SATURDAY 09 July
Au revoir, Quebec — Hello, New Brunswick.
Today was a travel day, taking us from Chalets Camping Nature Ocean in Perce, Quebec to Campbellton RV Camping in Campbellton, New Brunswick. Our route was the now familiar QC-132, which followed the coast for most of the distance, occasionally heading inland to go over or around a headland or other shoreline obstruction. The road was mostly OK, often smooth but occasionally rough and/or bumpy. Traffic was light and there were no construction delays.
The weather was lovely; blue skies with scattered clouds and temperatures in the upper 60’s and to low 70’s. We passed through many small villages and few slightly larger towns, all of which simply line either side of the highway. The posted maximum speed on QC-132 is 90 Km/H, but was slowed to 80, 70, or even 50 Km/H through the towns and villages, or on sharp turns. The larger the town, the longer the stretch of developed road, but the slowed allowed for more relaxed travel and better sight-seeing. There were a few grades steep in the 7% to 9% range, enough to be marked but no big deal given what we had already driven through to get this far.
With few exceptions, the houses were charming and well-kept. White was a favorite color with a contrasting roof and/or trim, often red. As with our entire journey through the Gaspésie region, the churches have silver-colored steeples, and sometimes roofs as well. There’s a history to this practice, which involved the requirement in the Roman Catholic Church for ecumenical things to be made of precious metal. Gold being too expensive, silver was the metal of choice in “new France” and this somehow got carried over to the color of church steeples and even roofs. We suspected that most of the steeps were painted, but in a couple of larger towns they appeared to be polished metal. We presumed that none of them were actual silver.
This part of Quebec, and the coastal part of New Brunswick we are headed into, are still part of the Appalachian Mountain chain, so our view was of water and mountains for the entire trip. We were reminded of our trip (many years ag) up the Washington State coast north of Seattle, when we discovered that we really liked being near large water (Anacortes) and seeing mountains (North Cascades). Water is ever-changing and always interesting, while marinas and ocean-side towns have a unique charm. Mountains are dramatic, with surprises around every corner and grand views, but we find them a bit confining.
The J. C. Van Horne Interprovincal Bridge from Quebec to New Brunswick over the Restigouche River from Campbellton RV Camping. Yet another tidal salmon river.
The boundary between the two provinces at Campbellton is the middle of the (Riviere) Restigouche River. The J. C. Van Horne Interprovincial Bridge connects the two sides. (At night, the lights on the Quebec side were yellow-orange while the lights on the New Brunswick side were white.) As an aside, when we entered New Brunswick, we also entered the Atlantic Time Zone, currently on Daylight Savings Time (ADT). Even though we were well west of where we started (and now ~ due north of the easternmost point of Maine), we lost an hour when we crossed the bridge. Knowing the earliest arrival time, we had planned our departure with the time zone change in mind.
Campbellton RV Camping is a municipal park located on the edge of the river just west of the bridge, so it was easy to find and enter. Being owned and operated by the city, it is a very nice facility, what you might expect from a community with the resources, willingness, and sense of pride to build something nice for locals and guests alike, including excellent/free Wi-Fi. We made extensive use of the Wi-Fi to get online and update apps (on six devices), check e-mail, and take care of any other deferred tasks.
Our rig/site at Campbellton RV Camping looking upstream over the Restigouche River. Hills in the background are in Quebec.
Our site (W3W=options.exhibit.provoking) was in the front row, facing the river, with small mountains on the Quebec side. (Mont) Sugarloaf Mountain, a New Brunswick provincial park, was directly behind us. The only problem with the campground was that all of the sites in the area where our site was located slope down towards the river.
The slope was “only” 2% – 3%, but that’s huge for an RV that needs to be level, side-to-side and front-to-back, both for comfort and, in our case, the proper functioning of our absorption refrigerator. Every rig that was already here either had their front tires on tall sets of leveling blocks or had bult-in leveling jacks extended to get the tires completely off the ground. Yikes! That’s a major “no no” when leveling an RV. The best placement on our site had us 1.5” low on the driver side and 7.5” low in the front. We were able to deal with that, but were close to our limit front-to-back. Other than puzzling out how to best us our leveling equipment, and dealing with the wind, the rest of our setup went smoothly.
Paul and Nancy’s rig with Linda for scale as to how off level the sites were.
We had the same persistent winds all day that we have had since we entered the Gaspe peninsula. I was vaguely aware of them while driving, but the Propride 3P (pivot point projecting) hitch kept the Airstream lined up behind the F-150. It is an amazing piece of technology, and with no possibility of sway (mechanically impossible), it made for a relatively relaxing drive. By the time we reached Campbellton the winds were steady out of the west at 20 mph, adding a chill to the already cool air coming over the mountains and down the river valley.
Once we were settled in, we went for a walk around the campground, as is our practice, weather permitting. The registration building was much too big for just that purpose, so we stopped in to investigate. It turned out to also house a small gift shop, a tourist information table, a small museum devoted to the Restigouche River and salmon fishing, and a restaurant. The menu included some vegan possibilities, so we arranged for the four of us to have dinner there later.
The Tourist Information lady was very nice and very helpful. We walked away with a very comprehensive and well-designed guide to the province that included an excellent map. New Brunswick is the largest of the three Maritime Provinces, but only has 750,000 people. Canada is a BIG place, and most of it is sparsely populated. The part of Eastern Canada that we have been in is also devoted to salmon and salmon fishing. It’s not just a sport, it’s part of the culture. Almost every river we crossed had two names, and the second one was always Riviere Saumon. At one point we finally realized that this sign, always below the first sign, was a different color (darker brown) and was merely indicating that this was (yet another) designated salmon river.
We dined at the Krave Restaurant on site for dinner. Our waitress was friendly and had personal knowledge of the extensive local Moose population. The food was acceptable, nothing to rave about, but it met our need for someplace we could walk to from our rigs, and not have to cook and clean up at the end of long day.
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