Tag Archives: tadoussac

Monday 17th August 2015 – LAST NIGHT …

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Just what kind of Christians are these?

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Saturday 3rd September 2011 – CHARLEVOIX

cap tourmente tourist information office charlevoix quebec canadaThis 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?

baie st paul charlevoix quebec canadaBy 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.

la malbaie quebec canadaA 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.

st lawrence ferry riviere du loup st simeon quebec canadaAs 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.

saguenay ferry tadoussac quebec canadaAnd 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.

T-rex car saguenay ferry tadoussac quebec canadaIt’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.

german caravan munich saguenay ferry quebec canadaAnd 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.

ferry les escoumins trois pistoles quebec canadaThis 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.

couple from massachusetts st lawrence ferry les escoumins trois pistoles quebec canadaJust 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.

strawberry moose st lawrence ferry les escoumins trois pistoles quebec canadaAs 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.

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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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