I feel like I am home. We are back at one of our favourite Quebec campgrounds, Îles-de-Boucherville.
There are a series of islands in the middle of the St. Lawrence River. You can hear Montreal from here, but for the most part you can't see Montreal.
Here's a map, showing how close we are to the city. The most difficult part of coming here is getting off Hwy 20 in a construction zone pulling a trailer. They are still working on the road leading to the tunnel which goes under the St. Lawrence.
The St. Lawrence is as beautiful as ever. There is something about this part of La Belle Province which is timeless.
We arrived on Thursday and took a short bike ride near the campground. During Covid times they've installed some fun activity centres here and there throughout the islands. Ted is being Ted here.
I wanted to explore some new-to-me bike paths south of Montreal. The weather forecast was for hotter days ahead, so we decided to do that yesterday. We made our way to a small town, Marieville which is on La Route des Champs rails-to-trails bicycle path. There are quite a few really good bike/hike paths in this part of the province. They all connect to each other too, so you can do a loop.... or boucle. That would take more time and ambition than we have at this point in our lives.
But first......... time for lunch. Restaurant Le Brac was listed on our brochure as being near the bicycle trail. Because Ted still has a bad cough, we decided to eat outside - in the smoking area. I went in to order from the all-French menu. High school French had to kick in. The waitress was so accommodating. She even raced back into the kitchen to get a box of teabags for me to choose from. We wondered what I ordered. Looks like a lot, doesn't it?
Ham, scrambled eggs (over-easy for me), baked beans, brown toast, home fries, a pancake, and fresh pieces of pineapple, cantaloupe and orange. But, the best part was the three little containers with real maple syrup, home-made strawberry jam and something that tasted like the liquid part of a sugar pie. Oh yum!!! I think the price was around $11 each.
You are drooling.
Now you are really drooling.
Starting in the little town of Marieville sounded like an easy thing to do. We didn't know about the detours. The path came out right next to the restaurant, but there was no indication of where to go from there. I stopped a young lady who was biking by and she told me about a cool, narrow path that went behind the stores and houses across the road. That got us going, but it ended with again no clear way to go. Then we met this guy. You probably can't tell it from looking at him but he is an angel. After asking him where to go, he said "suis-moi". I clued in that he was saying "follow me" and we followed this random-stranger-who-really-was-an-angel. We zigzagged through the town, hoping we would remember how to get home.
The trail is flat as a pancake and smooth. Do you see the mountains in the distance?
I love how mountains popped up randomly in this part of the province.
There are clean portable washrooms.....
....... and great maps every so often along the way.
We only biked around 25 km yesterday because Ted's cold is not quite over. We ended up in Rougemont where your apple juice comes from. They still have a lot of big old trees, not like ours in Northumberland.
Parts of the trail went through lovely deciduous forests. Farmland and forests, what could be better? And, then when we were just wondering if we'd be able to figure out all of the zig-zags in Marieville, our angel reappeared and asked us if we were OK? We said that we were and zig-zagged right back to the truck.
This morning, I took my camera to where I get free internet. The sun was just rising over a small channel next to the path.
A mom and her two young ones (can you see them?) were having breakfast. They eat healthier than we do.
There are very few people out at 6:30. But, this guy and his buddy had arrived by motorcycle from Longuille. He'd never been in the park before and before long he was showing me pictures of his dogs.
I've changed Quebec's tagline from La Belle Province to La Province Amie - The Friendly Province.
Who knows what today will bring?
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