Off to spend a few days in the wilderness

 24th September 2022

We are currently just on the border between New Brunswick and Quebec Provinces not far from Campbellton. Today we head  off towards the St Lawrence seaway near Rimouski.

Conditions on the water this morning from our hotel room

Hurricane Fiona reeked havoc last night through Nova Scotia, PEI, parts of New Brunswick and Newfoundland. Where we are, we hardly noticed anything. It is overcast, the wind is blowing at around 15 - 20 knots and no damage. Despite the many warnings Quebec Province only had damage on the Magdalen Islands closer to the path of the hurricane, located North of PEI in the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Check in time at our next destination is not until 4 pm, so we decided to do a bit of sightseeing along the St Lawrence Seaway, near Rimouski, the nearest town to our final destination. The weather seems to be improving with sunshine most of the day.

Just before Rimouski, we turn off to visit Pointe-Au-Pere Lighthouse. As well as an historic lighthouse it is also the site of a full sized submarine, the Onandaga, which was in service in the Canadian Navy from 1967 to 2000. It now spends its life as a tourist attraction, which you can go on board and even spend the night aboard. We took up neither option.

Pointe Au Pere Lighthouse

It is about 1.45 pm and getting lunch after 2 pm can be challenging, so we drove into Rimouski and found a nice little cafe where we could get a simple lunch bagels, burgers and soup etc.. We relaxed there for a while, had a bit of a walk around the near vicinity only to find there were cafes everywhere, so we could have eaten anywhere.

By the time we drive to Domaine Valga, our accommodation for the next few nights it will be past 4 pm, so check in should not be a problem. It really is out in the wilderness, log cabins located near a lake. The last 5 km of dirt road weaving through the forest to get there,  to makes us wonder a little what we are in for.

Our accommodation is in the main building, and includes full board.

Meals are served in a communal dining room

Here language is more of a problem than our previous destinations, but so far we have managed to muddle our way through. We are checked in to our cosy rooms which have private facilities. We have a booked activity for tomorrow which was beaver watching, but our hosts tell us that the beavers are not co-operating at the moment and it is unlikely we will see any, so they have proposed that we will have a tour related to the production of maple syrup.

After we have settled in, Carole and I went for a short walk to check out the lake and facilities.

There are individual unserviced cabins around the lake

There is a small boat with a Minkota motor down by a jetty. Not sure what this is for but I guess we will find out

For the brave, kayaking on the lake appears to be an option

The autumn colours are really starting to appear now

We had some pre dinner drinks in the lounge area tonite only to realise that all of the other guests were from France and Belgium, all speaking French. Fortunately one couple , who spoke good English came over and spoke to us realising that we were looking a bit lost. They were both from Paris and we had a good conversation with them, when we were summonsed to the dinner table for a 3 course meal. Despite language difficulties we managed to have a good conversation over dinner with the diners nearest us on the long table.

Halfway through our meal the host announced that the set table behind us, that currently had no diners, was about to be occupied by 10 Mexicans, who for some reason had arrived late. The waitress seamlessly switched between French, English and Spanish to cater for the needs of everyone.

It was an enjoyable dinner, included in the tariff and we had a nice bottle of a 2016  Rioja to wash it down.