Indeed!
I’ve found out just now that the ferry that I had intended to take was, from Baie Comeau to Matane, no longer running. It seems that they are doing some work at the quayside to accommodate this new super-ferry that they have ordered, and that is that until the spring.
All traffic has been diverted to Godbout down the Gulf and so that’s my next step – to drive all the way down there. Stopping off to take a good look at the Alcoa aluminium plant on the way.
I was at Godbout for 10:00 where I was told that the next ferry would be at 14:00. And this is our ship, the Camille Marcoux, coming in about 15 minutes late to take us to Matane.
And it’s a good job that I had the patience to wait in the queue until the Camille Marcoux arrived and not go off a-wandering, because there were only 5 spare spaces for unbooked vehicles and they had to use a shoehorn to fit those in – and I was third. Otherwise I would have had to wait with the 20-odd vehicles left behind for the 18:00 ferry, and then there would be no guarantee that I would cross even then.
The cars were so close together that it was not possible to walk between them in certain places – it was like a labyrinth or a maze. The Dodge was parked hard-up against a wall and I remember that in order to leave the vehicle, I had to open the door as far as I could, which was like 12 inches, reach out and open the sliding door behind, squeeze out into the space where the rear door was, close the front door and squeeze my way past the front of the Dodge, closing the sliding door behind me.
And getting back into the Dodge ended up being something of a performance as well. It wasn’t helped by the plate of chips that I had had in the restaurant. But at least I’m in the Dodge now. And on the ferry too, and that was the important thing.
From here, I drove straight over the mountains to Campbelltown and then to St Leonards. And despite how beautiful everything is here, I didn’t stop to take any photos because I was in a rush. I can do this journey again when I have more time.
But it’s not strictly true that I didn’t take any photos. Some photos cry out to be taken, such as this one here at St Florence. Just here on the edge of the town it’s clearly not just Peel’s “View Hulloa” that would awaken the dead.
I stopped at the side of a church in some town in order to make some tea – mixed bean salad with macaroni and tomato sauce. Half-expecting to be moved on but no-one bothered me.
From here I headed off and stopped for a coffee at Tim Hortons in some other town along the road. And here we had an incident that brought a smile to my face. The road over from Campbelltown to St Leonards is the limit of Acadia, and the serving wench, not knowing whether I was an anglophone or a francophone, spoke to me in bot languages.
"Which do you prefer?" I asked her
"It doesn’t matter," she replied. "I’m perfectly bilingual"
"Well, I’m perfectly trilingual" I responded
"Really?" whe asked incredulously.
"Yes indeed" I retorted. "I’m equally at home speaking English, French and b******t".
Once the hilarity had subsided and I had finished my tasks, I set off down the hill to the Trans-Canada Highway at the bottom of the valley and headed off to find a parking place for the night.
