Chicoutimi to Tadoussac

We left Chicoutimi after another gourmet breakfast, blueberries in a filo parcel with yogurt for starters, followed by croissant and then ...

As it was raining we headed to the pulp factory museum - exciting stuff, no photos allowed inside but Eric decided to behave like a hobo.

The route to Tadoussac followed the 'Valee de Biodiversitie' and there was a magnificent salmon river running through it.  We had been hoping to stop at the Bird Sanctuary at Saint Fulgence but failed to find it (turns out it wasn't open in September). Our next stop was "the pearl of the fjord', Saint Rose du Nord. If this was the pearl then they must have set the bar very low - even the tourist office was shut.  We did manage a walk to a lookout. Then on to another 'Pont Couvert' (now surmise that they may be covered to prevent them collapsing under the weight of snow). 

Next stop Baie St. Catherine where we had to pay $7 each to get into the National Park, and a 3km walk, over a rope bridge to a look out point where we did get our first glimpse of beluga whales. 

Arrived in Tadoussac for a stroll to the beach and marina. 

Then along the promenade to the a church that was built here in 1792, apparently the oldest church in North America.  

Also a Trading Post - also very old showing how life used to be for the First Nations people when trading with the Europeans. 

L'Anse Saint Jean to Chicoutimi

Leaving L'Anse Saint John we followed a road to find a 'Pont Couvert' (covered bridge) - the question is - Why? Why did people build covered bridges?  This one was full of artwork.

The 'Pont Couvert'.

We met a man who noticed we were speaking English, he said how unusual it was in this area, and proceeded to tell us lots of places to visit, including a lookout - local insider knowledge - although he only lived here in the summer and at Christmas, he was about to go back to the Turks and Caicos Islands where he lived.

View from the lookout that he advised us to see. Think the trees might have grown up a bit since he was last here! 

Stopped for a picnic just outside Saguenay - those Canadian grapes are lasting well! 

Eric at the picnic site.

Panorama from the picnic site.

Next stop Chicoutimi - booked into our B&B ( an historic house on it's own private hill) and Eric met a friend relaxing on the lawn.

Followed by a stroll through the town's parks, past some dancing fountains and along Chicoutimi promenade. These were on the site of the former docks - our home town could learn a thing or two about regeneration from here. 

Cruising the Saguenay Fjord

The big yellow boat took us on a 2 hour cruise. We went onto the upper deck and felt the wind in our hair on the outward direction - very bracing - people were putting hoods up and going downstairs where it was covered but we Celts are made of stronger stuff. 

A unique environment, there are cliffs that are 300m high and that water is up to 250m deep. 95% of the fjord is salt water! with a 6m layer of freshwater moving over the top of it.  It makes it a very special environment for marine animals, with beluga whales living here permanently. They are normally an article species, but this population has been separated from the Arctic one for 8000yrs ( since the last glaciation period). Unfortunately we didn't see any during our cruise. Apparently there are also lots of jellyfish plus other marine animals that live at about 30m - this fact was discovered by Jaques Cousteau whilst researching the fjord in a submarine. 

Eric feeling seasick.

The boat pulled in to Sainte Rose du Nord to pick more people up. The pretty looking village in the background.

The breeze died down and the sun came out at this point.  On the return journey we cruised into in Baie Eternitie, where we could see a suspension bridge between two rock faces but seemingly no path to or from it. 

Can you see the rope bridge?

Later investigation showed it to be a 'classic' 7km walk that starts from the beach and traverses the rock face to the suspension bridge - apparently it is quite safe as you are tied to the rock face as you move along (link in here) - we didn't try this walk this time! This same walk take you up to the base of a statue high on the cliffs - Notre Dame du Saguenay - apparently via lots of steps.  We did see her from the boat though.

Spot the lady.

She has been on the top of the cliff since 1881 and is made out of wood chips covered in lead sheeting!  You can see part of the path around the base.  The boat stopped at the bottom and played 'Ave Maria'.  The person on the walkway must have wondered what on earth ....

L'Anse Saint Jean and the Saguenay Fjord

There was a lovely view from the chalet across the fjord, and again the weather was very variable with fog rolling in interspersed with bright sunshine.

Eric enjoying the view.

Fog on the far side of the Fjord.

As we were making our own breakfast today, we couldn't quite match yesterday's but were very healthy having lots of fruit, muesli and organic bread. We strolled down to the marina to wait for the cruise boat that would take us on a tour of the fjord.  

There was no mistaking this species!

Ironic that this was the first bird we could definitely ID. 

Baie Saint Paul To L'Anse Saint Jean

Started off on the regaining luggage day with a superb breakfast at the B&B.  It was a real work of art and tasted equally delicious, wish we'd taken a photo.  We had a stroll around the town, which had lots of artists shops and a very European flavour.  We were surprised at how very French the area is

Wish we'd swotted up before we came as very little English is spoken and very few English speaking people about generally.  Whilst waiting for the luggage to arrive we had a trip along the St Lawrence Seaway, stoping at a couple of the villages along the way.  The best of these was down a very steep hill to a sleepy village called Saint-Joseph de la Rive, with a Maritime Museum, a Captain's walk along the bay, some snow geese ( we think) and a boulangerie with some delicious 'Chausson aux Pomme' Mmmm. 

 

Boat at the Maritime Museum

View from The Captains Walk

We think these are snow geese!

Confirmed later by national park ranger

The fog rolls in quite spookily as we drive up to L'Anse Saint Jean.

No pictures of the purchases from the boulangerie because we'd eaten them! 

Luggage regained

Don't have to worry about the bags. Picked it up last night at a gas station where the airline had delivered them. 

Now at L'Anse St. Jean on the Saguenay fjord. 

View from our chalet window. 

Canada at last

Well we arrived in Canada and our first B&B is just fantastic with views out over Baie St. Paul.

The flights were fine with just a little hiccup. 

Virgin Atlantic had us in the US with minimal delay and we were through customs in about 20 minutes contrary to the 3-4 hours we were told to expect. 

With 5 hours to wait for the connection to Montreal we settled in to Newark airports way of life which turned out to be continually changing the departure gate before deciding to cancel the flight after 10 hours waiting. Then we we're put up in an airport hotel to fly on the following day. There were no seats available on any direct flight to Montreal so we had to catch a flight to Quebec then connect to Montreal just to pick up a car to drive back to Quebec which was our intended first night stop. 

Our most comfortable plane journey was in this Dash-8 which reminded me most of our MG, but had better acceleration and wings obviously. 

Unfortunately our luggage went somewhere else and we may receive it today, so it's lucky we had planned for that and packed the industrial strength deodorant. 

If no bag turns up we will have to start shopping!  There are some nice boutiques in town. 

Manhatten from the Newark monorail. The closest we got or wanted to be to New York.