Post No. 6 25 July

25 July Blog Post No. 6

21 July Hard driving all day, from Rideau Heights to Magog, 390 km.

22 July, stayed a second night in Magog. Took a walk downtown, turned out to be a long, sweated march. I think the woman at the camp who gave us directions assumed we were driving. Never the less a good work out for both us and the dogs. We did almost 10 km on the whole day, so no danger of us putting on weight.

We are currently enjoying a real Quebecois cultural experience, staying in an upmarket trailer park in the Eastern townships. It’s like a small suburb with a minority of itinerant campers like us. The majority of the 550 sites are occupied by long-term campers with established gardens, fairy lights, garden gnomes and wonderful 4 seater rocking sets complete with a middle table and canopies. It also sports a pool, restaurant, boule sites and a community centre which provides entertainment like bingo and tonight a dance with a live singer! Affluent Quebecois seem to have lots of money for recreational toys. Our camper van is very much at the modest end of the scale. It was a holiday weekend and the roads were full expensive motorbikes; the three wheel versions were very popular. This is a holiday weekend here to honour construction! We toured the camp this evening with the dogs and had conversations about their beauty and breed, but apart from that our French conversations have been few. Our vocab is improving though with reading highway signs.

23 July Started very early for the drive to Fredericton, on the road at 07:30 hrs. Arrived at Kevin Jennings (our long term live in dog sitter Catherine Jennings brother) at about 1930 hrs, for a record drive for us of 817 km. Driving thru New Brunswick was excellent. At a rest stop we pulled in behind a couple from Nanaimo, who had spent the last 60 days meandering across Canada. Near the start of the run, as we crossed a rough ramp out of a gas station, the fridge door sprung open, discharged indeterminate contents, then slammed shut on the next roll. We didn’t realise what had actually been discharged until we noticed K2 quietly munching on a tray of Portuguese egg tarts we had bought in Ottawa. We rescued what remained of those then continued on. Mid-day we stopped to make a sandwich for lunch and couldn’t find the ham wrapped in cling wrap. So the little brat had quietly demolished about a pound of ham AND the cling wrap in complete silence. No loss of appetite for his regular rations, and no sign of upset digestion with the cling wrap. Well, I guess he is a dog. Another dog memory highpoint for the trip. Like magic the fridge opens all of its own accord and delivers a pound of ham and desert as well for an afternoon snack.

24 July Chatted to Kevin and sorted out a tentative circuit for us now that we are fully embedded in the Maritimes. We plan to spend a couple of days getting to Prince Edward Island via the Confederation Bridge, then to Nova Scotia and Newfoundland, then back to Nova Scotia and New Brunswick and eventually to the Gaspe in Quebec. Set off for a quick look at the Beaverbrook Gallery. A truly delightful gallery with a very eclectic collection. Very good Canadiana, some interesting European pieces, Lucas Cranach, Lucien Freud, and to our personal pleasure, 5 very fine works by Joe Norris, a maritimes primitive artist, one whose works adorns the wall outside our office. We also managed a quick tour of the New Brunswick legislative buildings which was interesting. We rushed on because we thought our metered parking was overdue, but we surprised to find that as out-of-towners we actually allowed 3 days of free parking with our BC license plates. Drove the road to the north to Miramichi. Stayed at a quiet campground just south of Miramichi.

25 July Drove north to Tracadie, Shippagan, finally coming to rest at a beautiful, shore side camping site on one of the Acadian Islands. We were turned away from the first camp we tried, full up, but were directed to an even better campground. Our site is literally feet from the sea and a gentle cool breeze compensated for a very hot evening sun. This site is too nice, we booked for two nights to get ready for our run to PEI and the serious touristing, visiting the birth place of L.M. Montgomery of Ann of Green Gables fame and Mecca for every Japanese tourist who ever visits Canada.

A la prochaine

P & K