16th September – Quebec, QC – Sudbury, ON

Today was sunny and reasonably warm (OK 15 is our new definition of warm). We packed up, checked out and headed out for brekkie here. We then walked up towards the Citadel just taking in all of the sites of this beautiful place. We walked into the old school which was massive and where priests now resided and saw that the fans of “The King” really are everywhere!
Then past the Latin Quarter where many of the building have old paintings from the 1800’s which are renovated on the side of the stone.
On the way to the Citadel we went past the oldest building in Quebec City built in the 1600’s. Everything is so well maintained. We headed off to the airport to catch our flight to Sudbury where we will be for a week whilst Dan is doing a Datamine V3 and Advanced Geostatistics course. We were seated separately but the flight was only one hour ten to Toronto so it went quickly. Dan took this shot leaving Quebec and you can really see the fall colours well. We had a bit of time at Toronto Airport to kill so went to get a coffee. Toronto airport is massive!! It takes ages to taxi to your designated spot once you land. It was a bit later on that Dan realized that our plane was actually meant to be boarding 10 minutes ago and we were on the other side of the airport so we had to run through the airport to our gate 107 (tells you how big it is!!) to find that the plane was sitting in pieces on the tarmac and we weren’t going anywhere. Air Canada found another plane and we were delayed slightly but off at last for a quick 45 minute flight to Sudbury.

We landed in the party town (not the case at all as we would soon find out) of Sudbury and had to wait an hour for a taxi meaning we got into the town around 9.30pm. You can almost hear the silence and crickets chirping in this photo – what a happening place. Think 1970’s Kalgoorlie but bigger and spreadout and you get the picture. We got asked by the other people waiting in the taxi rank “what on earth are you doing in Sudbury?” Not a good omen?? Once we made it to the hotel, we were starving. Of course at 9.30pm in redneck central the hotel restaurant was closed and there was no room service. We had to ring for dial-a-pizza which we were told could take up to an hour. Air Canada doesn’t feed you more than a packet of pretzels on the plane. Pizza finally arrived and we called it a night. It’s so quiet in our hotel. We’re next to the train track and some kind of port where boats honk their horns all of the time. Ahh… Sudbury!

15th September – Quebec City, QC

A cold, rainy and grey day in Quebec City today. We ventured out in the rain with “cheap and nasty” getting a workout. We wandered around Quebec, had lunch, gave up and went back to the hotel and spent the afternoon out of the rain learning about Canadian Football. We just need to actually go to a game now that and Ice Hockey – but perhaps we had better learn those rules first!!) Later that night we ventured out after the rain had stopped and it had cleared. It was still freezing though and my big black down jacket came out for its first appearance. Dan zipped up his jacket. I think it looks like Cathy Freeman’s running outfit.. hehehe.
We wandered along the boardwalk in the freezing cold and admired the Fairmont that looks truly like a castle lit up at night. A quiet day.

14th September – Quebec City, QC

This morning we headed out to do the “Fortifications of Quebec” walk, which is a national historic site. The walk basically follows the old walls around the perimeter of the town and is approximately 4.6 km’s and allows great views both within the walls and outside the walls of Quebec City (oh and even more cannons – how many cannons can one town possibly have??). The walk took us a while as we stopped off reading many of the historical boards about the town itself and its history.
We stopped for coffee. They do everything big here in Canada, big pumpkins, big lobsters, big fish and big bowls of coffee!!

We went down into the Rue de Petit Champlain – one of the narrowest streets in North America. Whilst charming, it was teeming with tourists. Ah, so this was where they were all hiding! We did a loop through the Vieux Port (Old Port) which had some beautiful fall colours in the trees. We will probably miss the best of the colours by a few weeks here, but they are still magnificent. I'm not sure sure this pics do them justice.

Back up towards the Rue de Petit Champlain we came across a dodgy souvenir shop that sold animal skins and heads (yuck). Can you see the resemblance in this photo with the bear??I’m hoping that this is the closest we will ever have to come to one in Canada! Down in the Lower Town we stopped at the Place Royale, the central principle square. Dan had to go to this aply named shop and have a look around.
We walked outside of the walls downtown and found this beautiful building that the Canadian HR Dept works in(how come I’ve never worked in anything resembling a castle) and this, would you believe the train station, and the water feature out the front. But that is Quebec for you. There isn’t a much unattractive about this charming city.

Now that we know that we are going to Points North in less than a fortnight we checked the temperature. Daily temp is sitting on around 5 and it is heading to the minus territory in the evening. By the end of October (when the visa situation will dictate we have to leave Canada) we can expect the evening temps to drop down to below 20 degrees. With that in mind we went to the most awesome shop, Mountain Equipment Cooperative. Think Mountain Designs on a massive scale. This is the female version of the male jacket that Dan needs (didn’t have his size and he doesn’t want yellow for some strange reason!). $350 CDN thanks very much – expensive rain coat. I bought some matching down filled pants to match my down filled jacket and now appear about 40 kilo’s heavier when kitted up (I don’t think I will be caring a great deal) and Dan stocked up on more cold weather gear too as he’ll be braving the elements a lot more than I will. I will never complain about Perth winter again – me thinks!! Anyhow, after this stint we are definitely going somewhere warm – I keen for Cuba or Mexico or anywhere that is warm by that stage.

We headed home from MEC and onto a pub. Dan was most impressed – it had over 100 international beers. In fact I think he may have been in heaven…

13th September – Montreal, QC – Quebec City, QC

Quebec City, here we come. We headed off to the train station this morning in Montreal to catch the 12.30pm to Quebec City. If a train station can be nice, this one certainly was. See Dan below doing the hard yards backpacking with his laptop and chocolate croissant!! It had a massive food area in the main foyer of the station (the platforms were underneath and it didn’t feel like a train station) where we stocked up on some supplies for the trip. (The food here is to die for).The three hour ride went fairly quickly. The scenery was lovely with many lakes and cornfields on the way. But surely the most breathtaking part was seeing the change of colours of the trees as fall commenced in Canada. Now when I say the change of colours, this isn’t an Australian autumn. We were starting to see the change of colours from green to brilliant reds then onto oranges and yellows and eventually the trees will become bare ready for a long cold water. We arrived in Quebec City which is a UNESCO area and the old city housed within walls. The view up the hill looked fabulous but first we had to tackle the enormous hills to get to the top. Normally probably not too bad but when you are carrying around a combined 50kg between two people it was hard work! We finally made it to our hotel “Au Petit Hotel” in a lovely quiet area but still only a five minute walk to downtown. We were right at the top and in true French fashion, no elevator, so another three floors to walk up and we were there. Yah! It was late in the afternoon and we decided to make the most of the light and go for a quick wander around the town. Quebec City, it became obvious, is the sort of town where you leave your map behind and just go wandering. Everything is just gorgeous and this would have to be the most beautiful town we have seen in Canada so far. We wandered down Rue de Tresor, which was a narrow alley which housed many local artists and their art. Whilst there were still quite a few tourists around, but it wasn’t over run with the end of the summer season here. We wandered to the Dufferin Terrace, a massive timber boardwalk along the waterfront part of the town and looked back at the Fairmont Chateau, which although undergoing renovation, was still beautiful. Actually, much of the town is undergoing renovation as it will celebrate 400 years in 2008. The boardwalk housed some of the many cannons left behind in the town by the British and I had to do my best Cher pose. With the sun starting to set we wandered along the streets and came to one of the gates that allowed entrance into the city and just admired the beautiful buildings and streets.Later that night we went on a search for the pub with Dan declaring "he could sniff our a pub a mile away". It took us a while and we found it and struggled through in our limited French to order drinks. It was here that we discovered this important 1st festival that will be held. The toasted cheese festival – go figure?? Some people will have a festival for anything.