SAINTE ADELE

Hello everyone,

I`d just like to thank my dear husband Jim for putting up with me for 32 years today!  Happy Anniversary and I`m so sorry I forgot your card.  But thank you for remembering mine.  I hang my head in shame!

PS:  No sign of the mouse.... Jim can check the trap later... I`m not going near it!

Now on to Canada......

SAINTE ADELE  Wednesday 17th August

We went on the Ottawa city tour and enjoyed a beautiful morning along the Ottawa river and the changing of the guard at the Parliament buildings.  We had a local tour guide called Amy who really knew her stuff.  She even pointed out the factory that makes toilet paper is right behind the government buildings, so in her own words, " Toilet paper being made right behind the seat of power?? What does that tell you?!"

We went on into the surrounding countryside and saw a little wildlife, goundhogs and black squirrels...... yes BLACK squirrels!  Well I`ve never seen one of those before.

A black squirrel

How very unusual as we don`t get them here in England.  The morning was very pleasantly spent and we went for a nice luch before again taking the coach on our journey into the mountains as we headed for Sainte Adele.

Our tour bus

We drove up the `pretty` route because they isn`t much of interest to see on expressways.  We journeyed along through pretty countryside, stopping at small villages en route.  One little place we stopped at was right on a lake and the scent of pine needles wafting across the water made the air so clear and `breathable`.  No pollution out there.  We were told the lake is so frozen in winter that people use it as a highway, putting grit down to make a road surface.  I suppose living in a country where it is usual to have temperatures of minus 30 you get used to driving across lakes as a detour!

Jim and I sitting in these funny chairs beside the lake.  It wasn`t that easy to get up again though!

The little church in the background of the photo is one of many of the catholic churches dotted along the way.  We went inside this one and it was very pretty.  Jim had mentioned ( several times in fact) that he would love to go fishing in Canada.  I told him not to even think about it while we were there, and that if he wanted to fish he could come back on his own one day.  Poor Jim!

Our coach started the steep ascent into the Laurentians where Sainte Adele sits on the side of a mountain.  We could all feel our ears popping the higher we climbed.  I saw signs by the side of the road telling motorists to look out for reindeer and moose in the area, I was really hoping to see one or both and maybe even a black bear!

Eventually by 3pm we reached  the Hotel Le Chantecler, where we were booked

for the next two nights.  When we had our first view of it it looked amazing.

 

Hotel Le Chantecler

The hotel is built on several different levels, not storeys as such but being built into the rock as it is more like layers that fit where they can.  Our room was on the ground floor thankfully, as every where in Sainte Adele is on a steep slope, so at least we didn`t have additional steps to climb.  After dropping off our cases we walked down to the lake and paddled in the warm water.  There were quite a few swimmers in there and I which I`d taken a swimsuit with me as the water looked so inviting.  The hotel is in the middle of a skiing resort and we were surrounded by ski slopes ranging from very easy to very difficult.  I have never skiied so they all looked pretty hard to me!

The view of the lake from the hotel terrace.

We then went down to the village to explore, going down was easy but coming back would test a mountain goat!  It was so steep, but we made it in the end, just in time to get ready for dinner back DOWN in the village...lol!

The lake from another angle.

After a nice meal and a drink in the village we, Jim,myself and Lynn and Pete, started out for home.  Of course it was pitch black and there wasn`t much in the way of street lights, but on we went deciding when we got about half way up to take a short cut through the woods.  A couple of glasses of wine sometimes makes you do silly things......   Well, it got darker and darker as we got away from the only lights there were.  Then it happened, we heard a loud rustling noise in the bushes not far away and then it came back to me.  I overheard jason, while on the coach , telling some of our tour that sometimes black bears will hang around resorts at this time of the year.....Oh Oh!  I passed this snippet of info on the the others who, like me thought it best to move just a little faster, we couldn`t hear the rustling anymore, just the pounding of our hearts!  Thankfully we reached the hotel just a couple of minutes later, but were we relieved.  I doubt there was a bear in the woods but we were glad not to have found out for ourselves!

The next day we went for an afternoon tour of the Laurentian villages in the and enjoyed in immensely.  It was nice to enjoy the true beauty of the Candian countryside at leisure.  It was a shame we had to move on tomorrow when our next stop was Quebec City, the place I was most looking forward to seeing.

To be continued.