Day 12 - Grand Falls to St. Fulgence, QC

We all felt tired from yesterday’s adventures on bad roads and such, despite a quiet and very comfortable sleep at the hotel. We got breakfast in the hotel and prepped the bikes with optimism that we wouldn’t have rain today. Radar suggested we may get rain about 10am. Since the rain gear takes a while to put on, we opted for our rain pants to start.

Since we were in the area we had to see the Grand Falls that makes this town famous. Michele had looked up photos online and was expecting a mini Niagara. As we drove over the bridge leading to the parking area, Rob said “Oh, it’s only a grand trickle.”

Each spring the dam gates are opened to allow for snow melt and “a few months later” about 90% is diverted to the power plant. We must have just missed it, but it was cool anyway.

After the quick stop, we drove north to St. Lawrence River which we would follow down and around all day.

Soon we entered Quebec, a new province for us!

Instead of following interstate 20 we took the Riviere du Loup, a road that runs by the river, in the hopes of better views. We were not disappointed despite the gray skies. Many of the towns were very quaint and farmlands were right on the floodplain. The river had a strange hue to it due to the rain storm.

We had lunch at Restaurant La Voliere. This was our first experience with a French menu, luckily they had English translations. Rob also looked up words on a translator app, so we added to our small library of French vocabulary today. We all opted for the daily special. Rob and Jerry had spaghetti with shrimp and Michele had a beef stew.  The starter was a vegetable soup. Everything was so delicious and unexpected given the restaurant is in a shopping strip on a very busy retail road.

After lunch and back on the bike, Rob decided that the Wing’s French speaking GPS was not helpful and confusing matters. We navigated through town and got back on TransCanada 2 to TransCanada 185.

In Quebec City the GPS navigated us to a ferry, which we didn’t prefer to take due to time. However, the roads leading to it were steep and scenic.

Getting back on track was tricky and we encountered early rush hour traffic at 3:30pm. After a confusing series of about eight turns we ended up back on the river route.

After Quebec City we followed TC 75 North. Rob said that as if someone snapped their fingers, the traffic from the city disappeared. We had smooth roads and great views of evergreen mountains for 150 miles.

Since gas stops were few and very far between Quebec City and Saguenay, we took a break 84 miles out. We saw a camper trailer pulling a trailer pulling a small boat on a trailer. Jerry wondered how that guy backs up? Looking down the road where we came from, the skies were very dark and menacing. No sooner did we mention we should get moving when the skies opened up on us.

We had rain solid for 84 miles, and hard pouring rain at that. Temps got down to 55 degrees. We noticed an abundance of moose signs, all in French, apparently warning us of high alert areas. The highway had very tall fencing to help prevent Moose wandering into the highway. After about 60 miles, Michele spotted a gorgeous Moose right next to the fence! Jerry was about to catch a glimpse also. We deserved to see something great today given the terrible weather conditions. Since it was raining hard, Michele didn’t have her camera out for the last leg of the trip. She also saw a light brown and black fluffy fox trotting near the ditch by the road.

We were a bit apprehensive about the road leading into the hotel, assuming it would be gravel. Or worse, slippery mud going downhill! We spotted the hotel up on the hill and had a short mix of pavement and gravel. Michele debated about staying at the hotel since it was very possible the weather would prevent us from enjoying the view, which was the whole point. Of course, we couldn’t have been more socked in with fog!

After unloading the bikes and quickly getting covers on them in the rain, we got settled and went downstairs to dinner. This little guy was chomping on weeds outside our window.

The kind young gent who runs the front desk was also our waiter. Soon more people from the hotel showed up at the restaurant. The menu was 100% in French, uh oh! The waiter said he would explain everything as best he could in English. In the meantime, Rob and Michele tried looking online to translate. Michele saw a lot of shrimp, foie gras and other items not to her taste and instead chose the braised ribs with vegetables. Jerry got the two mini burgers and Rob ordered the chorizo casserole. Everything was so good! We reminisced about the day, our moose sighting and favorite parts of the trip. 

Tomorrow we continue our trip through French Canada and head for St. Jerome, just north of Montreal.