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 alone 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.