This place is in stark contrast to what has gone before. We now move out of big-city Canada into a much more rural phase of our journey, with hopefully some beautiful scenery. We don’t get back into metropolitan surroundings until we reach Boston, USA, on 29th September. No more Fairmonts until then…..

We still have another 3 stops in the Province of Québec before we get to the wilds of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia. If one looks at this on a world map, we’re travelling a tiny distance. This really is an enormous country and it is difficult to convey the scale of it.

To today. Pretty good night’s sleep in a comfy bed, but the walls are quite thin here, so there were a few sounds of human activity at some ungodly hour.

Weather was high cloud and sunny intervals, but much breezier than yesterday. It had rained somewhat overnight.

Buffet breakfast was OK, and not bad value.

Time, then, to do the washing, because these things are important, you know. The hotel (actually, it’s more a motel) receptionist told us that he thought there was a launderette in the nearby campsite which we could use, but wasn’t sure where it was. So we checked with the lady at the campsite gate, who was most helpful. Yes, we could use it and she would let us in on our return.

So back we came with a bulging laundry bag. Isn’t this exciting? Managed to master the technology and sat in the car whilst it was done. During this time, it started to rain….. Stuff and staff of life, this is.

Anyway, got it done and returned to our room.

The hotel/motel is some way out of the actual town of Riviére-du-Loup, so we drove in to have a look around. Somewhat unattractive suburbs, and the town itself is larger than I thought. More information can be found at https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivi%C3%A8re-du-Loup. The name of the town and the river it’s on either comes from a First Nation tribe called Les Loups (The Wolves) or from the many seals (sea-wolves in French) that used to congregate at its mouth.

First task was to find more tonic water, as supplies were at crisis level, some eye drops for me as my right eye was slightly infected, and some snacks for the car as we still have many miles to go. All accomplished at an out-of-town shopping area before we went into “downtown” Riviére-du-Loup.

The main drag, Rue LaFontaine, was long, but quite attractive.

Found a much-needed coffee and set about finding a park on the other side of the river. This proved far more difficult than it should have been, but I did at least get some pictures of the river and the St. Lawrence in the distance.

We’d walked a fair distance by then, and we wanted to get back to L’Auberge to have a closer look at the St. Lawrence River. So back we went, and set off south-westwards along a path along a promontory (La Pointe). See below for a bit of perspective.

All very nice, and a decent enough walk.

We’d booked our evening meal in the other eatery on this site – the Mirador bar and bistro. We sat outside, but it was very chilly, for me at least, so I had to go back to the room to get a pullover. Jean was fine, but she’d just had a nice hot shower….

Jean ordered spare ribs and I a plate of nachos. The latter was enormous, so we ended up sharing a lot of them. Good food, though, and excellent service.

We were seated near the now-trendy fireplace, but not close enough for me. As soon as the seats around it were vacated, I was there in a flash to get warmed up. Bliss.

We lingered over the remains of a nice bottle of Montepulciano d’Abruzzo, but all good things come to an end, so we returned to the room to pack and prepare for bed. Checkout not until midday – great news.

Tomorrow we travel even further north-eastwards alongside the St. Lawrence River to a place called Sainte Anne des Monts. It’s another 3-hour journey, highlighting just how big and long the St. Lawrence is. Getting nearer to the estuary and the Atlantic Ocean now….

Hope you can join us for this next stage. Possibly not as exciting as the big cities, but the splendour of the scenery should make up for that. Hopefully. 🤞