Day 78. July 11. Train from Montreal to Hebertville, Quebec, bike to St. Gideon

I am writing this the next morning.  What a day yesterday was.  Train ride was 11 1/4 hours long.  Over 2 hours late getting in.  I still had to ride to a campground, and, of course, I took a wrong turn.  It was almost dark when I got in and setting up my tent was a chore.  The mosquitos about carried me off.  I was so tired last night, I just couldn’t think.

The train ride was interesting. The first hour or two it went through the seedy parts of towns.  Once we left the urban areas, the scenery turned to farms. The beans and corn were really short, probably because they looked dry.  I saw some of the shortest wheat I’ve ever seen.  I did see a couple broccoli fields as well as a couple fields I couldn’t identify.  Almost looked like peas.

The train delay was due to having to share the tracks with freight trains.  We had to wait for them to pass.  I counted 38 lumber loaded cars in the middle of one train. Kinda weird. The train car was pretty comfy, lots of leg room and never very many people on board at a time.  I was supposed to have to pay for my bike to ride but all baggage fees had been suspended due to a promotion they are doing.  That was nice.  When I checked with baggage at the train station the night before, the guy said all my stuff would go for free.  I tho’t he was kidding.  But he wasn’t.

Once we left civilization as we know it, the country side turned to heavily forested, weedy, boggy swamp.  Lots of lakes of all sizes but water everywhere.  In places there was an abundance of sumac, milkweed, and or ferns.  I couldn’t identify lots of the evergreens because we were going too fast.  It was definitely a wild, mostly uninhabited woods.  Saw several beaver dams which may have accounted for so much standing water that wasn’t a lake.

Occasionally, the train would stop in the middle of nowhere with a foot path leading to the railroad tracks and someone would get off.  You could see houses next to a lake and our train attendant verified that in many places there were no roads.  Wow, not sure I’d want to be that private.  One group of ladies got off with several coolers and were met by a guy with a pushcart.  I am assuming they had gone grocery shopping.  That is roughing it.  One stop was at mile marker 106.6.  Nothing else around.

We were given free water and snacks on the train plus you could buy other drinks and sandwiches.  Really a nice ride, just 6 hours too long.

I have to say, Ottawa was a really a very nice place to visit.  Very pretty and well kept.  However, I do think Canadians smoke more than Americans but they also recycle better than us.

The one thing that really impressed me was that almost everyone, without exception, takes their own bags to the grocery stores.  Rarely do you ever see a plastic bag and if you do need one, you have to pay for it.  Why can’t we do that in the states?

There are more than 700 kilometers of bike paths in the Ottawa area.  There are bikes everywhere.  One bike path in a nearby town had a dashed yellow line down the center and a solid white stripe on the edges.  Willma said this was heavily ridden by seniors.  I just laughed.  But we did see more seniors on that stretch.

Finally, I have to thank Ed and Willma for putting up with me and extending such gracious hospitality to me the last three weeks.  And especially for gettimg me into Montreal and the train station.  I enjoyed my stay immensely and wish them the best.  Thanks guys.

11 miles today.  2549.6 total

Author: bikeral2000

Retired musician, now gardener and cyclist. View all posts by bikeral2000