Québec & New Brunswick

Preparations
South America
North America
Asia
Africa
Europe
Returning home

Canada
Québec & New Brunswick
Nova Scotia & Newfoundland
Québec & Ontario
Manitoba to the Pacific

1 Arriving in Montréal
2 Montréal
3 Olympic Village
4 Looking for a motorhome
5 To the Eastern Townships
6 Eastern Townships
7 On to Magog
8 North Hatley via USA
9 Back to Magog
10 Back to Montreal
11 The Roadtrek 170P
12 North to Beaumont
13 La Grosse Ile
14 On to Trois Pistoles
15 Still at Trois Pistoles
16 Cap Chat
17 Windmills and mooses
18 Mont Jacques Cartier
19 Mont Louis
20 Slow start to Percé
21 Percé
22 On to New Brunswick
23 Caraquet
24 Acadian Historic Village
25 South to Shediac
26 Moncton
27 Catch up in Moncton
28 On to Fundy
29 Alma, Fundy Nat Park
30 Fundy National Park
31 On to Fredericton

Québec and New Brunswick

We arrived in Canada a month earlier than planned and hit Montreal in the middle of a mini heat wave, the hottest summer they have had for fifty years. Our first experience of Canada was not good due to exceptionally unhelpful staff at American Airlines. They had managed to damage our bags en route from Ecuador and really could not care less. This was short lived and, with the exception of the odd French speaking person who had the typical French arrogance we are used to in Europe, everyone we have met since has been great.

Montréal is a fantastic city with loads to see and do. It has an historic centre which blends well with a modern commercial city and it is all rounded off with busy night life. We were fortunate enough to see a free performance by the Ballet of Canada which was superb. It was in Montréal that we bought Mortimer, our motor-home, which we will be using to travel across Canada from coast to coast. Small and compact, it has everything we need for self sufficient travel.

The Cantons de l'Est were our first experience of what has been a common theme throughout our Canadian travels: water. It's everywhere. Either rivers, streams, lakes or estuaries out to the ocean, you are never far away from water. Our route then took us along the south shore of the St Lawrence river where we stopped off to go to Grosse Ile, the entry point for millions of immigrants escaping the Irish potato famine. This is well worth a visit.

The Gaspé peninsula was great fun as it was here that we really cut our teeth learning how to live in a motor-home and where we experienced the joys and pitfalls of campsites. People were so ready to help out a couple of novices and politely gave us useful hints and tips. I am sure we created a few laughs for them along the way. From here we worked our way down through New Brunswick where the highlights were fresh lobster and the Fundy National Park. The Acadian Village at Caraquet is worth a stop but allow loads of time, you can easily spend all day here. The capital Fredericton is the first place we know that has free wireless internet across all of the downtown area. We got bored watching the tidal bore at Moncton. Unless you really want to see it, this is probably one to skip.

Would I go back? Definitely. I would love to revisit some of the places we have already been to but there is so much more to see and do I could spend months here. It feels like we barely skimmed the surface. Everywhere we went people told us about great places and it was just not possible to fit them all in.

Should you go? Oh yes, but give yourself loads of time. Each Province provides good information booklets on their area and we have relied heavily on these, only using Lonely Planet to check facts. It's really worth working out in advance what things you want to see and then devoting the time to them. The national parks are fantastic, the museums superb and they have a really good way here of sharing information and bringing everything to life for you.

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