EASTERN CANADA TRIP 2015

Over the years, we have been able to do a fair amount of traveling from our home in British Columbia. We have been to the US many times, to Florida, California, Hawaii, and of course, nearby Washington and Oregon. We spent a week in Puerto Rico, visited St Thomas and were married in Jamaica. We visited Haiti a number of times. But it wasn’t until Darlene’s health created issues with being able to get insurance coverage that we took a serious look at other options. A eureka moment, we could travel in Canada to places we’ve never been!

Neither of us had ever been beyond Montreal to the east or to the Maritimes. The question then became not if but when to go? Spring and early summer was out as I was working for the Abbotsford International Airshow then. Winter was never an option. So that left the fall. School is back in, most tourists have gone home or back to work and hey, what about October and the fall colours? So why not go then and try to cram four provinces into two weeks? We decided that we can do this. Brochures and maps were ordered from Quebec City, New Brunswick, PEI and Nova Scotia in August and the planning got underway. A stop at the thrift shop for a “new” suitcase and we were all set.

We started by booking the flights to and from Montreal and motels both there and Quebec City as well as a rental car with unlimited mileage for two weeks. The rest, we’d do on the fly.

I spent a month brushing up on my French for our time in Quebec – that was a complete waste of time. Parisian French and the Quebec version bear little relationship to each other and when the latter is spoken at a rate of 125 words per minute with gusts to 175, well………..

We caught a late Air Canada flight out of Vancouver on October 5^th arriving in Montreal around 1 am on the 6^th. We were traveling on Aeroplan points so didn’t have a lot of choices of flight times but can’t complain too much as the cost was just the airport fees and taxes

We overnighted at the Best Western in Dorval and left for Quebec City in our rented Hyundai Sonata. I promptly took a wrong turn (this became a theme oft repeated) and ended up on Highway 40 headed for Trois-Rivières instead of the Trans-Canada Highway south of the St Laurence River. However, this didn’t change the destination, just the routing, so not really any problem.

We pulled into Quebec City in the early afternoon and found our hotel for the next 3 nights with very little problem. We booked into the Hotel Manoir Victoria located in the heart of Old Quebec. A bit pricey but perfectly located within walking distance of many of the sites we wanted to see. We gave the car to the valet and never saw it again for the rest of our stay.

The next day, we booked a tour of the city on an open topped double decker bus and had an excellent if somewhat breezy ride around much of the old city. This gave us a good overview of the points of interest and we picked the sites that we wanted to see more of later.

Porte St Louis, Quebec City,           built in 1880

Restaurant meals were expensive but choices were unlimited. We ranged from MacDonald’s for egg Mc-Muffins to an expensive hotel breakfast buffet - for which I was billed $42.62 for 2 people.

We walked the city walls, took an underground tour, and visited the Museum of Civilization’s Egyptian magic exhibition (don’t ask). We went by the citadel but it was under renovation. Later we took a second bus trip, this time to see the Montmorency Falls. That made me face my fear of heights. The falls at 272 feet are higher than Niagara by almost 100 feet. To get to the top of the falls and the suspension bridge over them, we took the cable car rather than the stairs. The other option was a zip line but oh darn it all, it was closed.

Chateau Laurier, Quebec City

On Friday morning it was time to move on. Our next scheduled stop was Woodstock, New Brunswick. Due to Quebec’s almost none existent road signs, we missed an important turn off at Riviere-du-Loup and thus took secondary roads south into New Brunswick. Would have worked out ok except that area had severe rainstorms about 2 weeks earlier and several roads had been washed out and were still closed. That necessitated a backtracking detour that added about 3 hours driving to the day. Neat scenery and light snow.

On Saturday, we had an easy drive from Woodstock to Moncton, getting there by noon. We checked into our 3^rd Best Western and got directions to The Hopewell Rocks on the

Hopewell Rocks, New Brunswick at low tide

Bay of Fundy. It was a pretty 40 minute drive on secondary roads from Moncton to the park. The Bay of Fundy tide, which can be up to 46 feet was out and this gave us the opportunity to explore the rocks from the ocean floor. A truly spectacular attraction and a great photo op.

The next day, on Sunday morning we headed for PEI via the Confederation Bridge. This 13 km bridge is tolled but you only pay when leaving the island. We checked in for two nights and after a short driving tour of the city, we went for dinner at "Lobster on the Wharf " where I had, what else - lobster! Delicious!

On Monday morning we drove north to a provincial park with long sand dunes facing the Gulf of St Lawrence. It was cool and grey and just a few people walking on the sand. I dipped my shoe in the water so that I could say I did. We drove back to town via farm roads past potato fields with the reddest soil we had ever seen. A road construction site, red soil; a garden, red soil everywhere.  Back in Charlottetown, we spent an hour at the Confederation Museum, an interactive display with video screens and head sets. A quiet dinner, laundry and then to bed.

Off the island on Tuesday, by way of the bridge again and 20 minutes and $45, we were back in Nova Scotia, headed for Port Hawkesbury on Cape Breton Island.

Fall Colours in new Brunswick

Port Hawkesbury is a mill town with a few motels and fewer restaurants so on advice, we moved on to Baddeck for the afternoon to tour the Alexander Graham Bell Museum where we saw many of Bell’s original inventions; the early telephones, gramophones and of course a replica of the Silver Dart, the first aircraft to fly in Canada. Dinner was at a recommended Chinese-Canadian family restaurant appropriately named Wong’s, a 3^rd generation family business. We were able to make a reservation for the next night in Baddeck at, for me at least, the aptly named and very reasonably priced Silver Dart Motel. We then drove back the 85 km to Port Hawkesbury, only because of a guaranteed motel reservation that couldn’t be changed.

Neil's Harbour, Cape Breton Island, NS

On Wednesday morning after breakfast at the local A&W, we headed back towards Baddeck and started a clockwise drive around Cape Breton Island. We drove the circuit in about 5 ½ hours making numerous stops for pictures of lighthouses, fishing boats and the incredible autumn colours. The island is very mountainous and the road seems to have as many curves as the “Road to Hana” on Maui. A local later told us that she gets sick every time she drives there. As it was late in the season, a number of the tourist oriented businesses were closed but that did not impact our trip. Cape Breton is glorious.

By this time, we were getting more than a little tired of restaurant meals and Darlene located a “Co-Op” grocery store where we picked up some premade cold dinners and fruit and spent the evening in our room watching TV.

It’s now Thursday and we are once again on the road, this time working our way generally towards Montreal. But first we have a stop planned back in Moncton to see if we can find the “Magnetic Hill” and a covered bridge. We eventually found both. The magnetic hill is on the edge of the grounds of a huge theme park which was closed for the season. However, the public still has access to the illusion and indeed, that is what it is. We tried it both frontwards and backwards and either way, the car rolled up the hill!

The Budd Bridge on the Cocagne River, NB        built in 1913

Any equally lengthy search revealed a covered bridge northwest of Moncton. Located in a small river valley (where else?) surrounded by forest and farmland, we had an excellent opportunity for pictures.

Friday and back in the car and headed for Riviere-du-Loup in Quebec, we made a detour side trip off the main road to Edmundson to get a sense of back country New Brunswick. Lots of farm land and well maintained century homes. Good roads and beautiful scenery.

We arrived in Riviere-du-Loup to the 5^th of 6 Best Western Hotels on this trip to find a newish facility that didn’t seem quite sure that it wanted to be a Best Western. Very high end décor but little reference to the corporate plan. The complimentary breakfast wasn’t. In fact, it cost us $25 to buy the restaurant ‘pass’ when we could have eaten for less a-la-carte. I complained but doubt that anyone cared.

On the road again (country & western song?) to Montreal on Route 20 south of the St Laurence. Light rain turned to light snow but not sticking. We stopped for lunch at a rest stop on the highway where there was about an inch of snow on the grass.

October 16 snow fall

Took some pictures just in case we don’t see any this winter.  Quebec’s poor highway signage bit us again. The signs for the tunnel under the river were once again too close to the turn to permit a safe exit. So we kept going east and finally getting across on an old steel road and rail bridge. That put us downtown with a myriad of twists and turns through construction sites and one-way streets and finally on to a freeway going north and west to Dorval. Aaargh!

Well since driving in Montreal is so much fun, let’s take the bus tomorrow. That way we don’t have to worry about getting lost or about finding parking, right?

The plan was to see as much of old Montreal as we could as neither of us had ever spent much time there.

 Getting the bus meant taking the hotel shuttle back to the airport and buying $10 day passes on the #747 express bus. Done. On the ½ hour ride down town we couldn’t see too much due to the seating arrangement and the heavily tinted windows. We got off at the end of the line and started walking down St Catherine’s Street.

Hmm, this end looks a lot like Vancouver’s downtown eastside. After a couple of blocks and a meeting of the minds, we moved down to the other main street where it was slightly less interesting. No strip joints, bars, SRO’s or shelters. But it was cold. Very cold as the wind blasted around the towers. After several blocks of this, enhanced by noise from the heavy construction, we sought shelter and solace in a Tim Horton’s. After a restroom and hot chocolate break, we determined that we weren’t dressed appropriately and were no longer interested in what downtown Montreal looked like. We just wanted to get back to our warm hotel and the sooner the better.

That turned out to be easier said than done. The construction had closed most of the bus stops in the downtown core and we had to hike another 6 blocks to find an active stop. Finally back at the hotel, we determined to stay in for the rest of the day.

While on the bus, we had spotted a Walmart near the hotel and figured that is was a good idea to drive there on Monday morning. So after getting directions, we set off. We drove around and around and around till lunch time with no success.

After lunch, I got on Google Maps and printed off the directions figuring that might be more successful. After all, I am a pilot and am supposed to know that kind of stuff, right?

Guess what, we finally found the place and could have walked there except for the three freeways in the way. In the interest of full disclosure, it did take two more tries. An early dinner in the mall and back to the motel to watch the election returns and the less said about that, the better.

Tuesday morning and it’s time to pack for home, return the rental car and see what shopping and edible delights that may be awaiting us in the airport terminal. After all, our flight doesn’t leave till 6:30 so we have most of the day to ……

The flight left on time and though seats 50A and C were probably noisiest on the aircraft, they were definitely the coldest. In spite of minor hypothermia, we got home on time.

Paid the parking fees and we were done.