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AGUANISH

belvedere riviere pontbriand highway 138 route jacques cartier gulf st lawrence north shore quebec canada mai may 2012

As dawn breaks over my little overnight spec at the belvedere beside the riviere Pontbriand, I can take a photo of the Dodge and its surroundings.

And to be honest I had something of a disturbed night last night. I was nothing like as comfortable as I have been for the last few nights, and I don't know why either. Maybe my guilty conscience is trying to tell me something. But at least it gives me a good chance to crack on with paperwork


In case you are wondering about my sleeping arrangements by the way, this would seem to be a good time to mention them. The vehicle in which I'm travelling is a Dodge Grand Caravan and this is my preferred choice of vehicle for this kind of journey because all of the seats fold flat into the floor and there's enough room to have a dance inside when you do that.

Then I run a piece of string all the way to the back on both sides and across the tailgate on the inside threaded through the holes in both halves of a 3x2 tarpaulin that has been cut in half lengthways. That makes a useful curtain.

I rent a little storage unit in Montreal and in there, as well as the tarpaulin, is a cheap bed that's been cut down to 190x60 (or there used to be, because in 2013 I found a good-quality folding camp bed that does an even better job), a few storage boxes with all kinds of bits and pieces in there, some cutlery, cooking gear, tools and a little camping stove.

With that little set-up, I have my little camper for one person.

"Why don't you hire a real camper?" I hear you say.

The answer is that I would, if I could find one. There's nothing available to hire these days smaller than a bus. They are bigger and have more facilities than my 25 square-metre accommodation back home. Gone are the days when you had a Morris Marina or a Ford Escort camper. There's not even a Volkswagen Caravelle available to hire.

And then, of course, there's the fuel that they consume.

Not only that, there's a mileage limit on hire campers - 1000 kilometres, and then you have to pay for additional mileage. I did enquire if the 1000 kilometres is per week (I could just about cope with that) but no - it's per hire. So here's me for seven weeks in North America going out to Labrador and other such distant places. Can you imagine what my excess mileage bill would be?

If, on the other hand, you're reading this and you have a small one-person camper for hire, don't hesitate to


Meanwhile, back at the belvedere, we had yet another day yesterday where I spent not a penny. As I have said before, I could do with quite a few of these, given the speed at which money is melting away in my hands.

And tomorrow, I'm going to be having a day of major expense where I'll be spending more money than on any other day that I've been in Canada up to date, so it was just as well.


highway 138 aguanish natashquan route jacques cartier gulf st lawrence north shore quebec canada mai may 2012

Having caught up with the paperwork and had a couple of cups of coffee to wake me up, I set off again along Highway 138 in the direction of Natashquan.

You can see by looking at this photo that its a comparatively new road. I mentioned yesterday that Highway 138 formerly stopped at Havre-St-Pierre and it was not until 1992 that work began on extending the road eastwards. The first private motor vehicles to come into Natasquan under their own steam arrived in 1996.

highway 138 aguanish natashquan rock sculpture route jacques cartier gulf st lawrence north shore quebec canada mai may 2012

My attention had been drawn in the previous photo to a bizarre ... well, rock sculpture, I suppose, in the previous photo and so I stopped at the side of the road for a closer look.

I'm not quite sure of what it's supposed to be and so I'll let you work that out for youselves. I just want to say that from this point onwards I started to encounter quite a few more.

Clearly there are people living in this area who have too much time on their hands.


aguanish freshwater bay highway 138 route jacques cartier gulf st lawrence north shore quebec canada mai may 2012

This brings me quite nicely into the town of Aguanish. And before you remind me that according to the last census Aguanish has a population of just 295 inhabitants, any settlement of that size out here on the North Shore deserves to be called a town.

Aguanish is Innu for "a little shelter". It lives up to its name because the small bay that you see here is a good natural harbour for boats and the like along the St Lawrence. It's a freshwater bay so I was informed, being where the riviere Aguanish flows into the saline Gulf of St Lawrence.

waterfall river aguanish highway 138 route jacques cartier gulf st lawrence north shore quebec canada mai may 2012

The town is famous for its 15 kilometres de plages de sable chaud - its "15 kilometres of beaches of warm sand" and apparently, it's frequented by those looking for adventure.

As you know, I am always, in the words of the legendary Mars Bonfire, looking for adventure, and whatever comes my way but here, I spent most of my time looking for the "15 kilometres of beaches of warm sand" because they weren't here today, I promise you that.

I could however find plenty of biting, bitter cold wind and power lines as usual. And also another small waterfall too, which looked quite exciting.


Now I'm going to stop here for today.

This might make you wonder what I must have been doing to have my day's work stop just at this point. But as it happened, it didn't. what actually happened was that I carried on into Natashquan as I had some business to attend to. That took quite a while, and then I came back out to here to spend the night.

However, in the interests of continuity, If I stop here for now and then merge in this afternoon's photos of the road to Natashquan with those of early tomorrow morning, it will make a nice seamless journey of the route and that is what I'm trying to do.

You lot can take the rest of the day off.



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