We're in Prince Edward Island now

Bridge to PEI, from the PEI side

Aug 26, Wednesday 

We were away from our Quebec Camping Transit spot about 8am Wednesday, a misty morning to start. We had a couple of neighbours overnight. One couple from Kansas in a small camper van and one couple camping with their Subaru Outback, sleeping in there with their small dog (!). We really appreciated the room in our van this morning:

The morning cleared as we went, and we were soon through Quebec and onward in to New Brunswick. There is still some major road construction in Quebec as we approach the NB border, but off to the side of the current road. Plenty of slowdowns for minor road work, but no construction stoppages:

 

 

There used to be a pulloff from the old highway to a rest stop with great views of the St John river. Access to that lookout was removed with the newer highways, but we rediscovered the location this time. It's off the highway and not quite as high as the old one, but a nice rest stop that looks made for cyclists more than autos. A pretty spot on a great day:

Today we mostly tried to follow one of New Brunswick's designated scenic drive routes, the River Valley Scenic Drive. It follows the St John river more closely than the newer Trans Canada Hwy 2 route does, using some of the older roads that used to be the main roads in years gone by. 

We managed to get a NB map in the tourist info section of the Potato Museum near Florenceville-Bristol that has the scenic routes marked:

Road signs with the fiddlehead symbol above mark the River Valley Scenic Drive pretty well, but the map does help too.  

The surface of these roads is pretty bumpy in places, and much slower than following the modern Trans Canada 4-lane path, but more to look at than the hills and trees you see from Hwy 2.  

While at the museum we toured the Potato World museum itself. Interesting old tools and potato info:

A quilt in the museum caught Cathie's eye

Later we came to the famed covered bridge at Hartland, one of the longest bridges of its type. We just took a picture of the entrance today, having many pictures of the bridge from previous blogs:

 
Later we decided to find a camp spot around Woodstock NB, and did stay at Connor Park campground, touted as very clean campground and restrooms. We were so tired that we stayed there, regretting it afterwards. I won't go into details about the appalling restroom near our site. Maybe a work in progress, I hope. We payed too much for an unserviced site, basically a parking spot but on grass, which was nice. Next day we found a Walmart about 1.5 km away in Woodstock that would have done us just as well, free and with fully-functional washrooms. 

 

 

Aug 27, Thursday

After breaking camp we visited the town of Woodstock, where we found the accomodating Walmart. We didn't need it now of course, but it's on the list for any future trips.

Another fine day, we followed hwy 165 from Woodstock along the St John river. The town of Meductic caught our eye:

A community event coming up shortly

Town park on the St John river

The highway bridge we crossed is in the background

Fisherman trying his luck

 

We toured the town (didn't take long) and noticed a large industrial-type building. Looking it up afterwards we found the reason there were a lot of cars parked at the building:

A business like this is a real asset for any small town, and likely accounts for the apparent prosperity of the town.

  
By the time we were past Fredericton we needed a break, so turned off to the town of Gagetown. We knew it is right on a side channel of the St John river, and sure enough they have a nice town park/picnic area at the water:

Not sure what this artsy statue represents

  

Hard to see, a friendly cat joined me on the bench

Nice town dock, complete with plug-in power available

 

We know we're out East when boats like this start showing up:

   

 

 

Waddya mean we're in Quebec! How did that happen?

 

Aug 24 Monday

Yay, we're on the road again, heading to Canada's Atlantic provinces! It was a grey rainy day a lot of the time. We started the trip by going north then east to visit my sister Beth and her hubby Sandy in Perth, parking in their driveway overnight.

By mid-afternoon we made it as far as the town of Marmora. Still damp but we had a walk around anyway.

A memorial to the area's mining heritage

A nice park at the town tourist info centre

Since we had a late breakfast about 10 am, we had a burger in town here for a late lunch. By about 5:30 we were at S&B's place, and had a good visit in the evening over a bottle of wine, before I had to call it a night.

Our overall route today. Once again we kept north of the 401 highway, but this time we stayed south of Lake Simcoe, so a pretty direct route along Hwy 9 then Hwy 7 to Perth. 

 

 Here's a blowup of the middle part of the route:

 

 Aug 25 Tuesday

Today we set out to go through Quebec on our way to the Atlantic provinces. First we headed to Smiths Falls, and down to the 401 highway. The main highway is ok once on east from Toronto, as we were headed now.

This ship went through a canal lock as we went by in Smiths Falls

The lock gates

 

We decided to try a different route than our usual Hwy 30 back up to 20 etc,  by heading east on Hwy 10 towards Sherbrooke, then working out way northeast back up to Hwy 20 near Quebec City. First we had to cross the relatively new bridge to get to Hwy 30 on the east side of the St Lawrence river: 

We took the Hwy 30/40 turnoff

A lake freighter that would have transited the St Lawrence locks

The route worked out, but we soon tired of it. Early traffic was heavy, the later more rural drive was hilly and heavily treed, even next to the road. So few views of the area landscape. We soon headed up to Drummondville, back on the Trans Canada hwy 20. 

We knew we weren't going to make it into New Brunswick today, so managed to get past Quebec City before we stopped for the night at a park called Camping Transit. Just off Hwy 20 so some road noise, but not bad.