alterations to the media corner in the attic where I live. Well, here you can see it in all its glory and I have to say that it does look quite impressive, as does the huge pile of wood and paper ready for winter.

And that’s not going to be all that far away you know. At least the wood is keeping dry in here. It’ll burn a treat when we need it.

After I finished on the website, I went outside and spent the morning working on the guttering. You may remember that I had several issues with the guttering – on the house there was a piece missing and there was another piece that had collapsed under the weight of the snow in the winter. On the barn, a piece melted in the heat from the fire earlier this year, and part of the rest of the guttering had sagged.

Anyway, I’d fixed it all before lunch. There’s a few new brackets and a couple of the old ones have been bent further round – let’s see if that stops the water cascading over the top. I also replaced the melted bit but apart from the fact that I can’t find the left-hand gutter end that was attached to it, I can’t find any other either – which is bizarre because I have three right-hand ones. How did I manage that?

The guttering on the house is fixed now as well and the missing piece added. I’ll post a pic here tomorrow so that you can see it, for I forgot to take one earlier.

After lunch, seeing as it was a glorious day, I did a load of washing. Temperature in the 12-volt immersion heater, heated by the surplus electric energy, reached 62.5°C and so it was a nice hot wash. And while that was doing, I did some tidying up and then I had a nice solar shower, seeing as the water in there was 38.5°C. So clean clothes, clean bedding, and clean me tonight. What luxury!

After the Anglo-French meeting I bumped into Simon. He was trying to fit a 700-litre diesel tank into the back of his van to take to the tip tomorrow and so I went to help him. But to cut a long story short, it’s now in the back of Caliburn ready for me to use as a biodiesel tank for when I set up my refinery. Thanks, Simon. And apart from that, Bill and I had the guided tour of his new abode.

Tomorrow if the weather stays nice, I’ll be doing another load of washing and that should bring it up to date. And now I have some heavy duty sacks, I’ll be doing what I ought to have done a year ago – namely emptying the Sankey trailer.

And while I was up a ladder hanging on grimly with one hand “lucky grimly” – ed, using a cordless drill and balancing a few lengths of guttering, I seem somehow to have pulled a muscle in my right forearm and it hurts like hell.

-2

EPIC HALL

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

Tag Archives: halifax

Friday 31st August 2018 – THIS EVENING JOSEE ASKED ME …

Saturday 10th October 2015 – MY QUIET WEEKEND CONTINUES

Thursday 8th October 2015 – THAT WAS ANOTHER …

Wednesday 16th September 2015 – AND THE ANSWER TO YESTERDAY’S QUESTION IS …

Tuesday 8th September 2015 – WHAT AN ASTONISHING STORM!

Saturday 15th August 2015 – NIGHTMARE AT DORVAL

Thursday 27th February 2014 – THIS IS WHERE …

Monday 28th May 2012 – DOWN TO THE RIVER

Tuesday 13th September 2011 – HERE I AM …

Monday 12th September 2011 – THE FUNDY SHORE

Saturday 3rd September 2011 – CHARLEVOIX

Monday 8th August 2011 – I’ve finished …

Wednesday 3rd August 2011 – Well, I’m exhausted this evening.

Monday 1st August 2011 – Actually I’m quite astonished …

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