Final Rest

DW and I could have driven all the way home from Tadoussac. The drive is only about eight and a half hours, meaning that by the time we had checked out and were on the road, we could have been home that evening (allowing for a couple of stops for fuel and meals).

Ferry crossing at Tadoussac, looking up the Saguenay River.

But we didn't want to get home late and exhausted. We've always promised ourselves that at the end of a trip, when we walk through the door, that we'll put everything away right away.

This would mean that first and foremost, we'd have to take our kayaks off the roof of our car. We'd have to wash them (it's good practice to remove whatever had collected on the hull before you put the kayak into different waterways) before we hung them on the wall in our garage, make sure our gear was dry and put away, where they belong, and bring in any other gear that needed to be cleaned, separately.

We do this after any kayaking trip.

Our car was stuffed full of camping gear, including our tent, which was wet from when we packed it up. We wanted to set it up in our backyard and let the sun and air get at it, to make sure it was completely dry before we rolled it back up in its bag, which also needed to dry.

Having camped for a week and kayaking five times, the car was full of sand and other dirt, so I wanted to fully vacuum it out. The Niro could also use a wash on the outside but that's not a critical issue: I could take it to a car wash another day.

Plus, laundry needed to go into the wash.

There was no way that DW and I would feel like doing all of that if we had driven all day from Tadoussac, so we agreed that we'd stop somewhere along the way; somewhere that would be a great ending to our trip.

I told DW, before we left for our vacation, to leave that final detail to me. She thrives on planning and organizing our trips, but I'm also pretty good at planning, too.

I found a Bed & Breakfast spot that was along the St. Lawrence river, just a half hour west of Québec City. It was an old house that had the feel of late-Victorian times with some modern amenities.

It's called La Demeure du Capitaine—The Captain's Mansion.

Pauline, the host, put a lot of work into the rooms, where the main and upper floors were designed for guests. She and her family lived in the basement. DW and I were given a grand room on the main floor with an even grander private bathroom. Even a part of the back porch, which looked out toward the St. Lawrence, was for us only (the bedroom windows looked out onto this porch area).

We checked in, got settled, and then headed down the street to a great brew pub, L'Esprit de Clocher–Microbrasserie & Le Baldaquin Resto-Pub. Reservations were recommended but on a Sunday night, DW and I didn't think we'd need them.

We were wrong. The place was packed and we had to wait about 20 minutes just to get a seat at the bar. But that was okay, as the bartender—who was also our server—was a nice man who was great to talk to.

The food was great and the beer even better, and I'll have a post next week about some memorable brews of the trip.

By the time we were done dinner, we were done overall. It had been a long day and we still had a considerable drive the next day, so we got back to our room and called it a night.

Breakfast was served just after 8 the next morning, and if I'm going to be honest, it was the only disappointing part of this B&B. I mean, the house and rooms were so immaculately kept, with so many decorations that we felt almost afraid to touch anything, but that wasn't a big deal.

Breakfast consisted of croissants and baguettes with a few spreads, apple or orange juice, coffee or tea, and a few pieces of fruit. That's it. No protein, no fibre (or very little). We quickly ate our meal because there wasn't much of it, grabbed our belongings, and were on the road before 9.

The drive home was uneventful and we arrived with plenty of time to get all of the chores that I listed at the beginning of this post accomplished before dinner. Though, when all was said and done, we were too tired to be interested in cooking, and ordered in, instead.

Like almost every other evening of our trip, we found ourselves in bed at an early hour. The realization that we were home and in our own beds brought the exhaustion of our trip to the forefront.

When I started writing about our trip, a week ago, I said that I always needed a vacation after a vacation to recover. And this one was no exception.

In fact, this vacation showed me that I'm no spring chicken, that I'm out of shape, and I need much more recovery time than with previous trips. Even this week, I've felt my age and have been tired.

But we're already planning our next big vacation, that next major trip. And I had better start preparing myself for it now.

Happy Friday!

Tadoussac

It was so nice to finally sleep in a real bed, in a real room, with four walls.

I tried my best to find my old love for camping but I just couldn't do it. And on the last morning in a tent, when we awoke to steady rain, I was reminded of another reason I don't like to camp.

Tearing down our site in the rain.

Our tent had to go in its packing bag wet and we had no place to lay it out to dry for the rest of the trip, which meant that our car started to smell funky after a couple of days. But that was okay because after seeing beluga whales swimming in a bay, we were headed to a proper hotel.

And by proper, I mean the most prestigious hotel in Tadoussac: the Hotel Tadoussac.

This hotel has been around since the 1940s and is an old-world resort hotel with tennis courts, an outdoor shuffleboard area, and even an area on the lawn for croquet. Muskoka chairs looked out onto the bay.

The room was a bit dated but, by God, we had a proper room with a comfortable bed.

We checked in, got settled, and then headed straight to dinner. We chose a food truck that was just outside the town—Casse-croûte Le Connaisseur—which has been in business since 1966. The food was great and inexpensive, which is what we needed after spending a lot of money on breakfast and lunch.

We wandered the town afterwards but turned in early, something that we had been doing every night so far on this trip.

The next day, after breakfast at a café near the hotel, we suited up in our Farmer John wetsuits and took our kayaks down to the beach. The water was freezing cold but we were comfy in our layers, and the air was mild.

We were hoping to spy some whales in Tadoussac Bay and at the mouth of the Saguenay River, and the tide was out. We paddled to a point but as soon as we reached the Saguenay, a gale-force wind hit and forced us into a little bay near the ferry crossing for shelter.

We decided that it wasn't worth the risk of trying to get past the two ferries that connect Highway 138 on the northern and southern shores of the Saguenay. Instead, we worked our way back into Tadoussac Bay, where the water and wind were calmer.

We later hiked a trail that led to the point we had paddled around and we could see several whales, including belugas and minke whales, and we realized that we had probably been paddling close to whales but were so focused on keeping a straight line and seeking shelter that we didn't look out for them.

Fuzzy capture of a minke whale from a 10x zoom on my smartphone.

I'm going to maintain that we kayaked with whales. Prove me wrong.

We visited a brewery in the afternoon and had a fantastic dinner at an upscale restaurant to celebrate our final night of our vacation. It was a great trip, with five days of kayaking, half a dozen or more hikes, and some great whale spotting.

The next morning, before checking out of the hotel, we climbed a trail near a giant sand dune and got a great view of the St. Lawrence River. We promised ourselves that we'd return to this region soon.

Possibly, next year.

We checked out, took our Niro across the Saguenay River on the ferry (it's free), and headed home, though we weren't planning to make the drive in one day. There was still one more night before we'd be sleeping in our own beds.

I'll wrap up the tale of our Québec vacation tomorrow. I've finished the video of our Jacques Cartier River run, which I'll share on YouTube in the coming days, and I'll start work on our Saguenay Fjord kayak adventure soon.

Stay tuned. 

Saguenay

In the Fjord

The day after DW and I had paddled a 20K stretch of the Jacques Cartier River, over several technically challenging sets of rapids, I was pretty beat. I realized in the five months since I had lost my job, I had become fairly inactive. I still sat at my home-office desk, but instead of working for somebody else I wrote my novel, Dark Water.

Only occasionally would I get on my bike for a ride: I can count the number of times that I rode it on one hand. The most exercise I'd get would be from mowing the lawn, but the summer's heat meant that our lawn dried up, and I went more than a month without having to mow it.

In our first three days in Parc National de la Jacques-Cartier, we had kayaked three times and hiked two trails. I covered most of that activity in a video on my YouTube channel—if you haven't seen it already, check it out.

I'll have the 20K river run video next week.

On our forth day, I was pooped. DW and I wanted to climb one of the hills on another trail, but I knew that if I hiked Les Loups trail, I'd be done for the rest of the day (and likely, for longer than that), and our vacation had only just begun.

I wanted to enjoy our trip, so I relaxed at our campsite while DW took to the trail.

We spent five evenings in Jacques Cartier Park and it was so beautiful there. We walked another trail at the end of the forth day and took some night shots up the valley, hoping to see aurora borealis, but weren't so lucky. We got a good night's sleep because the next day, we were moving on.

The drive from Jacques Cartier Park to Chicoutimi was nothing short of spectacular. Our Niro worked hard to climb steep hills, nearly depleting its batteries, but would get nearly a full recharge as we coasted down the other sides. At our peak height, we reached nearly 900 metres above sea level, the highest we had been since our trip to Peru, but even that altitude was nothing compared to the Andes.

We stopped in Chicoutimi for lunch and to visit the tourist information office for maps of the region, but then it was on, down the southern shore of the Saguenay River to Baie Éternité and the Saguenay Fjord National Park, where we would spend two more nights in our tent.

The sight wasn't as 'luxurious' as it was in Jacques Cartier Park but we had been spoiled there with a comfort station across from us that had stainless-steel sinks with hot water for washing our dishes. This comfort station was down the road from our new site and there was only one toilet and one shower stall.

After we set up our campsite, we drove to L'Anse De Tabatière, a hiking trail and lookout point for the fjord, for a sunset view. It was stunning.

The next day, we put our kayaks into Baie Éternité and headed out toward the Saguenay River. We had to be mindful of the tide, which was as high as four metres, as we didn't want to face paddling back into the bay as the tide was pulling out. This meant that we didn't get into the bay until almost 10:00, when the tide was out.

There are cliff faces in this bay that are nothing short of breath-taking and I'm looking forward to seeing my video footage in the next week or so. The wind was really blowing as we paddled and the waves were pretty strong but our kayaks were built for these conditions.

We made it out into the river and stuck close to shore, as the water was even rougher out there. We were able to make a stop in a little cove below the statue for Notre-Dame-du-Saguenay (though we couldn't see it from our vantage) for a rest before heading back into the bay.

Our paddle was just over nine kilometres but in some ways it seemed like fewer because the time flew, though in other ways, seemed longer because we had to fight the wind and waves.

As with our first night in this area, we dined in L'Anse-Saint-Jean, the only area with seemingly good restaurants. The food was good and the local beer was even better.

The next morning, we awoke to steady rain, which was not ideal as we were packing up our campsite. At least we had had the forethought to pack up our kitchen tent before going to bed, but we still had a wet tent and groundsheet to pack into the Niro.

We drove back to Chicoutimi, stopping in La Baie on our way for breakfast, where we found a great café, Ka-fée. Their hot chocolate was the best I've ever had (and I've been to France and Italy!) and their homemade pistachio spread was to die for on a fresh-baked croissant.

In Chicoutimi, we visited le Musée de la Petite Maison Blanche, a small house that somehow survived being washed away when the nearby Chicoutimi River flooded the neighbourhood in July, 1996. I remembered seeing news footage at the time, and how the houses on either side of this one didn't fare as well.

We crossed the bridge to the northern shore and made our way to Sainte-Rose-du-Nord, a small village that overlooks the Saguenay. We had a simple lunch before moving on.

Our next stop was at Baie-Sainte-Marguerite, which is still part of the Saguenay Fjord National Park, but on the opposite shore to where we had camped. This bay is famous for being a feeding ground for the various whales that swim up the Saguenay River.

There's a nearly three-kilometre hike up to a viewpoint into the bay and looking up the Saguenay River. And when you reach this lookout, at Halte au Béluga, you are rewarded with not only stunning landscape but also views of whales frolicking in the bay.

We saw countless beluga whales and possibly some minke whales. We also saw a seal, with his head bobbing above the water surface.

Now, mind you, the whales were far away, as much as a half a kilometre or more, so it was hard to capture closeup photos, even with my 500mm lens. After trying to capture a few shots, I put my camera down and just gazed and took in the aquatic activity.

We spent at least a half hour or so at this lookout point before heading back to the car. Our travel wasn't done. We still had to make our way to the small town of Tadoussac, where we'd be spending the next two nights—finally, not in a tent!

Stay tuned.

Camping, Paddling, Hiking

Yes, I still don't care to camp, but I did it for a week.

I was really keeping a positive attitude during this trip, was hoping that I'd regain the love for camping that I had as a kid and for the first decade or so that DW and I were together. We used to camp all the time and I loved it.

I lost my love for it in 2014 (or perhaps a couple of years before then) and just haven't renewed that love.

DW assured me that the money that we saved on accommodation and food in the first part of our vacation would mean that we could splurge on accommodation and food in the latter part of our trip. Even though it meant seven nights in a tent and only three nights in a proper bed.

And in truth (don't ever tell her I said this), it wasn't too bad. We were close to a comfort station that had facilities to wash dishes with hot water, we had a huge tent for the two of us, in which we could stand, and the site was always quiet at night.

And the settings were pretty awesome, with five nights in Parc National de la Jacques-Cartier and two nights in the Saguenay Fjord. Our sites even had an electrical hookup, and we ran an extension cord into our tent so that we could charge our phones and batteries for our recording gear.

I took a lot of video footage over the 10 days that we were in the Laurentians and I've created a video of the first part of our trip, which is now available on my YouTube channel. The video covers the first three days of our trip, with the drive and camp setup, two kayaking outings, and a couple of hikes.

Have a watch.

This video is a bit different from recent videos. There's no voiceover. I don't try to promote Insta360 cameras (though there are links in the Description section), and I don't have my usual signoff. There's just a title at the end that reads To be continued... .

I'm currently working on Part 2, which will cover our 20-kilometre paddle down the Jacques Cartier River, including riding some Class I to Class III rapids. It was nerve-wracking to take our 14-foot kayaks in water for which they weren't designed.

Stay tuned.

If you like the video, please give it a Thumbs Up. Do me a solid, and subscribe to my channel to see more kayaking and travel videos. I'd really like to see my channel grow and that can't happen without your help.

Happy Monday!