Mont Mégantic
We headed out of Québec in a southerly direction, heading back towards the border with the US, and Vermont in particular. Near the border was the park of Mont Mégantic, which according to our guidebook, held plenty of opportunity for hiking. With our Peruvian Inca trek getting closer by the day, it was time to leave this city-touring behind, and get back to a bit of hill climbing.
The countryside got less flat and more interesting as we headed south, but the roads were mind-numbingly straight. At one point you could see for miles into the distance, and obviously something had thwarted the road-planners desire for linearity. There was a small semi-circular loop of road around some obstruction, maybe a sacred site or a particularly stubborn land-owner, but once circumnavigated, the road resumed the course it had been on and that it would follow for many more miles.
After a while, something in the scenery began to provide some distraction. We began to notice very triangular hills, initially only one or two, and on the horizon, but gradually becoming more common and closer to the road. We could then start to discern features, notably the colour, a kind of shimmering silver-grey colour. Were these man-made or natural? They seemed far too big an numerous to not be natural. And then we approached a town with the name of Thetford Mines, and we had to admit they were the result of human messiness.
After we passed Thetford Mines, we then came upon the mines themselves. Huge open-cast holes in the ground, almost unimaginably large. They obvously expected people to stop and go "what the...." as there was a lay-by with a very useful information sign. Apparently this area was one of the world-leaders in the production of asbestos. Lots of the information on the sign was attempting to reassure passers-by that it wasn't at all dangerous, and that it's really good stuff that just had some bad press. I'm not sure I was convinced.
Near Mont Mégantic, we reached the town of Notre-Dame-des-Bois and scouted out a place to stay the night. This didn't take long at all, as the town was little more than a few buildings along a main road. It certainly wasn't a place where we could expect to find a restaurant or café still serving after, say, 8pm. Still, the B&B we found seemed pleasant enough - the sort of place where you feel like you're staying with distant relatives rather than in a place run as a business. No keys, doors left unlocked, the lady of the house sitting on the balcony of the room we'd be staying in. Esther continued amazing me with her mastery of French, and asked about visits to Mont Mégantic's observatory, another of the activities we hoped to try. The basic gist of it was "we'd be lucky" to see anything that night but it was worth a try and that we should head up there straight away - there might be space on the tour of space.
We'd had no dinner, but apparently there was a restaurant up at the observatory, so we jumped back in the car after promising not to back too late, and to be quiet when we returned. It was a fun drive up the mountain, and we got to the ticket office in good time. Unfortunately we were too late for the main observatory tour, as this was fully booked and not running the next day, but there was space for the show in the auditorium. I wasn't at all sure about this, as the film would almost certainly be in French, and according to the ticket seller there would not be any English subtitles. In fact she looked shocked that I'd ask such a question. We booked places for this anyway as there was a session using the telescopes and at least that wouldn't require much French. We'd had a look through the telescope belonging to our upstairs neighbour back in London just before we left, and were looking forward to seeing what more powerful equipment in a place devoid of the light pollution of a large city would be like.
We had dinner at the restaurant (which was a rather grand term for what was really only a café for people doing the walking tracks - microwave lasagne and salad, but surprisingly tasty) and then made our way to the auditorium. It was very busy, and judging by the way everyone was nattering away in French, these were all Québecois people. The tourism in this area must have a relatively small target market - they're next to the US and of course the rest of English-speaking Canada, yet there was very little to acknowledge that. According to Esther, who's able to discern French versus Canadian-French accents there were a few people from the old world amongst the audience.
I then noticed that at the front, next to the big screen was a very advanced looking booth, something of a cross between a lectern and a DJ's mixing deck. This would be why my question about subtitles seemed odd. The evening's entertainment would be provided by a couple of young but intelligent looking women who had the presentation down to a fine art. They'd present some flashy visuals on their high-resolution cinema screen, provide some assured commentary then hand over in a slick move to the other. All very impressive, and it would have been all the more so if only I'd understood a word of it. Even Esther was struggling to maintain concentration deciphering the chewy accent and eventually zoned out. We still managed to follow a fair bit of it, thanks to a bit of reading material we'd recently finished, Bill Bryson's excellent 'The History of the Nearly Everything', which covered some of the ground regarding universe formation that was being eloquently explained to us in French. Still, it was a relief when we were invited outside to look through the telescopes.
They had set up three telescopes on the lawn around the centre, and another was in a dome in the main building. There were a lot of people to line up and peer through each one, but it wasn't too bad. However, we were most disappointed by what we saw. Back in London, our neighbour André (a Canadian coincidentally) had shown us marvels such as Saturn's rings, Jupiter's spot, valleys on the moon and even four moons circling Jupiter - astonishing stuff from a telescope that fits behind the sofa, in a brightly-lit suburb of one of the world's biggest cities. But despite the supposedly excellent conditions here in Canada, the view didn't even come close. Blurry Jupiter was about the best it got (well, there was a nebula or two), but disappointing unfortunately. Still, it wasn't a bad evening, and we got back to the B&B about 11pm, sneaked through the unlocked door, tried to avoid creaking too loudly on the stairs, and snuck into bed.
All this star gazing was really just a disraction from the real event, our trek. Our hosts provided us with a hearty breakfast, and we headed back up to the mountain ticket office and purchased our permits.
The walk was to be a long one, somewhere between six and seven hours. This seemed daunting to us, but as we knew we'd have to do this three or four days in a row once we got to Peru, we thought we'd better get used to it. We climbed gradually for a couple of hours, getting higher and hotter, and reached the peak feeling pleased with ourselves. However, this had only been a climb of 400 metres or so, not nearly enough to match the Peruvian slopes that awaited us. However, the Mégantic range had three peaks we could climb as part of a circuit, and the total height we'd do if we climbed each one would put us over the 1000m mark. The distance from one peak to the next appeared a very long way to us from that first peak, but we set off at a good pace.
Maybe our pace was just a bit too fast and self-assured, for it wasn't long before I happily stomped within a few inches of a black and yellow snake warming itself on the path. Luckily he shot sideways off the path as I jumped backwards. I've no idea if it was poisonous, but was glad I didn't find out. You might think that would be enough to make sure we stepped carefully the rest of the day, and I'm sure we did, but that didn't stop me getting even closer to a similar looking snake a few hours later, nor Esther doing the same thing about an hour before we finished the walk. So by the seventh hour, we were rather relieved to have made it to the end, knowing we could handle not only the exercise, but the local fauna too.
Feeling thoroughly exhausted but pleased with our progress, we had another microwave lasagne, got in the car and drove to our next destination, Magog in rural Québec.
The countryside got less flat and more interesting as we headed south, but the roads were mind-numbingly straight. At one point you could see for miles into the distance, and obviously something had thwarted the road-planners desire for linearity. There was a small semi-circular loop of road around some obstruction, maybe a sacred site or a particularly stubborn land-owner, but once circumnavigated, the road resumed the course it had been on and that it would follow for many more miles.After a while, something in the scenery began to provide some distraction. We began to notice very triangular hills, initially only one or two, and on the horizon, but gradually becoming more common and closer to the road. We could then start to discern features, notably the colour, a kind of shimmering silver-grey colour. Were these man-made or natural? They seemed far too big an numerous to not be natural. And then we approached a town with the name of Thetford Mines, and we had to admit they were the result of human messiness.
After we passed Thetford Mines, we then came upon the mines themselves. Huge open-cast holes in the ground, almost unimaginably large. They obvously expected people to stop and go "what the...." as there was a lay-by with a very useful information sign. Apparently this area was one of the world-leaders in the production of asbestos. Lots of the information on the sign was attempting to reassure passers-by that it wasn't at all dangerous, and that it's really good stuff that just had some bad press. I'm not sure I was convinced.Near Mont Mégantic, we reached the town of Notre-Dame-des-Bois and scouted out a place to stay the night. This didn't take long at all, as the town was little more than a few buildings along a main road. It certainly wasn't a place where we could expect to find a restaurant or café still serving after, say, 8pm. Still, the B&B we found seemed pleasant enough - the sort of place where you feel like you're staying with distant relatives rather than in a place run as a business. No keys, doors left unlocked, the lady of the house sitting on the balcony of the room we'd be staying in. Esther continued amazing me with her mastery of French, and asked about visits to Mont Mégantic's observatory, another of the activities we hoped to try. The basic gist of it was "we'd be lucky" to see anything that night but it was worth a try and that we should head up there straight away - there might be space on the tour of space.
We'd had no dinner, but apparently there was a restaurant up at the observatory, so we jumped back in the car after promising not to back too late, and to be quiet when we returned. It was a fun drive up the mountain, and we got to the ticket office in good time. Unfortunately we were too late for the main observatory tour, as this was fully booked and not running the next day, but there was space for the show in the auditorium. I wasn't at all sure about this, as the film would almost certainly be in French, and according to the ticket seller there would not be any English subtitles. In fact she looked shocked that I'd ask such a question. We booked places for this anyway as there was a session using the telescopes and at least that wouldn't require much French. We'd had a look through the telescope belonging to our upstairs neighbour back in London just before we left, and were looking forward to seeing what more powerful equipment in a place devoid of the light pollution of a large city would be like.
We had dinner at the restaurant (which was a rather grand term for what was really only a café for people doing the walking tracks - microwave lasagne and salad, but surprisingly tasty) and then made our way to the auditorium. It was very busy, and judging by the way everyone was nattering away in French, these were all Québecois people. The tourism in this area must have a relatively small target market - they're next to the US and of course the rest of English-speaking Canada, yet there was very little to acknowledge that. According to Esther, who's able to discern French versus Canadian-French accents there were a few people from the old world amongst the audience.
I then noticed that at the front, next to the big screen was a very advanced looking booth, something of a cross between a lectern and a DJ's mixing deck. This would be why my question about subtitles seemed odd. The evening's entertainment would be provided by a couple of young but intelligent looking women who had the presentation down to a fine art. They'd present some flashy visuals on their high-resolution cinema screen, provide some assured commentary then hand over in a slick move to the other. All very impressive, and it would have been all the more so if only I'd understood a word of it. Even Esther was struggling to maintain concentration deciphering the chewy accent and eventually zoned out. We still managed to follow a fair bit of it, thanks to a bit of reading material we'd recently finished, Bill Bryson's excellent 'The History of the Nearly Everything', which covered some of the ground regarding universe formation that was being eloquently explained to us in French. Still, it was a relief when we were invited outside to look through the telescopes.
They had set up three telescopes on the lawn around the centre, and another was in a dome in the main building. There were a lot of people to line up and peer through each one, but it wasn't too bad. However, we were most disappointed by what we saw. Back in London, our neighbour André (a Canadian coincidentally) had shown us marvels such as Saturn's rings, Jupiter's spot, valleys on the moon and even four moons circling Jupiter - astonishing stuff from a telescope that fits behind the sofa, in a brightly-lit suburb of one of the world's biggest cities. But despite the supposedly excellent conditions here in Canada, the view didn't even come close. Blurry Jupiter was about the best it got (well, there was a nebula or two), but disappointing unfortunately. Still, it wasn't a bad evening, and we got back to the B&B about 11pm, sneaked through the unlocked door, tried to avoid creaking too loudly on the stairs, and snuck into bed.
All this star gazing was really just a disraction from the real event, our trek. Our hosts provided us with a hearty breakfast, and we headed back up to the mountain ticket office and purchased our permits.
The walk was to be a long one, somewhere between six and seven hours. This seemed daunting to us, but as we knew we'd have to do this three or four days in a row once we got to Peru, we thought we'd better get used to it. We climbed gradually for a couple of hours, getting higher and hotter, and reached the peak feeling pleased with ourselves. However, this had only been a climb of 400 metres or so, not nearly enough to match the Peruvian slopes that awaited us. However, the Mégantic range had three peaks we could climb as part of a circuit, and the total height we'd do if we climbed each one would put us over the 1000m mark. The distance from one peak to the next appeared a very long way to us from that first peak, but we set off at a good pace.Maybe our pace was just a bit too fast and self-assured, for it wasn't long before I happily stomped within a few inches of a black and yellow snake warming itself on the path. Luckily he shot sideways off the path as I jumped backwards. I've no idea if it was poisonous, but was glad I didn't find out. You might think that would be enough to make sure we stepped carefully the rest of the day, and I'm sure we did, but that didn't stop me getting even closer to a similar looking snake a few hours later, nor Esther doing the same thing about an hour before we finished the walk. So by the seventh hour, we were rather relieved to have made it to the end, knowing we could handle not only the exercise, but the local fauna too.
Feeling thoroughly exhausted but pleased with our progress, we had another microwave lasagne, got in the car and drove to our next destination, Magog in rural Québec.
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