Day 39 - Ottawa to Quebec

We did not have an early start today as we were only travelling approx. 4.5 hours. We were out the door and into the car by a little after 9am. The route that we were taking today was supposed to be away from the main freeway 417. While Ottawa is not a large city (approx 900,000 people), our accommodation was quite central to town so it was relatively simple to traverse through the city and head out of Ottawa. It also helped that it was a Saturday morning.

The route we were taking today was highway 50 (scenic route), highway 15, highway 640 and finally highway 40 into Quebec. Once we were on the outskirts of Quebec we ended up connecting up with other highways to get to our accommodation. Fortunately, we were using the Garman to assist us as it was a challenge with the different highways crossing over each other. Anyhow we made it without too much mishap.

Back to our trip to Quebec. We had travelled the first part of our trip the previous day when we visited Parc Omega so we were comfortable as to route. When we got to exit 210 (same as for Parc Omega) we visited Fairmont le Chateau at Montebello. We spent a leisurely 30 minutes inspecting the foyer/ground floor and the grounds of the chateau. All the buildings, including the chateau, are made from large timber logs.

The chateau was built in 1930 as a private club. It has year round activities from sailing, golf and LandRover offroad driving experience in summer to cross country skiing, snow shoeing and dog sledding in winter. It looks a fabulous place to stay. The gardens and lawns are very beautiful and while walking around them it was quite relaxing. They have a private marina that gives access to the Ottawa river. There were a couple of motor cruises worthy of our interest (but not in our price range!). Accommodation starts at a rack rate per night of CAD 209 during 2017 winter and CAD 259 during 2017 summer. The signature room with the river view corner is only CAD 403 per night so pack your bags for a relaxing getaway. PS - bring more money for the activities.

We had a quick drive through the town of Montebello. It is not a large town with a few streets. It is mainly farming activities in the surrounding areas. Taking this exit brought us to one of the back roads going to Montreal. However, as we were heading to Quebec and we were trying to avoid the traffic around Montreal, we back tracked to highway 50 and we continued on our way.

Continuing our travels, we had glimpse of the Ottawa river. As it was a two lane highway (each way), we did not have the feel of going for "a country drive". Fellow travellers shooting by at 130kph (max speed is 100kph) did not help set the scene. I read one review on trip advisor where the person openly stated that they preferred to travel the main highway (417) as there were less police and they could average 130 kmh. I was impressed seeing three police cars (yes, three) on the side of the highway as we got close to Quebec. We had not seen any police on the highways at any time up to this point in our 5 weeks here.

After about 4 hours travelling we decided to grab a coffee and something to eat. As in Australia the towns are away from the highway so it is a challenge to know what you will find when you take one of the exists. We were in luck and we found a small town approx. 2kms off the highway. It was quite a small town so there was limited opportunity to find a place to eat. As it was also 2:30pm, our selection was also limited. Fortunately, we found a small café where our fellow travellers were drinking beers and coffee. We managed to have a coffee and a biscuit before we were back on the road.

After another couple of hours travelling we arrived in Quebec. We were greeted with more local highways crisscrossing each other. With the assistance of the Garman we managed to navigate our way to our accommodation for the next few days. Our accommodation is just out of the city and approx. 15 mins from Old Quebec City and public transport is close by.

The next challenge was organising dinner for the night. So we were back in the car after studying our iPads for grocery stores. As it was raining by now, it was slow going in the new city. We may have taken a couple of illegal turns in finding our grocery store but there were no police around to assist us! All groceried up, we headed back to our new home to organise dinner. The good news was that Red and Red 2 were playing on the local TV station so we had a nice evening in. This meant we did not even think about writing any blog.