Rob-n-Hild, Eastward Ho!

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Sagueny to Sept-Iles 560 km. 6:28 hours. Elevation maximum 280 metres

Today should have started off with a meeting for Hild at 7.30 am, but at 6.30 am the meeting was cancelled so we had some time to think about what is coming up. As we may have mentioned, we had booked to take a ferry along the coast of Quebec to Blanc Sablon on the border with Labrador because there is no road connection along the coast. Well, due to some interesting weather bringing ice into the Gulf of St Lawrence between Quebec and Newfoundland has caused some serious delays - and maybe we need to change our plans. One option is to back-track and cross the St Lawrence back at Quebec City and drive through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia to get to the Newfoundland ferry, or we could try to drive through northern Quebec to Labrador!

Although the road through Labrador is now fully paved, Rt 389 through Quebec - known as the "Manic Road" - has some sections that are still gravel. So the question is whether we can get through in Mary Jane? We figured that good place to ask about this would be local Tourist information center and as this was a nice 30 minute walk from the hotel, it seemed like a nice way to get our exercize in as well. At the tourist office Louise was very intrigued by our question, but couldn't answer it herself so she tried a few other people and we got the feeling that this was really an option of last resort. Back at the hotel, we called the ferry company and they were pretty sure there would just be a 12 hour delay so - for now - we are going to stick with that and drive on to Sept-Iles today.

So we set off across the Saguenay river and down the north side of the fjord towards the St Lawrence gulf. They call the river here a fjord here because from the bridge down it is tidal with about a 4 meter differnce between low and high. Quite surprising really give that it starts about 100 km away from the St Lawrence, which is itself quite a way from the ocean. At the mouth of the fjord is a little town called Tadoussac with a tiny little harbour very reminiscent of Cornwall. We had lunch on the beach and walked up past the (closed) marine mammal center to get a nice view that side. Apparently, this is a popular spot for Beluga whales, but it was a lot colder than yesterday so we didn't stop to look for them!

After lunch we drove along the north shore of the St Lawrence to Sept-Iles. This is known as the Côte-Nord region of Quebec and isn't all that well known - at least to us! The road was well-built, but one section after Baie-Comeau has been renamed (by Hild) as Super Mario Road because it goes up and down and side to side like the video game. We are trying to get a video of it embedded - as soon as Rob can work out how to do it (Hild has work to do...)

Coming up: Another meeting for Hild tomorrow before we are off to Natashquan to spend one night (or maybe two...) before catching the ferry.

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