Home again

We actually arrived home a fortnight ago and already Canada seems long ago.  Yesterday I even went to Flight Centre looking for brochures for another trip!

This might be a suitable place to add some maps to show where our travels took us

Although we drove almost 9000 kms in five weeks, Canada is vast and you can see from the box on the map above, that we only explored a very small part of it.

View Canadian Holiday in a larger map

We spent our last two days driving from Quebec to Montreal initially along the Chemin du Roy  - completed in 1737. This road hugs the north bank of the St Lawrence and passes through some very early settlements such as Trois Rivieres where we stayed overnight after walking around its historic district admiring the grand old buildings.

We left the Chemin du Roy at Trois Rivieres and headed west towards Mont Tremblant looking for sugar maples in full fall foliage and then south to Oka and on to Montreal Airport.

I ran out of pages in my notebook and now I have left it a fortnight I am a bit vague, but I think it was somewhere near Oka  we drove through a town which appeared to be largely First Nation people (I think that is the politically correct term). It was a bit down at heel and all along the road near the town there were humpies selling cheap cigarettes, cigars and cigarillos with the occasional fireworks stall.

We had allowed ourselves plenty of time to get to Montreal Airport but it nearly turned into a disaster, what with rush hour traffic, roadworks and the GPS losing the petrol station. Security at Montreal was chaotic. They were trialing some new scanners (gas chromatographs?).  Air Canada does not provide food on domestic flights and as Montreal Vancouver is a five and a half hour flight we were not the only ones with our own sandwiches. The food was all detected and so they then had to go through everyone's carry on luggage. However on the plus side - while we waited for the delayed flight we were able to get 2 cups of good coffee for $2.50 total (our old friend Tim Horton again).

Fortunately Vancouver Airport is very well planned and although we were an hour late we had no problem making our connection and even requesting and both getting aisle seats with a vacant seat beside us which made the 15 hour flight to Sydney much more bearable.

I have enjoyed keeping this Blog and am glad to have the record of our trip. It has inspired me to attempt a retrospective Blog of the trip we made to Madagascar, Mauritius and Reunion last year. Hopefully that Blog should start on this site within the next month. Thanks for reading.

Manoir Boucher-de-Niverville in Trois Rivieres. The building dates from 1729.

 This house is next door to the manoir in the previous photograph and there were many more impressive old buildings in the neighbourhood.

 Elaborate Halloween decorations. I was intrigued by these. They started appearing at least a month before Halloween, October 31st. It seems Halloween comes from an old Celtic festival and I wondered why we have never really celebrated it in Australia, when our forebears also included large numbers of Scots and Irish. Maybe it is because it is partly linked to autumn and in Australia, October is in Spring.

 Halloween again

 You guessed it - Halloween

Sugar maple grove

 A sugar shack. Spring is the time to visit one of these. I gather you get a party together and eat all sorts of traditional maple syrup fare and are entertained with music and dancing and even sleigh rides

 A critter. I associate unspecified critters with North America and so I had to include one.

 Glorious Fall

 The last fall photo on a very grey wintry day

 The Oka ferry across the Ottawa River not far from Montreal. The way Michelin described this ferry we were expecting something like a Madagascan ferry, but as you can see, the reality is far more sophisticated. Keep reading and soon I will post a Madagascan ferry for comparison.

Quebec

Time is fast running out as are the colours of autumn. After driving along the North Shore of the St Lawrence we continued along the Saguenay Fiord to the town or rather area of Saguenay. It is actually a conglomeration of about 4 towns, total population about 160,000. It has a big alumina plant as well as pulp and paper mills producing about 15% of the world's newsprint. It is very spreadout, so that when we turned up our noses at a motel, it was 15 km to the next one.

It was very noticeable that there were no tourists from outside Quebec and there was almost no English spoken. We drove around Lac Saint Jean which in summer is a vacation destination, but at this time of year there is no competition for picnic tables, probably because the max temp is about 5 deg C! Although it is clear and sunny, by the time I have eaten a sandwich, my fingers are frozen.

As we drove back to Quebec there had been more snow along much of the road  (about 6 inches in some places) and the trees were bare. It was the most tiring drive I have done. There was a lot of fast traffic, miles of roadworks, lots of snow and no towns to stop in.

We are staying in Levis, on the south bank of the St Lawrence opposite Quebec. Today's excursion was to take the ferry to Quebec and walk around the city. We gave the Citadel a miss, but went up and down the old streets and the newer part of the city centre which has lots of very nice boutiques and restaurants. However as far as I could work out, most buildings date from the late 1800s and later as there have been some major fires over the centuries. The most impressive thing is the site and the walls, which  even when they were built were almost obsolete because of the introduction of artillery.

Tim Horton's offers a quality change from McDonalds - excellent coffee and no chips

 

 Although the light was completely wrong, I could not resist photographing this woman salmon fishing in Saguenay. The scene looked even more idyllic before the dog with the red spotted scarf around his neck ran out of the picture.

 

 A freighter in Saguenay Fiord. Cruise ships also come up this fiord, which is apparently a favourite haunt for whales, but not so much in October

 

 Covered bridge Quebec province style near Ste. Jeanne d'Arc

 

 Winter is definitely nearly here. White plastic car igloos have started appearing. Saves de-icing.

 

 Further evidence of winter. This snow was 3 or 4 days old. On thedrive back to Quebec there was much more snow than this.

 

 Fall is very nearly over along the Sanguenay River

 

 Quebec moose warning signs are much more graphic than our kangaroo signs!

 

You don't have to be a Meccano buff to appreciate the old railway bridge at Quebec

 

 Chute de la Chaudiere in the centre of Levis, the town opposite to Quebec. In spite of all that water, Levis citizens can only water their gardens three evenings a week

 

 Quebec from the ferry. The castle structure is a hotel, Chateau Frontenac

 

 Streetscape in the Vieux Port area of Quebec,

 

 Streetscape in Quebec

 

 Fresco in tromp l'oeil style Vieux Port area, Quebec

 

 Halloween in Quebec

 

Still some Fall colours in Quebec city