Tag Archives: worlds longest covered bridge

Sunday 4th October 2015 – I DUNNO …

… what I had eaten last night, but I had an appalling night where I didn’t sleep a wink due to the most violent indigestion. I can now tell you all about my digestive tract such as where it is and how long it takes for something to work its way through it, because I could feel it on its travels for every inch of the way.

And so feeling like death warmed up, I eventually hit the road and headed east

mv camilla desgagnés harbour matane st lawrence river highway 132 quebec canadaAfter a brief drive I ended up in the town of Matane and went for a good prowl around the harbour.

I was very impressed, and also very lucky to see this ship in the harbour. She’s the Camilla Desgagnés, a heavy-icebreaking cargo ship and she has several claims to fame. Perhaps the most important is that, depending upon which book you read or who you talk to, she was either the first or the second modern commercial ship to navigate the North-West Passage and holds the rather unique honour of being the only “eastern” supply ship to service and provision communities on the “western” side of the Passage.

Secondly, she’s an unlucky ship and has suffered a couple of major incidents. In 1993, she was abandoned in mid-Atlantic after her engines failed, right in the path of an approaching hurricane. Furthermore, a couple of years later, she was abandoned once more after her engines caught fire

mv ctma voyageur harbour matane st lawrence river highway 132 quebec canadaAlso in the harbour, and I was very tempted to go over and see about negotiating my way on board her, was the CTMA Voyageur.

She’s the ship that provides the supply and provisioning service to the Iles de la Madeleine, off the coast of Prince Edward Island, and there’s room on board for a few motor vehicles. However, she was all loaded up and they were just shunting a couple of trailers on, ready to depart. And not only that, it’s a good way out to the Madeleines and I didn’t know when I would be likely to be able to make my way back.

mv camille marcoux harbour matane st lawrence river highway 132 quebec canadaAlso in the harbour moored next to the CTMA Voyageur was the Camille Marcoux. However, we all know about her because we have sailed upon her a couple of times – once in November 2010 and again in September 2014. She’s the ship that runs the ferry route between Matane and Godbout on the northern shore of the St Lawrence.

Our trip in 2010 was quite noteworthy, as I’m sure you remember, because we had tickets for the ferry to Baie Comeau from here but Bane of Britain somehow contrived to park himself in the wrong ferry queue.

I was feeling a little better by now and so I went for a coffee and something to eat at Tim Horton’s and to use the internet there. I managed to pick up my order without throwing it all over the floor this time, and I was there for about three hours because I was really finding it difficult to move.

river matane gaspesie highway 195 quebec canadaMatane is effectively the gateway over to the southern shore of the Gaspé Peninsula and there is a pass through the Appalachian Mountains at the headwaters of the Matane and Matapedia Rivers.

Out of Matane, you follow Highway 195 up along the valley of the Matane River and the scenery here is really beautiful even if the light is quite depressing for photography purposes. You could take hundreds of photos of the scenery here and still not do the area any justice.

covered bridge river matane gaspesie highway 195 quebec canadaThe higher up into the mountains we go, the more impressive the scenery becomes.

And it’s not just the natural scenery either but the man-made scenery too because we encounter several covered bridges across the river. The longest covered bridge in the world is in Hartland, New Brunswick, but Quebec has very much more than its fair share of them, as far as pure numbers are concerned. And those that are left (because hundreds have disappeared) are very-well maintained.

headwaters watershed matapedia river matane gaspesie highway 195 quebec canadaAt the headwaters of the River Matane we start to climb up and over the watershed into the drainage basin of the Matapedia River.

This road is another thoroughly impressive road with some really impressive scenery, and it bounces you up and down everywhere as you climb steeply into the Appalachians. And then, just as steeply, it drops you down into the valley of the Matapedia River, where we rejoin Highway 132 at Amqui.

And it was along here that I decided that I couldn’t go on any more. Around the bend, a motel appeared offering rooms with cuisinettes for just $49:95 plus taxes. Furnished like something out of the 1950s, nevertheless I’ve stayed in far worse places than this for far more money too.

I booked myself in, found my room, went inside and, still feeling like death warmed up and with it only being 16:45, I promptly crashed out and that was that.

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Thursday 27th August 2015 – WHAT A STORM!

Totally terrific. Lightning, thunder and the most astonishing rain that fell in just 10 minutes. And the worst thing about that is that I had left Strider’s drivers-side window open and so at least on the way home I washed my underwear.

I had a disturbed night, with something of a record of having to leave my bed – and I blame this half-litre of thirst-quenching drink that I had had with my tea. And I also slept through the alarm clocks too and it was 08:30 when I finally rose from my stinking pit

I’ve said … "and on many occasions too" – ed … that there was an old Canadian Pacific railway line that came up to Centreville from Woodstock and I’ve been following its path in a desultory kind of fashion.

canadian pacific avondale station road woodstock new brunswick canadaThere’s a road near here called Avondale Station Road and I’ve had a wander down there on a couple of occasions looking for the station site without success.

But having tracked down the route using aerial photographs I’m pretty convinced that this is the track bed of the railway, although the station site is well-overgrown – to such en extent that it’s not clear on which side of the road it would have been.

From here I headed off to Woodstock again and ended up having to go on a marathon detour almost to the USA border due to roadworks. And I met my bus from the other night too while I was on my travels around.

I ended up at Walmart looking for clothes and some guy in a wheelchair thought that it was fun to get in my way whenever I was trying to pick something up. Eventually I managed to reach something, and he made a remark like “Why didn’t you ask me to move?”
“Because I used to be married – I’m used to people being difficult”.

But I did have another piece of good luck in Walmart. A small lightweight 1/4 – 3/8 drive socket set at $9:00. This toolkit is building up slowly.

At Tim Horrton’s we were once again surrounded by Miltonists. About 10 staff on duty, one of whom was at the drive-in, another of whom was at the counter, a third was making wraps and as for the rest, “they also serve who stand and wait”.

After my coffee I went round to see Zoe’s shop and for a chat to see how she was doing. She could be doing better of course, but it’s hard to tell a 21 year-old about your 40-odd years of sometimes-bitter experience. They would much rather make their own mistakes. And then round to Sharp’s to see if they would take the scrap metal that we have (they will).

I went back to Centreville along the road on the eastern side of the Saint John River.

worlds longest covered bridge saint john river hartland trans canada highway new brunswick mars hill maine usaIt’s not a road that I travel very often and so I don’t know all of the good views, but here’s a stunning viewpoint from a few miles south of Hartland. We can see the Saint John River of course, and in the background we have the wind farm up on Mars Hill in Maine, USA (my plot of land is to the right of the hill).

In the centre of the photo is the bridge that took Trans-Canada Highway version 2 (or is it 3?) over the river, but in front of this you’ll be able to make out the world’s longest covered bridge at Hartland.

My way back to Rachel’s took me over the river and back via Lakeville where there’s a car body repair shop. He always has some interesting stuff there but as he’s one of the best body repairers in the region his output is far too good to be suitable for these pages.

mack thermodyne B61 lakeville new brunswick canadaBut there are always exceptions to this, such as this absolutely wonderful Mack Thermodyne B61 of the early 1950s.

It’s been stood for ages but he’s managed to make it go, however the water pump has failed. He says that it’s up to the owner to source one, and he wishes him good luck. The plan, I imagine, is that once it’s running he’ll restore it, and I’ll love to see it when it’s finished.

Hannah was supposed to be ringing me up to give her a hand to mow the lawn but she never did, and so I popped by to see how she was doing. But she had done it all on her own without my help and now she and her friend Journee were making a beer-pong table for her party tomorrow night. I went on to the shop and waited for closing time.

And this was when the storm hit.

Later in the evening Darren and I loaded up Strider with a huge fridge and a big stove. On my way round to Great Satan I’ll be heaving them out at Sharp’s.

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Tuesday 20th September 2011 – I WENT FOR A LITTLE …

… drive out today, on the eastern bank of the Saint John River.

First stop though was into Florenceville, and we now have the deeds to our property, a safety-deposit box to keep them in and also a direct debit with the council to pay the property taxes on the property.

From here, I continued my drive upriver.

hydro electric power plant dam beechwood perth andover new brunswick canadaOne thing that I hadn’t noticed before was that there was a dam across the Saint John River here just on the outskirts of Perth Andover.

It’s called the Beechwood Dam and it was the second to be built on the Saint John River system, dating from 1955. Apparently it was shrouded in controversy due to the fact that it interrupted traditional First-Nation water-borne movement patterns up and down the river.

view of saint john river perth andover new brunswick canadaFrom the other, western side of the river there are some stunning views a couple of miles south of Perth Andover.

Here I am on one of the old sections of the Trans Canada Highway (I think that in places it’s on its fourth reincarnation) and you can see exactly what I mean . And it would have been even nicer had I had the right kind of weather for it.

motel hartland new brunswick canadaWhen I came by Hartland in 2010 I stayed in a motel on the top of the hill north of town, but I forgot to take a photo of it.

One of the things that I wanted to do this year was to put that right, and so I came past here this afternoon with the intention of rectifying matters. My room was one of those on the front row over there just by the telephone box.

worlds longest covered bridge hartland new brunswick canadaFrom this spot there’s also a good view of the covered bridge down the hill at Hartland. It’s the world’s longest covered bridge apparently, 391 metres long.

These covered bridges are often described as “kissing bridges” because young couples would often go for a ride through them and while the horse concentrated on the road, the couple could occupy themselves with other things, out of the gaze of the public. In this bridge, they would have plenty of time for other things too.

lorry scrapyard Simonds Well Hartland new brunswick canadaHere’s somewhere else that I wanted to visit. I’d been here once before but I didn’t have too much time for a wander around. Today however, there wasn’t anyone around to ask if I could go for a walk around, and you need to ask for permission to do that sort of thing in North America.

It’s certainly the kind of place that I would like to visit when I’m on holiday. It’s home from home for me.

mccain food processing plant florenceville new brunswick canadaOne more place that I wanted to capture on film was the largest food-processing plant in the World. It’s the McCain potato-processing plant in Florenceville, down there on the banks of the Saint John River.

I’ve been told that one third of all prepared chips sold in the world is a McCain product, so that’s some going. It’s hardly surprising that you can’t move on these roads for potato lorries during October.

So I’m going back to Rachel’s for an early night. I’m going to be busy for the next couple of days.

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Tuesday 6th September 2011 – I WENT OFF …

centreville new brunswick canada… for a little drive today as I had a few things to do.

But on my way out towards Florenceville I caught a good view of Centreville in the rear mirror and so I couldn’t resist the opportunity to take a photograph of the town. I don’t recall taking a photograph of the town from here before so I need to put that right.

In Florenceville my lawyer was unavailable but I was able to open a bank account at the bank next door. Mind you, it took them long enough and a couple of good kicks to the computer in order to do it, but there it is.

I now have 200 dollars in a Canadian bank account, and I’ll be adding to that here and there as I go around.

worlds longest covered bridge saint john river hartland new brunswick canadaI took the old road down alongside the Saint John River down to Hartland and there’s a really good spec along there to stop and take a photo of the covered bridge there.

It’s the world’s longest covered bridge at 391 metres long and, much to everyone’s surprise, it wasn’t covered when it was built. The covering was actually added about 20 years later, but not many people know that.

canadian pacific railway bridge swept away by ice saint john river woodstock new brunswick canadaThere used to be a railway line, maintained by the Canadian Pacific, that ran up along the Saint John River.

From what I understand, which may or may not be the case, that the CPR was looking for a way out of its obligations out here beyond Montreal and in the Spring of 1987, the weather came to the aid of the company where the spring ice-flow took half of the bridge down just outside Woodstock.

That was the best excuse that the company could wish for, and the line was abandoned immediately.

At the Planning Office in Woodstock, I was out of luck. It had been closed for Labour Day and was not due to re-open until Wednesday.

I wasn’t the only person to be taken by surprise by that. A local came in with some business to do, and he was quite upset. He had a good go at Public Servants and suggested that we change our jobs. How could I disagree?

chevrolet 1300 step side pick-up woodstock new brunswick canadaHowever, it wasn’t a completely wasted journey down here. Parked up here is a Chevrolet 1300 pick-up. No idea about it really but I imagine that it’s from the 1960s. But that’s just a pure guess.

It’s had a makeover and is being used as a mobile advertising display, and that’s not a bad idea. It’s certainly attracted my attention, and probably the attention of many others too.

In the Health Food shop that has just opened, they didn’t have any vegan cheese but the girl there set me right about the whole kind of different things. There’s nothing much exciting going on around here but the Harvest Jazz and Blues Festival starts on the 13th and she thinks that there might be camping in one of the forest parks about 20 mins from Fredericton. That should be useful.

She was telling me about all these places to go to in Woodstock “its near here and just by there” and she noticed the puzzled look on my face.
“How long have you been in Woodstock?” she asked
“Ohhh, about 15 minutes”, I replied.

I do know that there’s a swimming pool here and so I went for a swim – and a good wash and shower – but its surely no surprise to you to learn that it’s closed for maintenance. It closed down the day I arrived and it opens up the day after I leave.

You couldn’t make it up.

But that girl was right about the vegan cheese in the Atlantic Superstore. And while I was waiting in the queue at a shop I noticed a magazine that told me that Canada’s biggest worry is the grief “given to us by our best friends across the border”. Why is this a surprise? I’ve been saying this for years

If I do come to live in Canada, I’ll be okay for work here. I could have a job on the techie counter at Walmart’s Woodstock branch because I knew more about the products on sale than the girl on the counter. It was me who had to insert the additional memory card into someone’s Blackberry and then program it – and I’d never even seen a Blackberry before.

I bought a 8GB micro-SD card for my Samsung mobile phone and wasn’t that an excellent idea? I now have an MP3 player for far cheaper than I would ever have imagined anywhere else.

also were having a DVD sale – piles of DVDs on sale for $5 – I bought 4 – 1 box contained 25 John Wayne films, another had 20 spaghetti westerns, a third had 9 commando B-features the fourth had 8 B-movie westerns. I’m set up for the long boring nights now.

But it’s a surprise to see who is starring or otherwise appearing in some of these films. There’s Klaus Kinski, father of Natasha of course, Lee van Kleef, Robert Mitchum, Van Johnson, Michael Rennie, Dana Andrews, Richard Conte, Lloyd Bridges, Chuck Connors, Cesar Romero, Jose Torres, Eddy Chandler, Walter Brennan, Jack Elam, Ricky Nelson, Slim Pickens, Burt Lancaster, John Ireland (is he father of Jill?) to mention just a dozen all of whom went on to greater things.

And that is of course before we mention John Wayne himself.

On the way back to my little plot of land I have a bizarre encounter with two young boys riding bicycles towards me on the wrong side of the road.

rainbow centreville new brunswick canadaThat wasn’t all that I encountered either.

Away in the distance was a rainbow. There had been a storm somewhere and the wind had blown the residue towards me, and the sun had caught it full-on. I hope that the photo comes out as well as it looked in reality because it really was a nice thing to see.

presque ile stream bridge new brunswick canadaI’d come up the back way from Woodstock, missing out Centreville, and just before I joined the road that goes down to the USA border I came across the Presque Ile stream and a lovely girder bridge that was also worth a photo.

We have different issues about whether or not this image will come out. I can’t believe how late it was and the light was going already. I hope that this photo comes out properly too.

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