Canada August 2022: From Seashore to Lakeshore

Today was going to be a slightly longer driving day. We fuelled up on fruit gratin, toast and scrambled eggs with tomatoes and cheese plus multiple cups of Marks and Spencer's tea - it might be our last proper tea for a while!

We are heading for Montmagny to visit an ecological reserve important for Snow Geese and the bird observatory. For the moment it still appears that the best road to take follows the coast.

We pass a church with a very steep steeple.

A few signs for nudist beaches with cartoon naked families on. Eric says he wants to keep his clothes on as it's much too cold for that sort of thing this time of year. We saw these last time we were in Canada and mentioned it in the blog, but think we didn't have a pic then.

We are in a very rural agricultural area and there are more tractors on the roads than cars at some points.

With all that tea it wasn't long before we needed a Muncipal Halte. As usual this delivered some good views, sculptures and picnic tables (although we don't need those just yet).

Eric takes the opportunity to bathe in the sunshine.

Although before too long he is off visiting the sculptures. Now, is this one supposed to just represent trees, or is it more complex, showing trees meeting the ocean and the sea then the rocks.

And this one? Mmm.

Their is also an information board about the various lighthouses around here, although we can only see the one.

A closer look with the zoom reveals a very grey affair, but I guess it's there to serve a function not to look pretty for tourists.

Plus what looks like it may be a ski resort in the winter on the opposite site of the St Lawrence Estuary.

Moving on, between the woodcarving capital of Quebec at Saint Jean Port Joli and L'Islet sur Mer as we are driving along we see some very white looking birds sitting on the water. We manage to find a small pull-in, although it looks like a drive to a tiny adjacent cabin, but no-one is around and there is not the usual 'Prive' sign, so we risk it.

Those specks of white are mostly all Snow Geese

And more are landing all the time.

Thought these looked rather like the three flying plaster ducks people often used to have on their walls in the 1950's

Mixed in with them is a smattering of Canada Geese, and a few ducks come to join them

Plus a hawk - perhaps looking for an easy meal.

The tide is coming in and the Snow Geese are moving in convoy to a small area protected by reeds in front of us. You may just be able to make out the curved line of white geese - it was quite amazing to watch. Quite noisy too, although they make a different sound to Canada Geese.

This allows us some better views.

We end up being here for a while before making for our original planned destination of Montmagny and the information centre for the birds. As this is supposedly the prime spot to see the Snowgeese we check in the centre to see if there are any good places to see them. They tell us that they haven't arrived here yet, so we tell them we've just seen thousands a little further east on the coast. The lady requests some photographic evidence and is very pleased when we show her. Not much point in hanging around here then. We decide to hit the main road to make up a bit of time.

As you can see, we are not allowed to dawdle along here!

We make reasonable time now and head for North Hatley via Magog. Since we are in the area we thought we would see if the shop where some earrings and matching necklace were purchased two years ago, one of which (earring that is) was lost while on the Wings over Whales adventure in New Zealand. For those of you familiar with blog you may remember this episode. Incredibly, the shop is still there and open, even though it's a Sunday and past five-o-clock, and what's more they have a pair of the same earrings - sorted!

Check into our evening's stop and Eric checks out the view.

Then goes out to check out the rest of the village.