tmacphail.ca

I had some trouble sleeping last night due to all the loud snoring from other people in the dorm but still got up around 6:00. I sat in the lounge downstairs reading for a while before realizing that the included breakfast involved just serving yourself the cereal, toast, orange juice, and coffee that was set out in the kitchen. During breakfast and before leaving I talked to the many other cyclists that were staying at the hostel. There was a pair of brothers from Ottawa, some friends from Montreal, and a family with two young children (5 and 7) from Vancouver all in different stages of biking around various parts of Quebec.

I left the hostel at around 9:00 and tried to go to a bike shop to find a new mirror for my helmet but it wasn’t open until 10:00 and I didn’t want to wait around. Early on I followed the bike path for a bit which turned out to be a mistake. It was packed gravel again but wasn’t worth it because it took wide detours to get around several fields and went up and down the steep side of a hill a couple times. Once I got back on the highway I stayed there for the rest of the day.

The hills became unavoidable later as the highway started a gradual but continuous climb for most of the afternoon. Though right at the end of the day the road dipped back down to the coast at Rimouski where I stayed with another person from the warmshowers list.

I had breakfast in my tent this morning so as not to disturb my host’s busy morning (people coming and going to work and other places) and was on the road earlier than I have been most days lately. Just outside town the bike route leaves the highway and follows very close to the river for about 20km of packed gravel. I usually don’t like following the bike paths when they aren’t paved but this one was worth it. When the bike path finally met up with the highway again it did so after climbing a very steep hill so I thought that would be a good time to stop for a break and lunch.

Just as I approached Rivière-du-Loup there was a very faint sprinkling of rain that fortunatelly held off from pouring until I was completely moved into the hostel. For the total price of $28.50 I got a dorm bed, a good dinner (salad, quiche, chicken, and blueberry cake), and breakfast all included. The dinner was optional at only $8.50 on top of the base price. There were about 25 people all seated around a single long dinner table. By coincidence I sat next to the only other people there who weren’t able to speak french and happened to be from Vancouver as well.

Last night I had been thinking about eating out for breakfast but decided against it this morning when I realized I had left food in the fridge that I was now locked out of and would have to buy it all over again. It was just things that needed to be refridgerated so I still had plenty to eat for breakfast. After breakfast and packing up I rode through the old city to the waterfront where I caught a very short ferry to the other side of the river.

Leaving the ferry there was a very good bike route seperated from the roads for quite a ways. It was a more gradual climb to the top of the cliffs than the roads would have been too. I had an early lunch again, as is getting to be a habit. At least today isn’t going to be an overly long day so I don’t have to bike too far without breaks after lunch. Sometime in the afternoon a strong tailwind started to pick up and the rest of the day went pretty fast. Throughout the day I did see several teams of cyclists biking together in a line. At least one of them had matching jerseys even.

I stayed the night at the home of another member of the warmshowers list. This one already had houseguests and didn’t have a spare bed but was still kind enough to let me use their yard to put my tent in and invited me to dinner as well. The wind continued well into the night and at times sounded like rain as it rustled the tree leaves.

I naturally woke up around 6:00 today. My sleeping habits have changed so much since the beginning of this trip. Again, Martin was nice enough to feed me breakfast as well (fresh croissants from the bakery and strawberries). He had to leave for Montreal today but allowed me to setup my tent in the backyard for next night. After setting up I read and napped in the tent for most of the morning (I was still quite tired from the previous two long days of riding).

Eventually rode to the old city and took a tour of the citadel. There are cannons all over the walls here and the rest of the old city. After the tour I wandered around to pick somewhere to have lunch before wandering around even more. I sat down in the Artillery Park national historic site to relax for a while before dinner and was approached to take a survey abuot my visit to the site. It included a short history quiz to see what I learned there.

Before going back to my tent I had a very good “Table d’Hote” dinner at Au Petit Coin Breton: Parmasan fondue and salad followed by buckwheat crepes with stewed boar meat and apples and then coffee and fruit & ice cream crepes with maple syrup. I also stopped briefly in Battlefields Park (on the Plains of Abraham) to listen to a free bandstand presentation.

Today started like most others except I ate my breakfast using dishes from the hostel. What I eat looks like so little in their bowl compared to my camping bowl. I’m probably not eating enough for breakfast.

I was on the road by 9:30 after getting more groceries because I forgot to get a few things yesterday. For some reason I was also looking forward to lunch quite early on and stopped for it early too. Highway 138 went through more quiet countryside today and eventually started going uphill to climb up to the top of the cliffs that Quebec sits on.

I stopped at the edge of the city to call Martin, a person I contacted from the warmshowers.org website for somewhere to stay. He gave me directions to his house in the middle of the city, not far from the old part of Quebec. I got there slightly before he got home from work and waited on the porch. He was nice enough to cook me dinner in the evening after he arrived.

I left my Uncle’s home and was on the road by around 9:30 this morning. It took a little while to find my way to the bike path onto the bridge since I was taking a different bridge than yesterday which would be more direct for my ride today. It took me all the way across the river and onto a road out of the city which eventually became highway 138. I got to see the old olympic stadium on the way by too.

I followed highway 138 all day today except for a few places where La Route Verte detoured around the main road of a town along the way. I decided to ignore a number of the detours because they seemed to go in the wrong direction or add too much distance compared to the main route. La Route Verte is a network of marked bike routes that stretch all over Quebec. I have so far found some of the road conditions to be quite poor for a bike route. But overall it is quite good. As a result there are also many other cyclists on the road heading in either direction.

I had lunch in St-Sulpice which was only a third of the way along my long ride today. But at least it was better than my day riding into Kingston when I took lunch at only a fifth of the way through an equally long day.

I checked into the hostel in Trois-Rivières and used the kitchen to cook myself dinner. After dinner I wandered around the old historic parts of town briefly. It’s much smaller than Old Montreal was so didn’t take too long.

I’m finding that while in Quebec, most people I encounter are able to speak english but the fact that they speak french first makes me feel like quite a stranger. If only I hadn’t forgotten it all from high school.

It rained a little in the morning before I started packing up but fortunately stopped before I started riding today. It was overcast and eventually became warm so I’m glad I didn’t have to put on my rain gear. I was riding mostly fast today so I could get into Montreal a little early.

When I got there I headed to the waterfront of Old Montreal and wandered around for a bit before settling down in a park to read for a while. Eventually I rode across the bridges to my uncle’s home in St-Lambert. After eating diner we drove back to Old Montreal where we walked around talking and looking at the city. It’s a very interesting area with many very old but well preserved buildings set on narrow streets.