Cycle Canada, Day 48, June 21/06

June 21/06, Wednesday                                                                 Day 48            4570 Kms

Some Divey motel, Gatineau, Quebec                                                                   125 Kms                            ~ 6:00 Hrs

Mom was up and gone pretty early. I had a brief chat with Walter and Edna who were going to Ottawa with her.

Jim stopped by breifly as well, to check out our bikes. Jim is in his mid eighties. His son (my cousin) Dean has cycled from the Ottawa Valley to the Sunshine Coast in BC in the mid 70's. I must say that his trip was at least a partial inspiration for mine. And I felt proud and a bit contented when, later this day, I rode east passed the house where Dean had started his westward trip about 30 years before.

Doug and I did a couple of quick errands in town then went down to the local newspaper office and gave an interview because my mother wanted to see my name in the paper. When the paper came out some of the facts weren't correct.

Spent the night at some dilapidated motel on the way out of Gatineau. The place had recently changed hands and the new owners hadn't gotten far in their renovations. The young girl who took our money didn't seem to speak any English at all. We had a couple of incidents involving being hassled by young men. The first bad bits on the trip. One guy drove passed and threw a beer can at Doug then gave us the bone. The second one was three teenage boys in a van. We were stopped at an intersection when one opened his door and they all started yelling rudeness at us. I didn't notice but Doug said that both vehicles had Ontario plates.

Crossed the border into Quebec and had breakfast at Portage du Fort. Quite a pretty little town. There were some Ontario Hydro workers having lunch at the table beside us. We chatted while we ate our burgers and poutine at the sidewalk tables. The country roads have more traffic than I would have thought and little or no shoulder. We asked for the directions to the back road to Gatineau and I was pretty sure that we had been told wrong at first because we seemed to have reversed directions but Rue de la Montange is the right one.

There followed a hair-raising speed run through Gatineau on a "No Bikes" freeway. Once again the "No Bikes" sign comes after you're already on the road. At rush hour this road was crowded and fast moving. The shoulder was narrow, not much wider than my trailer, and strewn with junk. With a guard rail on the right and traffic on the left there wasn't a lot of room to maneuver around the detritus. I got a 3 quart bucket jammed under the trailer and dragged it for a mile or so.

My one complaint against Quebec drivers so far is that they seem more than ordinarily unwilling to cross the centre line when passing us. Even when there is no traffic coming the other way the drivers seldom do more than move over to the centre line, some don't even do that. This can be un-nerving when there is no shoulder. At one point we got passed by a transport truck, I thought that he had come pretty close to me but as he passed Doug I saw his side mirror pass over Doug's shoulder.