Moncton

Another day, another time zone, another province and another long drive.  But here we are in Moncton with just 3.5 hours to go in order to get home.  We could conceivably have pushed on and arrived this evening but then we have to warm up and dry out the house, make sure the water is working correctly, etc.  Better to get in tomorrow at noon to sort any possible problems out.

Bit of a whoopsy in Quebec City this morning.  Jumped in the car and the GPS took us downtown and wanted us to catch the ferry across the St. Lawrence.  Taking a ferry was never going to be the best option but I was convinced that Quebec City was on the south side of the St. Lawrence, not the north so I thought crossing the water was the last thing we wanted to do.  Anyway, ignoring the GPS we kept the river on our left and couldn't work out why all the signs on the road said Montreal.  We realized what was going on after a while and then took the bridge across the water that we had come in on.  Short term memory problems.

Apart from that, the day passed without incident.

Montreal and Quebec City

At last, a break from driving all day.

Brunch in Montreal Old Town

Got up early and drove to Montreal old town where we found a nice auberge for brunch.  It was throwing down the rain again so there weren't many people around but we did get a sense of the old town and visited a museum.  From virtually any view, Montreal looks like we could have been anywhere in France.  Only real difference was that my attempts at speaking French were met with amusement rather than disdain.  However, like in France, you get a better response from waiters if you try the lingua franca first instead of just launching into English.

From Montreal, we drove to Quebec City in time for a walk around the old town and citadel.  I recently read Francis Parkman's book "Montcalm and Wolfe" about the end of France's influence in Canada.  Basically a story about two small armies stumbling about in thousands of square miles of wilderness and occasionally skirmishing.  The English won mainly because France was bankrupt and could not afford to support the campaign, There was also a lot of luck involved for the English.  Anyway, it was good to see the cliffs of the Heights of Abraham that were scaled by Wolfe's men dragging cannon behind them.  As at Louisburg, the French fort designers had discounted the possibility of a landward attack, concentrating instead on defending the water side.  DOH!

View from the fort at Quebec City

Fountain, Quebec City

Now that's an address

Quebec City Gate

Banff Springs? No, Fairmont Quebec City

View from city gate

Notre Dame, Quebec City

Ottawa

Another long day's driving finds us in Ottawa and at last within striking distance of home.  We bought a paper map before we left and have now travelled over five folds in the map with just two to go.  Feels like we're almost there.

We managed to do some touristy things in Ottawa, walking round the parliament buildings.

Gatineau Canal

Parliament Building

Us in Ottawa

Another good day's driving without major incident.  We set off in fog which finally cleared once we got away from Lake Huron and lake Nipissing (yes really!).  But then it rained quite a lot.  Finally cleared up by the time we got here and +13C so not bad.  We heard Calgary had a dump of snow today.  Haha.

Tomorrow we plan to head to Montreal and look around the old town and then on to Quebec City where we'll stay the night.  Neither of us have been up this way before so it makes sense to have a bit of a break during our travels.

Sault Ste. Marie

Just a quick update before we set out again.  Annette thinks the hotel in Thunder Bay was haunted so didn't get much of a sleep.  I was OK though!

We didn't go back to look at the falls outside Thunder Bay.  We decided 25km in the wrong direction just wasn't on.  Maybe next trip.

We set out in good time for Sault Ste. Marie and had a very pleasant drive along the shores of Lake Superior.  This was apart from a few foggy patches and a rather alarming incident when a car coming the other way wandered across the centre of the road just in front of us.  Got to see the whites of his eyes so he wasn't asleep!  Probably texting.  Most of the journey was out of cell phone coverage which made for a quiet day.  Good thing the speed limit was low and we were sticking to it or we might not have made the distance.  There are no refuelling stops on this road that are open at this time of year.

Due to last night's hotel fisaco we checked into the Delta in Sault Ste. Marie, only a little more expensive than the Super 8 and very comfortable.  Had a very pleasant dinner looking out over the water at the USA and a good night's sleep.

Fresh and relaxed, we are now going to head away from the great lakes towards Montreal.  Don't think we'll get that far today but we'll certainly get past Sudbury and maybe as far as Ottawa.  Who knows.

Lake Superior

Well, after another long day we made it to Thunder Bay.  Good  job we did decide to push on through as there is really nowhere to stop between Kenora and Thunder Bay.  Settlements are few and far between and facilities virtually non existent.

The speed limits on the trans Canada change as you head east.  110 in Alberta and Saskatchewan, 100 in Manitoba and only 90 in Ontario.  As you enter Ontario, they very helpfully post the penalties for speeding.  These range from $90 and three demerits if caught doing 110 up to $10,000, car seizure and jail if caught doing 150 or more.  We took it easy.  Although it meant it took longer to get anywhere, the impact on fuel consumption was dramatic.  Instead of filling up four times on day one (we stopped and filled once the tank got down to half full or so) one tankful brought us all the way with a range of 400km left when we rolled into Thunder Bay.  That top box isn't only noisy, it's draggy too.  The other benefit of the lower speed was less noise too.

On the route, we were surprised to see a lot of snow still by the side of the road and all the lakes still frozen over.  In Alberta, virtually all the snow (that isn't on the mountains) has melted and the lakes and rivers are flowing freely.  When we arrived here, we were even more surprised to see Lake Superior still frozen over.  The locals say that it is unusual for the lake to freeze at all over the winter.  For it still to be frozen is seriously disrupting trade and there were several ships stuck in the ice waiting for a thaw.  It really has been a cold winter here.

We're going to have a fairly quiet morning before setting off for Sault Ste. Marie.  A walk down by the lake and hopefully a visit to Kakabeka Falls, an impressive waterfall.  We tried to find the waterfall on the way in yesterday but there weren't any signs to it.  It's 25km in the wrong direction but everyone says it's worth seeing.  Then it looks like it will be another eight hours driving probably much like yesterday's.  These days are feeling long...

Prairies Conquered

We managed to get everything in the car (just) and set off early yesterday morning.  More than 12 hours later we have driven more than 1200km, crossed one time zone and stopped in Portage La Prairie, Manitoba.  Not much to say about this place. Just a small town on the trans Canada not far from Winnipeg.

We soon discovered why the people we bought the top box from we're selling it.  In a crosswind it whistles horribly and yesterday we were battling a strong wind out of the north all day. At times it sounded like a jet taking off.  As soon as we get home, that's going back on Kijiji.

Today we hope to get to Thunder Bay in time to have a look around. Sounds an interesting town.  Last night we briefly considered pushing on to Thunder Bay and would have been there by now but it was a better idea to stop and rest.  We don't have to rush after all.

The good news so far is our new Outback is more comfortable than the old one so a long day driving doesn't take so heavy a toll.

It's Annette's birthday today. Driving all day again is probably not top of her birthday wishes.