I was up early to continue the packing. I didn't do any exercise again as my leg is still bad and I really need it to get better.
I didn't have a time in mind that I wanted to leave by but assumed it would be before lunchtime. We couldn't check in until 3pm anyway and Ellis always sleeps in these days.
We just about managed to cram everything into Rob's car and we set off on our journey, with sat nav saying 2hr 47min to our destination. I was just hoping it wouldn't end up horrendous like our last visit when the M5 was closed and it took us nearly 8 hours to get to Newquay, with a screaming baby and an unhappy toddler. 😩
The boys all did great and we were soon pulling up to our holiday house.
The usual excitement ensued and the boys ran around the house trying to decide what bedroom they wanted and where they wanted to put their stuff.
We unloaded the car, looked around and I set about unpacking. Rob had a snooze on the sofa and once I had finished I had a lie down on the roof terrace, resting my leg and enjoying the sun and views, it was lush.
Oscar was adamant that he wanted to go to the beach. We said we would go down but not take all the stuff like chairs etc, so that they could have a paddle.
Ellis didn't want to get in which was a shame. He just won't let himself go. He moans about the sand and the cold water and even if I say I'll hire him a wetsuit, he won't go in. 🤷
We did a quick shop around a Sainsbury's local and Rob wanted fish and chips for dinner so he dropped us all home to get clean and warm and he went off to pick it up. We then sat out on the balcony watching the sun go down.
I spent the rest of the evening with my leg up watching The Fall and Rob assumed a similar position.
We all went to bed rather late and I suspect most of us will have a lie in tomorrow. 🤞
Where they to? 16th August Quebec City
The only remaining Huron (first nation American-Indians) reservation is situated 17 kilometres North-West of Quebec City and a place called Wendake (pronounced when-dah-kay). A bus ride there costs $2.50 - about £1.10 - but, conscious that this adventure is as much about the journey as the destination, we handed over $44 and hired a couple of bikes with the intention of putting ourselves through a tortuous 34km round-trip. If you've been reading our earlier diary entries, it won't come as a shock to you to find out that, within 10 minutes, we were lost. In theory, there's a cycle path running from outside the door of the cycle shop, all the way to Wendake. In practice, the trail went dead and we found ourselves sitting on the side of a 6 lane highway wondering where we'd gone wrong. After a fair bit of backtracking, we eventually found the cycle path again. The ride to Wendake was a gradual uphill incline, pretty much all the way, which gave us the reassurance that as long as we made it there, we'd be able to free-wheel our way back.
Unfortunately, we had to hire girls bikes as a group of 30 turned up a while before us and took all of the bloke's ones. This made the bikes more uncomfortable than the ones we hired in Vancouver for 2 reasons. Firstly, the frame is smaller and, while you can still elevate the saddle, the handlebars are too close and you end up riding hunched up. Secondly, and most crucially, the saddle is smaller. My saddle had the word 'Comfort' written across the back of it but I reckon that my swaying bum-cheeks had simply rubbed off the un and the able.
We stopped at a waterfall called Chute Kabir-Kouba which tumbles into a 42m deep canyon. Climbing down the slippery rocks to the bottom was made trickier than usual by the fact that we were walking like John Wayne but we were rewarded with some lovely scenery and decent photo opportunities. I thought about trying to pee through the waterfall to test out the theory of the man from the CN Tower but I hadn't had enough to drink, there were too many people around and I couldn't get close enough, so we settled for a little paddle instead.
We had a bite to eat and moved on to Wendake village which is the town where the Huron live. It is nothing like we imagined, being just like any other suburban town that we've come across. The houses are all made of wood with sloping and gabled rooves but are rather dilapidated. There are a number of shops selling local crafts and the speciality seems to be leather moccasins. I'd have bought a pair but our already bloated rucksacks don't permit us such luxuries.
Feeling somewhat cheated at not having seen a wigwam, a totem pole or a native kitted out in the traditional garb, we climbed aboard for the descent back into Quebec City. This time, we managed to stay on the cycle path all the way back and we found where we went wrong, hours before. The highway that we ended up beside earlier is elevated and runs for miles and miles. It turns out that the cycle path was, at some points, not more then 50 metres away from us - straight down.
Our timing couldn't have been better because, no sooner had we given the bikes back and crossed the street than the heavens opened. We took the photo below, outside the bike shop (incidentally, this photo illustrates nicely the point I was making the other day about not being able to sleep sitting up because of my unwieldy head) and 30 seconds later took the second photo from an office doorway across the road which we shared with a tramp. The last time I saw rain this heavy, the roads in Stockwood flooded and I managed to fill my car with water when it stalled in a giant puddle. The rain was different to back home, too. Not so much raindrops as raindollops - like those gert big dollops that drop from the edges of buildings and run down the back of your neck. Of course, the infrastructure here is designed to handle more severe extremes of weather so, the drains just whisked it all away and, 10 minutes later, the only evidence of the rain was the wet grass.
We had a mini-crisis when we got back to the room and, for half-an-hour, couldn't find our bus ticket to Montreal for the next day. It was with great satisfaction that, after much earache and finger-wagging for me, they turned out to be in Mush's daypack. We'd all but given up and resigned ourselves to another £40 to buy more tickets when they appeared so it was a relief to learn the lesson without paying the price.
After the letdown of the Huron village, I decided to re-read the guide book and check the descriptions of Wendake as what we'd seen didn't exactly tally with what I thought I'd remembered reading. Sure enough, it talks of wooden long houses and native foods such as bison and caribou. Unfortunately, it also says that all this is at a puprpose-built visitor centre, that we'd not seen any signposts for, called Onhoua Chetek8e, a 30 minute walk north of Wendake. Bugger.
----------
No comments:
Post a Comment