20020518

May 18, 2002

Day 9

Start: Camping Transit, St Joseph-de-la-Pointe-Levy, QU
End: Camping Annie, Metis-sur-Mer, QU
Miles: 206

It was mostly sunny when we got up, but a little cool at 35f. As we got on the road, it was 45f. 

We headed east on the TCH (Trans-Canada Highway), which is route 20 here. This road is in good condition, but not great. The speed limit is the standard 100kph (62mph). Most folks were doing 110 to 120. We plugged along at 105.

The Saint Lawrence was visible much of the time on the left, and beyond it, a range of hills just beyond the north shore. We went past many small villages, each with a tall steepled church. 

The farms here are laid out on the French scheme – narrow but quite long fields, as opposed to our way of having the fields more rectangular. 

At Riviere-du-Loup (Wolf River), route 20 ended and we continued on the local road, route 132. This road’s condition varies from “ok” to “ouch”. A few sections have been redone recently, but a lot of it is patches on patches. The speed limit dropped to 90kph/55mph, and we could do that in most places.

All the towns here are long and thin, stretched out along the shore of the St Lawrence. Rimouski is a fairly large place and must stretch for seven or eight miles. Here, you can take a ferry to the north shore, to save the trouble of driving all the way west to Quebec City and then out the north shore.

The day stayed mostly sunny, with a nice light blue sky. We’re in very early spring here. Trees don’t have leaves, the forsythia is blooming, and the tulips are just poking through the surface.

Continuing, we could see that the river is getting wider. We passed a sign that said something about being the gateway to the Gaspe region.

We arrived at the campground we’d selected about 1:30 and pulled in. Then we went out to find diesel fuel and maybe a church. 

The church we found looked as though it had been locked for a long time, so we abandoned that idea. We’ll look some more tomorrow (Sunday). We did run into a station/store and filled up on diesel (more expensive here in the boondocks).

We loafed in the sun back at the campground for a few minutes, until a cloud covered the sun and the breeze reminded us that it was still only in the 50’s. There are only two occupied rigs in the place plus ours; there are several that look to be used during the season, but are empty this weekend.

This campground is has a high rating, but I can’t quite see why. The pool has been filled in. Maybe more things are set out when there are more patrons.

After a bit, we had dinner in the little house. Then we took a hike down to the river and saw the local lighthouse still active, blinking as a reference for the freighters that come by.

Dolores is watching the “African Queen” on the only English-language channel while I catch up on this typing and keeping track of expenses.

Our one wildlife sighting today was a very speedy chipmunk, legging it across the road.