Sept. 16th, 2024, Day 20 East Coast - Parc National du Bic to Ottawa

This was our last day of the trip. Again the weather was nice. We packed up our gear, had breakfast and then started the drive from Rimouski home. We mostly used the various highways. Our first stop was a coffee stop for Margaret at the next Tim Hortens adjacent to the road.

Our next stop was at Fromagerie des Basques in Trois Pistoles. This is a very large fromagerie in a relatively new building. They also sell bread, sausages and dairy products. We bought some cheese from them.

We also visited Poissonnerie Verseau 11 in Trois Pistoles and bought more smoke fish items.

Then we continued our drive to the Costco in Quebec City. On the way we ended up in a 20 minute traffic jam close to Quebec City. At the Costco we filled up gas, bought more cheese and some bottles of wine that are not available in Ottawa.

We had a lunch stop a Parc des Berges near the town of Donnacona. This was a very nice stop. There were benches and a washroom in a nice setting with trees. Having nice baguettes with smoked fish items and cheese also helped lifting our spirits. Afterwards we continued our drive to Les Fromageries de la Table Ronde. The fromagerie is located north of Montreal and Google Maps guided us even earlier north than we expected to avoid rush hour traffic jams in the Montreal area. We made it in time to the fromagerie and bought a decent amount of cheese (Fleuron, Menestrel, and Fou du Roi (a new cheese of theirs)).

Now we embarked on our last leg towards Ottawa. Google Maps guided us on very rural roads to avoid further traffic jams close to the St. Jerome/Mirabel area and then we finally were on the right highway without much traffic towards Gatineau. The remainder of the trip was uneventful. Only the low sun in the evening sky was a bit of a nuisance while approaching Gatineau. Anyway, we made it safely home. 

Sept. 15th, 2024, Day 19 East Coast - Rimouski and Parc National du Bic

We started breakfast at Brûlery d'Ici in Rimouski. Margaret was in need for a coffee to get started and this was the right breakfast place.

 

Afterwards we walked through the whole downtown of Rimouski and before we ran out of ideas we got more pointers in the local tourist office. The water front and the downtown of Rimouski are worthwhile a visit.

 

We had lunch at Le Crepe Chignon. This place can be recommended as well. It is still as good as 7 or so years ago when I visited Rimouski with Gongyu and Daniella.

Other places we visited were Poissonnerie Ste-Odile, Poissonnerie Gagnon (this was the best poissonerie we have visited on this trip),

 

and Fromage en Tete right in the downtown in the market hall. It was difficult to scale down the quantities of the various smoked fish items :-). Actually resistance was futile. We bought a decent amount.

In the afternoon we returned to Ferme Rioux. Margaret wanted to complete the whole trail from Cap a l'Orignal towards Fourche-a-Louison and return via LeScoggan (basically completing the Le-Grand-Tour). 

 

 

 

 

I happily declined this opportunity and had a seat in the Ferme Rioux visitor center and started to work on a handful of blog posts. I also had a good look at the artist pictures on offer in the Visitor center and ended up buying one. Margaret completed Le-Grand-Tour just before sundown (again using the low tide window) and I managed to post a few blogs. After Margaret came back from the trail we visited Bay-du-Haha! and watched the remainder of the sundown. Then it was time for us to return to the campsite.

Sometime in the night we both woke up because a train nearby blew its horn every minute or so. Also, plenty of truck braking was happening relatively close to our campsite. But the train horn was distinctive enough to wake us up.

Sept. 14th, 2024, Day 18 East Coast - Kouchibouguac NP, Bathhurst, Dalhousie, Campbellton, Parc National du Bic, Rimouski

Today we had nice weather again. We fold up the tent and headed for a Tim Hortens in Miramichi via the highway to have breakfast. We also crossed a good portion of the Acadian peninsula using the highway. About 15km before Bathhurst we left the highway and followed route 134 into Bathhurst downtown (from then on we followed the scenic route along the coast until we reached Campbellton).

We tried to park in Bathhurst downtown but did not find immediately a suitable parking lot. After seeing a portion of downtown from the car while looking for a parking lot we decided to continue driving. We stopped at the Poissonnerie Arseneau to buy some smoked fish. Then we continued along the shore of Chaleur Bay following the Acadian Shores Road Trip signs towards Dalhousie and Campbellton. We had a nice dinner at Charlo Beach near Dalhousie. There was a parking lot right at the beach with a few benches and a washroom. We had a baguette style lunch while enjoying nice view across the water to Gaspe Peninsula. Then we continued towards Campbellton. All along from getting into Bathhurst and driving along the shore towards Dalhousie we encountered again plenty of house with Acadian stars over the entrance areas and telephone posts painted with Acadian flags like the day before. I am surprised how much national identity symbols are on display everywhere in this area.

 

In Campbellton downtown we had a short stop and walked a portion of the town and the shoreline.

Then we continued our drive towards Quebec. We crossed over into Quebec at Matapedia. The drive from Matapedia towards Mont-Joli at the St. Lawrence shore is very scenic despite driving a highway. Amqui is a town that lingers in my head (it has a very nice ski hill). We had another baguette stop at Lac Matapedia. Then we continued our drive and finally saw the St. Lawrence river. From there it was only a short highway drive to Parc National du Bic. It was a Saturday and we wanted to make sure we had a campsite there. The campground was very full, but we still got a site. Actually it was the "worst" camping site we had on the whole trip ;-). After setting up the tent we went back to Rimouski for dinner at Parfum de Coree. We enjoyed a good Korean dinner there. We also managed to buy some baguettes at Boulangerie Le Farinographe.

 

Afterwards we drove back to Parc National du Bic and even managed to hike the trail from Ferme Rioux (Visitor Center) to Cap a l'Orignal along the St. Lawrence shore. We just made it to Cap a l'Orignal at around sundown (we needed low tide) and returned to Ferme Rioux via the Le-ContraBandier trail. The walk late in the evening was every bit as scenic as the one I had done 6 or 7 years earlier with Daniella. The trail can only be walked at low tide. Back then, we also walked into the sundown. We crawled very satisfied into our tent this night.