Tag Archives: pont de quebec

Wednesday 18th September 2019 – HATS OFF …

… to Strider!

Here we are, sitting in a dingy room in a dingy motel in rue Sherbrooke Est. Old, tired, dusty, tatty and cheap. But that’s enough about me, let’s talk about the motel room. And you’ve guessed it. Old, tired, dusty, tatty and cheap.

In fact, in all honesty, you have to consider that it’s a motel in Montreal right by a metro station, with ample free parking and all conveniences (even a guitar shop, in which I’ve already made my presence felt) not a cock-stride away. And the fact that my three nights here are costing me less than $CAN 90:00 per night tax in, it’s a deal that I won’t find anywhere else in the city.

Even the local coppers won’t have too far to come to find me. They are in the building next door.

It’s the same landlady who was here last time I stayed. She didn’t remember me (which was a surprise) but I remembered her. The type who would have fought the Iroquois single-handedly out of this plot of land 400 years ago and she’s been here ever since.

Last night though was exciting. A reasonably early night (for a change) and a decent sleep, with no less than 4 dictaphone entries that I might not know anything about as yet.

Or maybe I do, because there is certainly one that is running around in my head and has been ever since I awoke. And I wonder if it’s on the machine. Basically, I was joined on my travels at one point by a person who has featured on my voyages on many occasions. And I’ll spare her blushes by not naming her because I have reason to believe that she reads these notes.

And you are going to ask me if I got the girl. And I shall say that after much perseverence and fighting off distraction, then I reckon. Not as intensely as I have done on some other occasions, as regular readers of this rubbish might recall, but nevertheless. And what wouldn’t I have given to have had another half-hour’s sleep in order to make sure that it was nailed on completely and thoroughly?

But that’s the trouble with these nocturnal rambles. They go off at tangents at all the wrong moments.

One theory that we were working on during this project years ago was whether there was a subconscious trigger somewhere that went off to protect you from harm. And there have been several nocturnal voyages, including a few just recently, where such a phenomenon might be identified.

This led us onto another project – that about the “sixth sense”. Intuition, second sight, call it what you will, it was a vital tool when you were struggling to stay alive in prehistorical times. Those who had it were the great survivors and they bred children who would have an even greater perception. Und so weiter.

It’s fallen out of use now but it’s still there and we worked on developing it – like walking around a room in the dark and thinking about what was where in our way. Or staring at people walking past and watching them suddenly turn around. All of that kind of thing. And, more importantly, trusting your intuition and your instincts.

Strangely enough, a while back I actually had this talk with the heroine of last night’s voyage. Do you rememb

So we had the school run despite the fact that I misplaced the key to the Golf, and then came back and picked up Strider.

Down to the depot to say my goodbyes, and also to change my hospital appointment. The list of tasks is building up rapidly and I still have things to do on and after when I should be having my blood transfusion.

So I’ve put it back another week. Zoe is worried that it might make me more ill than I already am, but ask me if I care.

By 10:04 I was fuelled up to the brim and joining the Trans-Canada Highway at Florenceville. And just before 15:00 my time (14:00 Quebec time) I was pulling into the Irving Truck Stop at Levis at the foot of the big bridge at Quebec.

454 kms non-stop in just under 5 hours. So hats off to Strider who performed excellently. There was well over a quarter of a tank of fuel left too and that is even better.

Fuelling him up, having a pit stop and finding a Subway for a sandwich – all of that took about an hour (never been in such a slow Subway) and then back on the highway.

294 kms non-stop and here I am. And what pleased me more than anything was that I actually recognised the streets of Montreal where I was supposed to be. And that’s not something that happens every day either.

Pizza Pizza has vegan pizzas as I explained last year, and the Metro supermarket next door produced some food stuff and spruce beer (at long last) so here I am and here I’m staying. For a few days at least.

Tomorrow I have the painful task of throwing away the rest of my stuff in my storage locker here. I’ll be a little richer in cash but a lot poorer in spirit. it really is the end of an era.

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Wednesday 4th September 2013 – NOT MUCH TO SAY …

… today, people … "hooray!" – ed … as I’ve been doing my Jack Kerouac impressions – I’m On The Road.

pont pierre laporte suspension bridge quebecI’ve not had time to go to search for a ferry to take me across the St Lawrence unfortunately but in keeping with my project of always trying to cross the river by a different route each time, I took to the Pont Pierre Laporte, the Pieere Laporte suspension bridge. That bridge would ordinarily merit a report of its own, being the longest suspension bridge in Canada, but here it’s dwarfed by the magnificent Pont de Quebec, a huge cantilever bridge like the Forth Bridge. You can read all about this bridge here if you like.

The shape of the southern border of Quebec is bizarre – decided by a Dutch arbitrator in 1848 and so if you want to travel south you first have to trave (a considerable way) north-east if you don’t want to set foot in Great Satan. That gives me ample chance to follow the southern shore of the St Lawrence – not my favourite of course as it’s far too urban and civilised, but at least it’s water.

falls of montmorency beauport quebecAcross the river in Lévis (pronounced Layvee, not Levi’s) there’s a stunning view of the Falls of Montmorency. They are higher than the Niagara Falls, as it happens but not as spectacular and while you can park a car and a thousand people inside it for just $5:00 and wander about to your heart’s content at Niagara for no further charge, here, to even stop your car to admire the falls costs you a whopping $12:00.

Having been threatened with arrest by a civilian in charge (you can see, with all the “no parking” signs on the public highway all around the best views of the place just how much the Canadian authorities are co-operating in this farce, and this official’s comment merely confirms it) after I told him to **** off when he wanted me to remove my car from the public highway back in 2010. another one of my missions in Canada is to find all of the best specs for you to see the Falls for nothing

Many people don’t realise this but General de Gaulle’s imfamous “Vive Québec Libre” speech was not a political statement. He was simply expressing his disgust at having been stuck for a whopping great sum of money when he went to visit the Falls of Montmorency.

baie st paul st lawrence charlevoix quebecNevertheless, the way that things are panning out right now, I’m not going to have my annual pilgrimage to the Charlevoix, which many of you know as my spiritual home and the most beautiful place on earth. Nevertheless, from a bluff overlooking the river and by judicious use of the 300mm telephoto lens (excuse the blurring – there was so much wind that it blew down the tripod) I could see the twin towers of the town of Baie St Paul, about 15 miles or more away across the river.

Yes, I shall have to have my pleasure of the Charlevoix and the north bank of the St Lawrence vicariously this year, which is a shame. As for you, if you start at this page
 and follow on from there, you can read all about the Charlevoix as far as I’ve progressed with my notes from last year

Anyway, I’m now esconsed in na habitual spot for me – in the marshes along the Riviere des Vases St Lawrence just east of Rivière du Loup. You’ve all seen this place before so I won’t bore you with it again but it’s the place where they gathered eel grass for use as stuffing in car seats back in the early days of motoring, and you can still see the ruins of the old quayside where the loaded barges left for their journey to Detroit

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Friday 5th November 2010 – I WENT FOR MY WALK …

old quebec city canada driving pouring rainstorm… around Old Quebec this morning but I only stayed for two minutes. And if you look at the roadway in front of the building you will see why.

There were waves of rainwater cascading down the hill. It’s been a long time since I’ve seen rain like this.

And that’s been the story of the day so far – torrential rain until about two hours ago.

Mind you I headed out for Battlefield Park so that I could scale the Heights up to the Plains of Abraham in the footsteps of Wolfe’s soldiers of 1756 and fall upon the city from the rear despite the atrocious weather, but would you believe this – the park is closed for the season.

pont de quebec city canadaProbably the most absurd thing that I have ever seen. I had to content myself with peering through the gloom at the Pont de Quebec instead.

So I went off to Montreal to run a couple of errands. The first one took a while as I expected and then I went off to Mount Royal Military Cemetery (where my great grandfather is buried) to speak to someone in the little museum there.

Regular readers of these pages will recall the map I found at a brocante over a year ago – the cloth map of Belgium dating from about 1910 and marked up as the property of one R W Seath, 11th battalion Canadian Field Artillery and showing the position of the Front Line in Belgium round about Armistice Day – anyway I’ve presented it to the Museum as that’s where it probably ought to belong (and if not, they will find a proper home for it).

howard johnson motel st leonards montreal canadaNow I’m in a motel here in Montreal. The Howard Johnson Motel at St Leonards has a special offer on – a single room at $59 with breakfast included, and that’s where I’m staying.

Tomorrow morning I’m off to the Canadian Railway Museum just outside Montreal and then off to see Ottawa which, for the benefit of those who don’t know, is the second-coldest capital city in the world, beaten only by Ulan-Bator in Mongolia.

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Friday 9th October 2010 – TODAY WE CROSSED THE RUBI … ERRR ….. ST LAWRENCE

motel tracy quebec canadaThis morning quite early, we said goodbye to our host of the previous evening. And as you can see, Strawberry Moose was particularly sad to depart.

And what a nice motel that was – there was even a microwave oven in the room and that made me wish that I had some proper food on board. In fact, I’ll stock up with a few bits and pieces next time I pass by one of these supermarkets just in case I find another microwave in a motel room.

Tracy, where the motel might be found, is a small port on the south bank of the St Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec and you may remember that I had a good wander around there last night.

pont laviolette trois rivieres quebec canadaNext item of interest is this gorgeous bow-girder bridge, the Pont Laviolette that spans the St Lawrence on the outskirts of Trois Rivieres, which is on the other (north) bank of the river.

I had a good drive around to see if I could have a closer and better view of the bridge, but no such luck. However, I’ll be coming back this way and I’ll spend some time then to have a really good look around.

pont de quebec canadaAnd while we are on the subject of bridges, what do you think about this one?

This is the legendary Pont de Quebec, built at the turn of the 2Oth Century to carry the road and the railway across the St Lawrence to the city of Quebec. It’s been the subject of two major construction failures and cost more lives than the Tay Bridge disaster did, although it was never immortalised by William McGonagall.

You can read more about the Pont de Quebec on this page.

autumn colours deciduous trees quebec canadaThere’s no doubt about it though, the southern shore of the St Lawrence around by the city of Quebec is absolutely beautiful at this time of the year as the leaves are falling (and it’s funny that the further north-east I travel the more the trees have lost their leaves – it’s quite remarkable).

I chose this spot to stop and eat my butty, with the St Lawrence over my left shoulder and the city of Quebec across the river.

It was something of a late lunch because I went to the Walmart just up the road to buy another SD card – they had Kodak ones on special offer – 4GB for $10 but they had sold out. And in line with my resolution of this morning, I bought a tim opener, a mixing spoon and a microwave bowl to go with the pile of pasta in tomato sauce (4 for $5) and tins of beans (99 cents each) that I bought in a food supermarket across the road in case I find another motel with a microwave.

I have to be prepared.

After my lunch I crossed over into Quebec and had a drive around. Old Quebec is really beautiful but I didn’t stop as I’m running to a tight schedule. I hope I’ll be able to fit a day into my return journey to go for a wander round. It’s just like a late medaieval European city in places and has somehow managed to escape the developer’s bulldozer.

highway 138 stunning view city quebec cape tourmente canadaAfter that I headed north-east along the north shore of the St Lawrence and this is really where the beautiful part of Canada begins.

After maybe 15 miles you abruptly leave civilisation and go right into the mountains. It is just so spectacular, as you can see in this pic taken from halfway up Cap Tourmente. The St Lawrence is down there in the valley and Quebec is on the skyline.

highway 138 cap tourmente quebec canada>And this is what it is like – all up hill and down dale all the way along the coast, with the St Lawrence never more than a mile or two away.

Here, at the top of Cap Tourmente, you can see what I’ll be encountering. The mountains, the undulating road, the deciduous trees shedding their leaves, and the possibility of encountering a moose, if the one sitting beside me wasn’t enough to be going on with.

motel st simeon st lawrence river quebec canadaTonight I’m staying in St Simeon which is a ferry port across to Riviere du Loup on the southern shore where I crossed over last time I was up here. This is the view of the ferry terminal from my motel bedroom.

And what I don’t understand is that last time I struggled to find a motel and had to drive another 25 miles until I found one quite by chance.

motel st simeon st lawrence river quebec canadaJust now, I’ve passed 6 at Malbaie, a small town about 15 miles west of here and there’s 5 motels that I can see from my window just here. I really must have been asleep that evening.

But even now I’m not lucky. It’s quite expensive here and there is nothing – no coffee machine (although I’ve sorted that out) and no microwave either. And even worse, there’s nowhere around in the town where I can find a meal.

I’m really not having much luck, am I?

Tomorrow I’ll be driving the 4 hours up to Baie Comeau, going by the famous ferry at Tadoussac, which you will have seen from the last time I was here, and then it’s into the interior. 400-odd miles of dirt track through the interior of Quebec and then 600 or so miles through Labrador and out to the Atlantic Ocean.

Now that’s what I call the wilderness!

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