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.
Keine Kommentare:
Kommentar veröffentlichen