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The ride from Ottawa to Quebec City via routes 148, 344 and 138 was some of the best scenery we have ever driven/ridden through. I know I will have trouble finding words other than beautiful, spectacular, pretty, impressive, and gorgeous to describe most of the route. If anyone plans to drive this part of the country and has time to spare, take this way. Avoid the Trans Canada no matter what. The route is lined with farmstead after farmstead, cut out of the landscape into long skinny plots with the short end butting up against either the Ottawa River or the St. Lawrence. It reminded me, on a larger scale and rivers excepted, of Lincolnshire, the county in which I was born and grew up, where one small intimate village comprising brick cottages, farmhouses, bed and breakfasts tightly arranged, their porches and front doors just feet from the road at times, is joined to another village by a short stretch of windy rural road. I commented to Ian at the time that I could absolutely live in any one of the villages we passed through. We saw more horses, cows, sheep, chickens and clothes on the line than we have during
our cross-country travel thus far. These winding roads with typical speed limits of 90 are fantastic on the bikes and it was great to practice our riding skill without worrying about other traffic on the road. I even got to practice, heart in throat, riding over another long and narrow metal deck wiggle bridge with big drops off the side into deep rivers below. Sign me terrified. I must confront this fear before the trip is over.
The morning started out a little shaky. At 6:30 am we left the hotel in Ottawa for Quebec City and within 10 minutes, we had already pulled into the first Tim Hortons we could find in Gatineau QC to wait out a torrential downpour that came on shortly after we left. This darn weather. We decided to have coffee and breakfast. Trying to be respectful of the Quebecois, I ordered in french: je voudrais, pour ici, un cafe noir, moyen, un cafe au lait, deux bagels avec confiture de fraises et beurre d'arachides. Merci. I didn't have a nanosecond to either feel slightly smug or a smidgeon of pride. In fact, it was the opposite and you can imagine how terribly gutted
I felt when the server replied en anglaise "would you prefer to order in English?". You have got to be kidding me. Was it that bad? Come on, I took 4th year french at UVic 27 years ago. Albeit, with little practice since (Maryse, francais seulement s'il te plait when we go out from now on!). Oh well I tried. The rumours among the general population in our part of Canada are, in our opinion, wrong and uninformed. EVERYONE here has spoken in english to us, without attitude. Au contraire to our expectations, most have gone out of their way to ask us our story, in English. We end up apologising for not being able to converse better en francais, and I resolve to brush up on my french language skills long before we return here for another visit, simply out of respect for the wonderful people we have met in this province.
So back to the route, once the rain let up. Route 148 from Ottawa to the outskirts of Montreal runs along the winding Ottawa River. We thought we were making good progress an hour and a half into the route, when we got onto Route 344
to bypass Montreal with the goal of intersecting route 138. We were suddenly worried about how long this section of the route would take us. Somebody of importance here is in bed with either the police department or their local politician and is dictating traffic speed and pattern. What I am about to describe knocks the pants off the 30k speed limit and parking bylaws in Uplands. I'm talking about stop signs. At EVERY intersection in the village of Grenville. You get to the first one and think OK, just a stop sign. Stop and go. One block later, and a small block at that, another stop sign. Then another one in the third block. Then another one. For 110 intersections. Yes, 110 counted altogether, within the village and approximately 10 kms further. Think about the nightmare this would be in a car with manual transmission, then imagine it on the bike, where you also have to put your foot down so you don't fall over every time you stop. It goes something like this: Stopped. In first gear, left hand fingers on clutch, let it out slowly, bike moves, foot up, speed up to second gear, fingers pull clutch
lever in, switch into second gear with left foot on the gear lever. Clutch out, speed up to third gear, clutch in and switch, oh and here comes a stop sign, slow down to second, clutch in, gear change, slow down to stop, clutch into first, stop, foot down or drop the bike. Clutch held in. OK to go. Clutch out. Shift up, shift up, shift down, shift down. Brake. Foot. Clutch in. Clutch out. Balance. Second, third, second, first. Brake. foot. Second, third, second. Screw having to stop, screw having to put foot down. Balance. Quick look. Keep going. Oh look another stop sign. You've got to be kidding me. And that's when we started to count them. It would be the equivalent distance of driving home from Cordova Bay through Mt. Doug Park. I will NEVER again complain about the 12 lights along the way. My left hand has never cramped up that badly in my life. There's ridiculous, then there's ridiculous. Someone get me highway, please, where we can exceed 30 km/hr. Please.
Be careful what you wish for. Route 344 on the outskirts of Montreal connects into 138 continuing on to Quebec City alongside the
St. Lawrence River. Somewhere between stop signs we missed the connection and ended up on the Trans Canada for about 10 minutes where we thought we were going to die. Kristal: you were so right about Montreal drivers. It was madness, insanity, fear for your life, heart racing, blood pressure maxed out, due to crazy drivers following as close as 20 feet behind you doing 120 km/hr, then passing you and cutting right back in front of you with no warning or signal, and cars merging between our two bikes (even though we are riding as one unit, staggered in the lane with a second between us), and cars switching lane for no apparent reason other than they felt like it. Add to the mix a deeply grooved highway that insists on controlling the steering of the bikes regardless of how much you try to override it, swaying from one side of the lane to the other at times. Get us the f__k out of here. Give me STOP signs. PLEASE. As many as you have. I don't care. We got off at some random exit and pulled over to find the route back to 138 and recompose ourselves.
Route 138 rewarded us with much of the same as route 148, with rural, rolling scenery that never got old. We didn't want it to end. The wind picked up throughout the day, and we passed about 30 kite surfers on the St. Lawrence in one small village taking advantage of the conditions. We started to see freighters on the river, but have yet to see any pleasurecraft. It's just too cold and windy right now. We rolled into Quebec City just after 6 pm, almost 12 hours since leaving Ottawa, only 440 kms away. I am going to defer describing our entry until tomorrow given the length of today's blog, but stay tuned. If only we had had the video camera mounted on the bike. We are at the Champlain Hotel Old Quebec City within the fortress walls and LOVING it. More tomorrow.
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