The long road from New Brunswick through Quebec
I didn’t mean to go so far today… honest!
I left Fredericton around 8.30am this morning. It was a gorgeous morning – clear pale blue spring skies and endless sunshine. My intention was to go to Montreal and find somewhere to sleep there tonight…
My drive began with the Transcanada heading ever northwards (not the direction I wanted to go!) as I skirted Maine. I didn’t fancy trying to drive through first American customs, and convincing them I was just taking the shortest route to Vancouver (which ironically, is through the US…) and then re-entering Canada at some later point and having to convince them I really had just come from Newfoundland and hadn’t bought any duty free goods on the way… So it was up and over Maine and down through Quebec for me!
As I drove up within spitting distance of the US border (Ok. A kilometer away) a few of the New Brunswick towns seemed to sport signs for the “Worlds’ biggest something or other…” I felt they were clearly located too close to the US border and had been infected! However, I did the small detour to Hartland and drove through the World’s longest covered bridge (one car direction at a time…) at 1282ft!
It took me until midday to get to Edmunston on the New Brunswick/Quebec border, so I paused there to get something to eat. My car was being remarkably fuel efficient but I thought I’d top up anyway. And thats when I discovered I might still be in New Brunswick, Canada’s ONLY offical bi-lingual province, but the people here were pretty much in Quebec and only French was being spoken. However, fortunately for me, currently completely lacking in French understanding, they really were bi-lingual (unlike the Quebecois…) and switched to English easily enough for my few transactions in Edmunston!
What can be said of the drive through Quebec… It was long… and hot. My car hit peak performance just past New Brunswick and obtained an all time fuel performance of 28.3mpg – which is not bad for a car rated at 24 mpg on the highway (oh… for the technology of the European cars in North American cars!)! But then it got gradually tireder and tireder as the day progressed until it was only averaging 24.3mpg by the time I found a hotel to stay in…
So the only excitement going through Quebec on the Transcanada was:
– Looking at the Gulf of St Lawrence and remembering some passenger ship got stuck in ice there this winter…
– The absolute CRAZY chaos as I decided to come off Highway 20 and switch to Highway 40 at Quebec City… I mean, one minute I was cruising down the road (I was doing 5km/hr over the limit and I think everyone else was doing 25km/hr over…I rarely overtook anyone!) pretty much by myself and suddenly, I was on a steel bridge completely encased in cars all driving at 115km/hr! Honestly, I swear it! And as we drove across that bridge, me in a mild state of concern that I would miss the turn onto Highway 40, I glanced over at where I thought Quebec city was… and couldn’t see all the nice buildings I’ve seen in pictures! Now. Where on earth are they??? I thought they were on the rivers edge! So I was very disappointed when I was suddenly hurled south then west again and then south, and completely out of sight of Quebec City. Hmm. Clearly, I needed to come back (which I want to do anyway…).
–The even crazier chaos in Montreal…I realised then I actually hadn’t driven in crowded traffic like this in about 8 years! Sure. I’d driven in heavy traffic (once) in London… But it never got above 40km/hr there… Here we were hurtling along at 120km/hr – in a 100km/hr zone… reminded me a lot of driving out of Boston – same thing, but you can’t seem to go slower as you get swept up in the traffic and to go slower is likely to cause an accident! Took 25 minutes to clear Montreal (which from the route I took, seemed to be endless repetitions of ‘Box stores” as the Canadians call their giant warehouse shops on the fringes of town. I have no idea where downtown Montreal was relative to me – need to revisit Montreal as well when I have more time – and money!
And then… I told myself I’d pull over at the next hotel, but the only hotel I spied was a some expensive Chateau looking thing so I kept going, convinced there would be a cluster of the usual hotels on the edge of Montreal, but if there was, they weren’t on this highway! So I ended up in ottawa. But much to my disgust, most of the drive was in Ontario from Montreal – I thought the Quebec border extended all the way to Ottawa, not that Ontario managed to sneak in a little sliver under the southern edge of Quebec! There goes my chance to buy a Quebec magnet!
And the most amazing thing was the weather when I got to Ottawa…
Bare in mind, it had been sunny and hot – 29C according to my car (28C according to the weather channel) with clear blue skies which became extremely high haze over Montreal – but still with enough sun to warm my skin as I drove. It was under these conditions I pulled into a hotel on the eastern edge of Ottawa…. I checked in… I went to my room… I came out to get my bags… Total time so far: 5 minutes.
Torrential downpour, strong wind and flickering lightening! I kid you not – out of nowhere, thunderclouds had materialised over Ottawa and we were in the grip (according to the desk clerk) of a severe thunderstorm! I grabbed my bag, the huge dollops of rain stinging me as I sprinted back to the cover of the hotel! well. Huh! Spring I guess – not unlike Sydney in Australia, except the storms there don’t seem to blow up out of nowhere quite so quickly!
Kilometers travelled today: 1038km
Total travelled since leaving St John’s, NL: 2619.2km
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