Click on a photo to enlarge it.
On Monday we stopped at Lake Superior provincial park for lunch and got a surprise when we went to the toilet. The
sign for the toilets pointed along a narrow gravel footpath between trees. At the end of the path stood a toilet
seat, no walls around it, no sink, no toilet paper or bin. Just a toilet bowl surrounded by trees!
The next surprise we got was that Winnie started spluttering and juddering and had hardly any power. Helen thought
it was the fuel pump and Kirsten thought it was the exhaust. We could hardly get up the hills and we got really
worried that we were going to get stuck in the middle of nowhere. We spluttered and juddered for another 30 miles to
Sault Saint Marie and only just made it. Then it took us about 2 hours to find a garage that could deal with a motor
home. We finally found one that would be able to get us in the next morning. They even let us park up behind their
workshop and plug in to their electricity for the night. That evening we had a really bad thunderstorm. Lightening
crashed into the street about 20 yards away from us! A huge bang!
We managed to survive the night and the next morning we got a new distributor cap, wires and spark plugs. We had been
driving on only 3 cylinders instead of 4. We could see that they were the original parts which at least had lasted
for 18 years! They also had a look at our exhaust pipe and found a large hole. So we drove next door and got a new
back half of our exhaust. The $10 end piece that we had got repaired in Baja California, had to get thrown out, but
at least it had done its job and lasted for over 7000 miles. It would have outlived the rest of the exhaust if we
hadn´t had a hole and needed to replace the complete section!
It cost us $300 (US) but at least we could carry on driving east. By Thursday we had reached Ottowa and made the
mistake of driving to the tourist information centre in the centre of the city. We followed the parking signs only
to find there was a height restriction and we couldn´t park there! So we drove all the way out again and pulled onto
a Walmart car park and got permission to stay for the night. Then we bought a day ticket and caught 2 buses back into
the city centre. The buses have their own ´bus-only' roads with steep granite walls either side and quite narrow.
Very odd. It was as if we were speeding along an underground tunnel except there was no roof above us. But at least
you don´t get bogged down in all the traffic and it only took us 20 minutes to get back into the city centre, whereas
it had taken us 1.5 hours to get back out in Winnie!
We spent the whole day in Ottowa and went on a free tour of Parliament Hill. It took 45 minutes just to get through
the security - just like at an airport (x-ray machines, empty your pockets, metal detector) and then we walked around
the grounds with lots of statues including one of the Queen on horseback. Then we saw a real Mountie on horseback!
Next on the agenda was a Greek Festival where we watched Greek dancing and had some really good food and superb
desserts that we can´t pronounce! We stayed for a few hours and then got the bus back to Parliament Hill to watch a
sound and light show. Excellent - and for free! At the end, during the last piece of music everyone stood up. Helen
wondered why everyone had got up to leave seeing as the show hadn´t finished yet. It turned out to be the Canadian
National Anthem! It finished at 9-40 pm and we got the bus back to Winnie.
On Friday, it was raining. We wanted to go and see the changing of the guard but it wouldn´t take place anyway
because of the rain. We spoke to some neighbouring RV ers and gave them our Ottowa maps. They gave us their Montréal
maps as they´d just driven down from there. Then we drove the 80 miles or so to Montréal and made the mistake of
stopping at a tourist information centre as soon as we got into Quebec province. The maps were not for free and we
were sent on a wild goose chase looking for a dump station that didn´t exist which cost us 17 miles in petrol for
nothing!
We decided straight away that we didn´t like Quebec province. The people here have forced the Canadian government to
pass legislation so that all road signs etc have to be in French throughout the whole of Canada, even in the Western
half of Canada where nobody even speaks French! It must have cost a fortune. And yet in Quebec province, the first
thing we noticed was that all the signs are ONLY in French - no English at all! Even KFC has had to change to PFK – poulet
frites a la Kentucky!!! Totally illogical!
It took us 3 hours to drive the last 20 miles to a Walmart on the outskirts of Montréal because the traffic was
horrendous and the road signs were totally inadequate! We parked up at 5-30pm and spent the next two days using the
underground and buses to explore the city.
The first problem we had was that we couldn´t buy the tourist pass at the nearest underground station. We didn´t
want to pay extra for the one way journey to an underground station where we could actually buy the pass and the man
at the ticket office certainly wasn´t going to let us through even though we told him that we wanted to buy the pass
which would then cover us for that stretch! (We hated the French even more - if that's possible!) So we walked for 45
minutes and bought our three day pass.
Our first stop was the Olympic Stadium from 1976. To get inside it cost $18 for the two of us so we had to make do
with walking around the outside and looking at the Olympic swimming pools. Then we walked across the road to the
Botanical Gardens which were free for today only, due to some kind of kids day - we tagged onto a family to get in!
Then we went to the Notré Dame and saw at least three weddings on the way!
On Sunday, our first job was to seal the alcove window with silicon to try and stop the rain from leaking in. Then we
caught the underground and buses to get to the formula one race track. Helen managed to get onto pole position! Then
we got back on the bus which drove along the race track at 20mph! We went back into the city centre and walked along
the English section where Helen was hoping to get a real English Sunday lunch. Either our map was wrong or the
English section had moved out! So Helen didn´t get her Sunday lunch after all. (Poor thing!) So we went to the cinema
instead.
Then we went to Mont Royal and St Josephs Oratory before returning to Winnie at Walmart which was right next to a
horse racing track. We spoke to a couple in another RV and gave them our tourist passes which were still valid for
another day but we had decided to leave and head for New Brunswick. In return they gave us lots of maps for Quebec
city which we want to see on our way back and invited us to come and stay with them in Florida! When you have an RV
you are automatically part of a large family of really nice people!
