Our hero “can I have a ticket for the next crossing to Trois Pistoles?”
Serving Wench “sorry, we don’t do that here any more. You have to contact the terminal at Trois Pistoles”
OH – “how do I do that?”
SW – “you have to ‘phone them with your credit card number” (gives OH the brochure with the phone number°
Ferry Terminal at Trois Pistoles “Our office is open 7 days a week from 09:00 to 16:00 (it’s now 13:40 by the way) but we are not able to take your call. Please contact us by internet”
OH “the phone isn’t working. I have to contact them by internet”
SW “okay”
OH “do you have the internet here?”
SW ‘yes we do”
OH “well, can we do this here by internet”
SW “sorry – we aren’t allowed to do this for customers”
OH “well, can I do it on my behalf then?”
SW “sorry but customers aren’t allowed to use our internet connection”
OH “well is there public internet access then here in the terminal?”
SW “no there isn’t”
And so Our Hero tracks down an internet connection in a local salle de quilles (bowling alley) and makes the reservation himself far, far quicker than it took to enter into discussion with the Serving Wench.
Whatever is the world coming to? As I have said before … "and before and before and before" – ed … the legendary North American customer service is going rapidly down the tubes.
But anyway, last night I did have an excellent night’s sleep. Just what the doctor ordered. Although I did have to heave myself out of my stinking pit on one occasion.
I was also on my travels again too. To Stoke on Trent, in fact, and back to the house of someone whom I used to know up until about 2008. It’s been 7 years or so since we last had any contact and so when we were in his living room waiting for Godot or whoever it was, I asked what new videotapes he had to watch.
“We just watch the same videotapes over and over again” he replied.
There’s quite a probable reason why this person has appeared just now. On my social network account I have noticed quite recently that both his wife and his daughter have been having a look around at my doings, although they weren’t around last night. Not that it bothers me of course – I’m pleased to have the visitors but it has been puzzling me for a couple of days. I didn’t realise that I was that popular
There was not a drop of condensation anywhere at all inside Strider this morning and I didn’t think that it was that cold.
But it was cold enough to freeze the butane can again and I had to roll it around in my hands for five minutes before there was enough pressure to make a good-enough heat to boil the water for my morning coffee. And then I could sit quietly and admire the sunrise – what I could see of it anyway through the rainclouds – with my breakfast.
And I found the old power station at Outardes One too, as you can see. And it wasn’t easy to find either.
I drove around the town for a while but I couldn’t see anything, but in the middle of a housing estate I saw a sign indicating a “Footpath to the Old Quay”. Now I knew that the quay was at the mouth of the river and that the old power station was on the river close to its mouth so that seemed like a good plan.
The path was a very steep drop down about 300 steps and then when we reached the bottom, the path to the old quay went to the right but there was another path that led off to the left and so I tried down there.
A couple of false starts led me up a few garden paths but I eventually arrived at the building. It was all locked up and the doors and window welded closed. But peering through the windows I could see that all of the turbines had been removed.
It’s possible to walk all around the outside of the premises though, and you can see how the water arrived here. It’s not a waterfall or a tunnel bored through the rock, but a couple of conduits on the surface and covered in concrete.
The water goes through the turbines in the building and then out of the building into the river that passes by below.
Going back was much easier than it might have been. Obviously they didn’t bring (or take away) the power station material via the steps and so I had a good nosey around and eventually found an old asphalt path that might have been a roadway. This took me up to the main highway but there was a gate and fence that was all closed up and padlocked.
That’s not inhibited me before as you know, and it was no great inconvenience. And then a nice long walk on a reasonable surface took me back to Strider.
I bought my SatNav in 2010 and every time I’ve come up Highway 138 The Lady Who Lives In The SatNav leads me up the garden path at Portneuf and dumps me at a steel barrier down the end of a dead end.
The town has been by-passed with a modern road and a modern bridge further upstream, but I was curious to see what was at the end of the dead end in Portneuf and so I backtracked on the SatNav route.
This took me through a campsite and up to the river and here I am. The steel barrier is up at the top of the hill over there. presumably there was a ferry and later a bridge across here, I should think.
This was a good place to relax and I had a crash out for half an hour, which was hardly a surprise.
I also took the opportunity to arrange my shopping from yesterday, and I can show you this that I bought.
I’m a vegan, in case you haven’t guessed, and like all vegans, I have issues about Vitamin B12 which is very difficult to find in vegan foods. But this strawberry-flavoured soya drink contains 16 essential nutrients, including a good healthy dose of B12, and so I wish now that I had bought a week’s supply, especially at $2:59.
Then we had all of the nonsense at Les Escoumins but I eventually made it to the quayside, such as it is, for the ferry.
L’Heritage, the ferry that takes us across the St Lawrence, finally pulled in. It was looking very sad in 2011 and it’s looking even worse today. She was built in 1973 and looks every day – in fact every minute – of her age.
But anyway, once Noah and his menagerie and Julius Caesar and his soldiers had disembarked, we could load ourselves up.
The crossing was quite rough – although it wasn’t really. We had plenty of wind to be sure and it was cold, but there was no reason why the ship should have been swaying around as much as she was. Presumably it’s because of her flat-bottomed design but I don’t remember swaying around like this last time.
I had a couple of rounds of toast on board and that took me up to landing time.
It was dark too and I wasn’t going to find a place to doss down in these conditions. I found a cheap motel on the edge of Trois Pistoles and I’ll stay here for tonight.
