Sur la Côte aux Moutons

View from our balcony

I'm writing this on the balcony of our room at the Mon Joli Motel up the hill from Sainte-Flavie, with a magnificent view of the sunset over the St. Lawrence fleuve, shimmering in the twilight. The water is mauve, the clouds indigo stratus, the remaining sunlight golden. The hill we are up is locally known as the Côte aux Moutons because of Marcel Gagnon's concrete sheep that are grazing on its steep slope, with a concrete shepherd and sheep dog alongside, part of the motel property. I have mentioned them before in this blog. And a few hundred metres along the road is the Grand Rassemblement of concrete people processing onto the shore from the seabed. This evening we walked over to check that they were still intact. They are.

Finally, this morning, we got away from Ottawa. As recently as Saturday, I didn't think this would happen, because it looked as though torrential rain would be falling all over this part of the world, and there's not much point battling through storm clouds for the sake of a wet stay in the countryside. So we had cancelled the first night of our stay. Miraculously though the weather system moved through eastern Canada sooner than forecast and just as unexpectedly dissipated into occasional showers, with sunny skies in its wake. So I promptly rebooked our room here.

Setting off over the Ottawa, looking east

Countryside near Trois-Rivières

Wheels up at 10 a.m. for a worry-free ride to Trois-Rivières, following the course of the Ottawa and St. Lawrence Rivers downstream past Montreal. The IFR route, more or less direct, actually takes us north of Montreal. We passed Petrie Island, the two ferries at Cumberland and Rockland, the Chutes de Plaisance, Papineauville, crossed the Rivière Rouge, saw Lachute in the distance to the south, Lac Simon to the north, all familiar sights from previous occasions. Visibility was good, so I noticed the Montreal skyscrapers too. The mountains of New York State and Vermont were sheathed in cumulus. Trois-Rivières airport was a busy place this morning, as the ATC man warned us, with so much traffic in the circuit that we had to do a go-around on our first approach, because the plane ahead of us didn't pull off on Taxiway Charlie as they could have done, to let us land, but kept on the main runway all the way to Taxiway Alpha. Chris got annoyed about that and when he approached as Number Three in the Circuit for the second time round he pointedly asked the Unicom Operator whether or not Taxiway Charlie was available, thus giving a strong hint to the pilot in front of us this time to move out of the way asap. That worked. Another unexpected phenomenon was the sudden drop in the crosswind as we descended below tree top level, which slewed us sideways for a moment, but my skillful pilot recovered rapidly and landed successfully on the centreline, on one wheel. I gasped, but he didn't.

Reaching Trois-Rivières

The plane was refuelled from a gas tank that had a very realistic plastic eagle perched on top of it. The usual eating place, Le Pilote at the airport, is closed on Mondays, but luckily we'd checked first and knew about this, so had brought a packed lunch, that we ate on a bench outside the terminal building.

On the ground at Trois-Rivières

About 15 minutes into the 2nd leg of our flight, Chris had to make an embarrassing confession to ATC at Montreal Centre: he had dutifully written his allotted clearance onto the "scratch-pad" of his tablet and had read it back correctly, but hadn't thought to press "Save". The clearance thus disappeared from the screen and he had to repeat the process otherwise we wouldn't have known in what direction to fly after the Quebec VOR. Another lesson learned.

This flight was longer, 2 hours 18 minutes, and we went through a surprisingly cloudy area just beyond Quebec city; ATC even asked if we wanted a diversion "around the weather" but the darkest clouds were south of our route and no lightning was showing on the StrikeFinder. We didn't lose our views of the scenery nor of the fascinating, changing clouds to the south as we flew past Montmagny towards Rivière-du-Loup, over the mouth of the meandering Rivière Ouelle, over a sphagnum peat moss farm with its russet fields and an extensive windfarm. Between Rivière-du-Loup and Rimouski comes the attractive stretch near Saint-Fabien and then we have almost reached our destination with the Mont Joli runway visible in the distance just beyond the bluffs above Sainte-Flavie.

On the ground at Mont Joli, by means of the Zoleo Communicator placed on our tail wing, Chris sent a message by satellite to our friends and relations, including George in Australia, to let them know exactly where we are. A couple of the airport officials came over to greet us and help us refuel (at great expense), one of the men telling us that he'd moved here from la grande ville — Montreal? — for the sake of a more peaceful existence, and that in winter it is really quiet in these parts.

Approaching Mont Joli airport

 

View of the runway from the base leg

We decided not to bother with a car rental or taxi; there was no one at the airport offering either, in any case. We therefore walked down the road with our luggage, a little further than I'd remembered but of course it's easier if you aren't encumbered. No trouble checking into the motel because we had a reservation although two other couples who arrived at the same time as we weren't so lucky, pas de disponibilité. One couple was travelling by motorbike and all of them, positively pleading for a room, but in vain, seemed exhausted by the long drive. On a roulé toute la journée! I hope they found somewhere to stop before much longer.

In the early evening we were also lucky to get a table at the local microbrewery, Le Ketch, painted bright red, with its eponymous, bright yellow ketch parked in the yard in front. The blonde beers they served us were excellent, the atmosphere relaxing, and we ate Beyond Beef (vegetarian) burgers, also good. The fries were a bit soggy. The buns were decorated with little paper parasols.