Whale watching at Tadoussac and old towns of Quebec and Montreal

Sooo, we have seen several whales and it was great. I was totally relaxed throughout the whole tour.
I even regret that there have not been any jumping whales. All we saw was a couple of fins, the lower fins of a humpback whale on his side and a few backs coming out of the water.
All of this was accompanied by the 3 hour chit chat of a female guide in French and English. She was obviously amazed by the backs and fins so I decided to be excited too, at least a bit.
I took several photos and we have 1 or 2 videos. Unfortunately the whales are showing themselves for a couple of times and then dive for about 5 minutes and you never know where they would resurface.
The guide announced the whales by clock-system, so 3 o'clock would be on our right side or on starboard. She was a bit to twittery for my taste, but when the 3 Finn whales (see the clip on my video post) came up next to the small zodiac boats she announced in French: "Please be aware that the big whales don't eat those people in the red jackets... They prefer the ones in blue. No..." I liked that, a little black humor is never wrong.
Although I can't say that I have seen too much of the big whales, it was still a nice trip on the water. The St Lawrence is 25 km wide at Tadoussac and it feels like the sea already.
Next time I will take a Zodiac or a canoe and if that is not enough I will have to swim with the big guys.
For the last hour we were taken up the local fjord to see belugas. We just saw several white dots on the other side of the fjord. What a pity, I had so looked forward to see those closer, they are so cute.

When arriving at the port we took a walk in the sun (yes the weather had totally cleared up!) towards the motel. The nice lady there let us use her microwave to heat up the pasta we had cooked the night before. After this great meal (no burgers and fries for once!) we took the ferry and proceeded back along the river to Quebec. This time we took another way which took us through small towns with wooden houses and along actual beaches. It was nice to see the surrounding landscape this time. Last night there had been fog only.

When we came back to Baie St. Paul, the artist town we had visited earlier, we made a stop on the mountain next to town. From there we had a great view over the river that was flowing towards the St Lawrence and there was a large area of mud with tiny pools of water. Maybe in spring the area would be flooded, when the ice was melting.
We reached our hotel at Quebec at around 6 or 7 PM. We had booked a room with an actual bubble bath tub for two people, which I very much intended to use this day or the next morning. But first we took a tour of Vieux-Quebec. The hotel clerk had proposed a walk to us and told us to definitely take the funiculaire down to the water front. He said he was sitting there all the time, enjoying the feeling of being in old Paris and drinking coffee under the old street lamps.
It felt a lot like that, so I can recommend it. But first we visited the old town inside the old rampart walls. Here acrobats and singers were competing for their audiences. There was the big hotel Chateau Frontenac, which main tower could be seen from far away and there were even some archeological windows showing the basements of the house of Quebec's founder.
We enjoyed a little bit of Irish folk music (in French) on a small square with lots of seats to relax and lampoons in the trees, before getting ourselves some supper and heading back to the hotel by walking all around the ramparts.
The next morning we actually enjoyed the room (and the bath tub) until the last possible minute, before heading for our very last stop on this trip, Montreal.
We drove through until there, with just one horrible stop in between at the highway-McDonalds. Waiting there took us at least 30 minutes and the clerks just screamed French numbers at everybody whose meal was ready. I had received a number which I repeated in French in my mind to be ready for my call. Very unpleasant.
At 4 PM we reached the Auberge de la rive at Montreal. It was actually sitting next to the river, with a beautiful park there to take a walk or a picknick. Badly enough after we arrived there was a thunder storm coming and it kept raining also the next morning so we just had a quick walk there to say goodbye to the St Lawrence River.
Because of the storm we were sort of grounded at our studio room with kitchen, so we prepared a salad for dinner and I could write more of my blog.
As it was Canada Day today almost all shops were closed and there was going to be more spectacle down-town, even more than the evening before. The rain stopped finally and so we just drove somewhere near the old town and came out near the old port, where there were short art videos displayed on the walls of buildings and a lot of people walked around. Just when we wanted to turn into a street a huge firework began, so we stayed and watched. It was already quite late, so all tourist shops were closed as well and so we just walked the area for a bit, enjoying the old buildings. Then we returned home and packed our luggage. It was necessary that the both of us took all important items for home (me) or another conference in the UK (Rene) with us, e.g. keys to the apartment and car for me or enough clothes for a few days for Rene.
The next morning we took our time, then drove to Walmart again and then to the airport. Back home, a.k.a. first stop to Frankfurt.

4 short videos on 1000 islands, canoeing early, whales and driving down to the coast

1000 islands boat tour clip:
Click here

Canoeing early in the morning on Lac du Fou:
Click here

Finn whales clip:
Click here

Driving down to the coast line
Click here

Thousand Islands and moose and bear in the Mauricie National Park

Our next stop was the Thousand Islands, an area on the St Lawrence where the river was very broad and over a thousand islands in all forms and sizes (even just 1 square x 1 sq. meter, and to be an island it has to have a tree on it) were scattered all over the water.
We took a boat trip for 2.5 hours which took us towards the U.S. border and a romantic castle built by a very rich hotel owner, who has also invented the name Thousand Islands for the famous sauce.
It was so nice feeling the wind in my face and watching all the small wooden houses, some even villas, passing by. We even passed a few eagles nests, which were build on stake platforms in the middle of the river. At the last 2 kilometers of our trip a large group of seagulls accompanied us, gliding over our heads in formation. Twice we passed the green bridge over the islands into the U.S.A. When it had been built people called it the bridge to nowhere as it was not connecting any major cities, but nowadays it is frequently used and connects the highways of Canada and the U.S.A.
After the trip we drover for a bit to reach Dewar's Inn on the River, a really lovely motel with a lawn towards the river and a river terrace. Unfortunately for us it was already occupied by mosquitoes, so we didn't sit down for long.
The breakfast was included, with a variety, but not great. The lady serving us was amiable though and we had a chat on where we came from and where we were going.
When I said the National Park of La Mauricie she had no clue where that was.
It lies in the province of Quebec and so it was no wonder. By now I have experienced that Quebec and the rest of Canada are a little different from each other and maybe a little ignorant to each other sometimes.
The fort of Prescott where there had been a big fight between the English and the French a long time ago was lousy, to be frank. Just a few wooden stockades. We passed and drove on, passed Montreal on our way as we would be stopping here on our last day, had a terrible coffee and snack at Tim Horton's (the! Canadian coffee and snack shack) and finally arrived, after hours of just driving at the Refuge du Trappeur (trapper's refuge) at the gate of the Parc National de la Mauricie. We discovered that we really were in Franco-Canada. They spoke French here just like in France. That made me the spokesperson from now on as I speak a little French and Rene does not.
I had to get words out of my head like 'bear' and 'moose' etc. that are not often used in Europe.
Our room had just a small fan which made a real racket, otherwise the room was very very very hot. But the hosts made up for it and were absolutely nice and very helpful.
The hostess told us about a tour that would take place the very next morning...uhem...in the middle of the night.

First in the morning, at 3.45 AM, we were picked up by Guy (pronounced: ghee) the moose guide.
His actual name was never mentioned by him and so I decided to call him "Guy the guide" in this blog. He looked like that name.
Fortunately Guy spoke a little English, so Rene and I had a similar chance to understand what he said. First all of us got a coffee and a cookie and then were driven 45 minutes to Lac du Fou - the Lake of the Fool.
Just before the lake a young male moose was crossing the street in front of us and was a little startled to meet us, so he kind of hopped away into the bushes. Moose seem to have too long legs - that makes them a bit funny.

Guy put groups together, which were actually family members and us as a couple and picked out his own canoe and those for the group. Together we set out towards the water with the very heavy canoes and he helped everybody to climb in. I was in the back of our canoe steering.
Guy was leading us over the whole lake which had lots of corners and islands and a small passage with an underwater-beaver dam beneath it.
He had instructed us to be very quiet throughout the whole journey and not to make any noise - and especially - not to use any mosquito repellent because moose can smell it from far. It seems that noise and smell carry far over a lake.
The animals should not notice our presence at all, until we saw them.
Unfortunately for us there was another species around that loved to smell us and eat our blood: hundreds of mosquitos which were biting away happily. Even so harshly that they left the blood pouring and drying on our skins. I have never experienced anything like that. Now, 2 days later I discover more and more really huge bites on myself and can't stop scratching.

We were lucky in one of the farthest corners of the vast lake: there she was, a female moose having her morning bath.
We came closer slowly until finally she had noticed us, watched us for a little while and finally decided that she had enough of our presence. So she left the podium and vanished between the green trees and bushes nearby.
We tried yet more corners of the lake but that was it for today with those cute big animals.
When we drove back, the guide took a detour with us to a a lookout over the whole valley and the big 16km lake of Wapizagonke which we crossed several times with the car.
When turning into the driveway of the lookout we saw a young black bear next to the road. He was very curious but also shy and vanished quickly.
And yet another bear passed by, but so quickly, we could hardly grab a camera, before we arrived at our hostel again around 9 PM.
The whole group sat together with the guide and had breakfast and we talked a bit, which was a little tricky considering there were half Franco-Canadians, 2 Germans and 3 Italians at the table.
After breakfast Rene and I went to make up for some lost sleep and stood up again only after noon. We had some self made bagels and bananas (typical trapper food of nowaday trips) and went back to the park to see some more.
We took a walk at the entrance of the walk at "Shewenegan" to the cascade there. W could even climb the rocks a bit next to the waterfall, which was quite flat.
After that we had a coffee at the cafe there and a young local park guide explained the small animals in the park to us. She had stuffed animals as examples outside the cafe and asked us if we knew any of them. I recognized the beaver (which was enormous, I had imagined them to be much smaller), an otter, a chipmunk, two sorts of squirrels - the red small and the grey big one - and a water rat. There was also a porcupine and a marmot. Next to that she told us that around 600 black bears lived in the national park.

We also had a stop at "Ile-aux-pins" and "Le passage". Both stops were beautiful high-up view points on the Lake Wapizangonke and the forests beyond. At "Lac Edouard" we had a quick look at the wide and long lake, where there also was a beach. I imagined myself being in a bikini and getting even more stung by the insects around. Brrrr, no thanks!
We made one other very quick stop at Mekinac and then, after hours of driving around the park passed through the small town of Grand-Mere (Grandmother) to buy som fresh ice cubes for our cooler bag. The room in the hostel was so hot that it would actually melt till the next morning, but at least we could cool our stuff for the night.
We had also dinner in town, which had surprisingly good food for a pizza joint (we had pasta and souvlaki) and then drove back to the Refuge de Trappeur to fall asleep quite soon.
The night was again very hot but this time we left the fan turned on, no matter what rackety noise it made.
At around 9.30 AM we paid and left for the only laundry facility in the whole area, which was again, in Grand-Mere. We filled a washing machine and had a self-made breakfast in the laundry. There was nobody around so we happily drank our coffee, prepared sandwiches and even cleaned our plates and cutlery before leaving.
After three turns of the dryer the wash was still not perfectly dry so we just hung it up all inside the car. This made it a Schluepperschlitten, a word my friend Tina has invented in Spain on a similar occasion, when we had lots of underwear to spread around the car. I liked it a lot!
After picking up new ice cubes at our favorite Grand-Mere shop we finally got going and left for the direction of Quebec. We passed it (on our return we will stay a night at Quebec) but had a stop nearby at a waterfall called Chute Montmorency, which was quite spectacular itself, but the surroundings looked a bit neglected and "old Soviet style" to me.
We were on our way to Tadoussac, a town up-stream of the St. Lawrence River and had to drive for about 4 hours straight, so we just made a few stops in between at St. Anne de Beaupre to have lunch at the bar "Les Artistes". We had a nice chat with the owner, a French man who had been in Canada for 21 years but could still cook like at home. The pizza and dessert (and even the coffee) were really good!
The oldest Catholic Church in Canada had also been founded at St. Anne. Nowadays there is an enormous cathedral standing in its place but it's quite unusually decorated with mosaic stones at the entrance hall, which makes it quite special.
We drove up the hill to get a better look at the river and then continued on the road.
The famous artist town of Baie Saint Paul was not very well equipped with signs telling the traveler where to find the actual art galleries and so we ended up parking and walking along a very cute looking row of little coloured houses and hostels, but no galleries. Turns out, after driving out of town that there actually were a lot of them, we only went the wrong way, not knowing where to go. So Baie Saint Paul, set yours signs better please!
We also took a detour to the 'quai', where the local river flows into the St Lawrence in a vast delta.
After this there was another two hours of driving. The weather was very misty and going up and down the mountains we could literally see the clouds hanging in the mountains around us. Finally at 8 PM we reached Baie St Catherine, where a free ferry took us over to Tadoussac. The St. Lawrence around here is so wide that we could not image where the other side was. It was misty after all, but still it looked like an oceanic coast already.
While standing on the ferry I spotted our first beluga whale greeting us with his presence.
I like belugas a lot but am not sure what the other whale types I might see the next day will do with me. I am very afraid of them, because they are so enormous. If they jump out of the water I might faint or get a heart attack.
But I am here anyway because I feel quite adventurous. So let's see what happens tomorrow.