Click on a photo to enlarge it.
On Monday, we drove back along the peninsula, stopping at one of the boardwalks. They wanted $7 per person to do the
short boardwalk!! So we took a photo and drove off! We drove through Bathurst which was supposed to be a really nice
town, according to the brochure, but it was ugly! Not our day so far. But that changed when we got to Campbellton - it
wasn´t the worlds largest salmon (8m (35ft) high) but the Alpine slide at Sugar Loaf Provincial Park! We went up on a ski
lift and then came down the slide - great fun. And, we got to do it twice for the same price!
We headed back into Quebec province where a mad French lorry driver took a bend too fast and Helen had to swerve to
avoid it! Tuesday was a driving day to get us close to Quebec City where we spent the day on Wednesday. We drove past
Montmorency Falls, as the entrance fee was too high and then we went for a walk along the gorge, over suspension
bridges to see the waterfalls at St. Anne.
Then we drove into Quebec City. It turned out to be quite an adventure - we´d just stopped at some traffic lights and
when they turned to green we drove round a bend and were immediately faced with a huge, and very steep hill right in
front of us. There was a line of traffic behind us, and Helen had no choice but to put Winnie into first gear and
stand on the accelerator. Helen was gripping the steering wheel so tightly, and holding her breath that she went very
red in the face! Both of us said out loud "Oh Sh ... We´re not going to make it!" We crawled up that hill at a snails
pace with Winnies engine kicking and screaming all the way! It took a long time, but we eventually made it and let
out a huge sigh of relief!
We found a parking spot and paid for 3 hours and then went for a walk around the city. It is the worlds 4th most
visited city in the world, after Sydney, London and Paris and its easy to see why. The citadel (fortress) was built
on top of the hill (the one Winnie just struggled to get up) and forms part of the wall that was built around what is
now the old city. Just outside the walls there is an area called Petit Champlain where we walked along the narrow,
cobblestone roads. Very quaint.
We cooked Chinese in Winnie for evening meal and then went to see Quebec by night. Just after 8pm we drove out of
Quebec and managed to avoid the steep hill. We stopped at the first picnic area on highway 20, but due to a number of
unsavoury characters milling around in the dark, we moved on to the next one 35 miles further south and stayed for
the night.
On Thursday, we set off early for a days driving back into Ontario. We heard about a bad traffic accident on the west
side of Montreal that had blocked both sides of the highway we were currently on and had intended to stay on, all the
way to Ontario. So we had to get the maps out and work out an alternative route. Unfortunately, the tourist
information places in Quebec province do not give out maps for free, like they do everywhere else, so we were working
with maps that were not very detailed. Thus we were working partly blind and ended up heading for what we hoped was a
road that crossed the river, to avoid Montreal at all costs. The other problem we had was rain - lots of it! This was
the back end of Hurricane Francis that had just done a lot of damage in Florida. It was bad enough for us but we
certainly didn´t want to experience it at its full strength!
The rain caused flooding at construction work along the highway, so Winnie got his under side washed! Then another
construction site on our detour took us along a very narrow stretch of road through a tunnel. This is where we saw a
lot of traffic coming in the other direction including a large number of lorries. So we knew we weren´t the only ones
who´d heard about the accident and that our chosen detour would indeed get us across the river.
We finally got back into Ontario and said "good riddance" to the French! We celebrated by stopping off at the Hershey
(chocolate) factory in Smiths Falls and just couldn´t leave empty handed!!! Apparently, there are more factories in
Pennsylvania, America which just happens to be on our planned route in October or November!!! Hershey chocolate is
not Cadbury´s of course and even though neither of us had ever eaten it before, we couldn´t resist the 1.5 kg bag of
broken almond and toffee bits for $6 - that's about 15 bars! And now we´re hooked!
We headed for a Passport America campground for the night, but it was quite flooded and we had a hard time finding a
spot that we would be able to drive out of again the next morning! On Friday, we woke up to sunshine and blue skies!
We drove across to a place called Haliburton which is about 100 miles north-east of Toronto where we´d read about the
Haliburton Forest and Wildlife Reserve in the tourist info and it looked good. The reserve is north of Haliburton, at
Kennilis Lake. We stopped for the night on the banks of the lake and made our first dent in the Hershey chocolate. At
this rate, it won´t last very long!
On Saturday, we went for an 8 mile walk around lakes and through forests. There was also a race on that day - 50km,
50 mile and 100 mile running race! The 100 mile race was an overnighter and would take 30 hours!! Our chosen walk
route took us along parts of the race route and we certainly wouldn´t want to walk it in the dark, let alone run it!
Those people must be mad! It was a really nice walk, though we were glad to get back to Winnie for a sit down
afterwards!
We took advantage of the fact that there were showers and also stayed for the night. On Sunday, we drove around the
corner and went to the Wolf Centre which was really interesting. The wolves have 15 acres of forest for them to roam
and you view them from the visitor centre through large windows. In front of the one way glass there is a small area
that doesn´t have as many trees and so when the sun is out, the wolves come here to bask in it during the day. Which
is a good job, otherwise you wouldn´t get to see them! We stayed for 4 hours, watching a video, looking at the
various displays and watching the wolves. They have a very strict hierarchy and the Alpha male is the boss. You can
tell by their behaviour who is higher up in the ranking system, those who are lower have to show deference by holding
their tails underneath their bodies for example. There are only 10 wolves at the centre at the moment and we were
lucky to be able to see all of them and they were also quite active which is why we stayed so long to watch them.
Grey wolves at Haliburton Forest Wolf Centre.
