By the wall around the city
We headed towards the St Lawrence River (Fleuve Saint-Laurent) and criss-crossed between the main highway and off-roads closer to the river - dependent on time and views (at one point a little too dependent on how much gas was in the tank). Another brochure and another passion, this time quaint little churches and houses in what was called according to the brochure I found "The most beautiful villages of Quebec". Can't pass up a title like that. So we drove through Kamouraska and L'ilste-sur-Mer and Saint-Michel-de-Bellechase to name but a few and made just the right amount of oooo's and aahhh's.
Cleo was really enjoying the new facts he was learning I can tell you! Having enjoyed the "beautiful villages" we found ourselves crossing the bridge over the St Lawrence into Quebec city.
City with St Lawrence River
A truly lovely city (can't believe I just wrote "truly lovely" - what am I? 80?). Anyway, it is really cool. I had absolutely no knowledge of Quebec and so was unaware of it being a walled city - which is really awesome. It is so much fun to explore adn get lost in. It was just like being in France - which I was also unaware of. I knew they spoke French but was not aware of the complete lack of English is many parts. As we were heading to a national park to go camping for a few days we needed to stock up.
This became an adventure on its owns. First finding a supermarket and then trying to get someone to explain where the ice and something for a fire (ie either coal or firewood). Eventually we got it sorted, with a few giggles and a few disgruntled locals - sorry.
Quebec city
Then we headed off to Mastigouche Park (Reserve Faunique Mastigouche)... how hard can that be... I had a map (Have Map, Will Travel). Having a translator may have been useful too, but a charming smile and beguiling eyes seemed to work too - perhaps it was just my pitiful french and pathetic giggles. Anyway, the very lovely people in charge of the camp sites were very helpful. And despite not wanting to believe them it really did take us an hour to drive into the park to our spot by the lake (Lac Saint-Bernard). But it was all worth it! We had a great spot very close to the lake. We stayed for a few nights and cooked and walked and pretended it was warm enough to go swimming. It was awesome really. Cleo again sighing at my need to feed chipmonks... again, we don't have these in NZ and I thought they were cute. I had my own little Chip and Dale to feed cereal to - apparently Cleo finds them about as appealing as I find rats!
