I stayed at the Motel Metropole at St. Leonard, on the north-eastern edge of the motorway heading in a Quebec-like direction. It was basic and low-budget but it was also $65 CAN (£29) - no complaints from me.

Food was another matter though. I found a take-away pizza restaurant in the neighborhood advertising "two for the price of one" - yet they flatly refused to sell me one for the price of one. That was weird.

I had a good walk around though, found lots of interesting shops including a place selling an endless pile of second-hand CDs.

Of course, it was closed.

Next morning we had one dirty-looking Cavalier - and that was with driving about 20 miles from the airport. What will it be like in a week's time?

The snow had stopped (grrr) - in fact there wasn't to be any more until I arrived in the mountains of New Brunswick! Freezing cold (good-oh)! Over the road to the petrol station, big hot fibre mug full of piping hot coffee and a quick call to my aunt in London - and then to the shops at Repentigny.

Only one place in the world better than a Walmart or a Sears - that is a Walmart or a Sears with a sale on!

One thing that I couldn't grasp though - it was absolutely freezing cold (and I mean cold) outside, yet they had the temperature blowing full on in the mall. So I struggled from the car though the well-below-zero temperature dressed up like Nanook of the North into the mall, and in no time at all I was totally melting and it was so uncomfortable.

My jacket was too heavy to carry, so in the end, I went back to the car, dumped the jacket, and ran back to the mall dressed in shirt sleeves. And then, of course, shopping over, ran back to the car in shirt sleeves again. Why couldn't they turn the temperature down in the mall?

After that, it was back on the highway heading inexorably north-eastwards. Although one thing that I did learn - probably the first thing that anyone learns when they are driving in Québec - that whenever you are following the roads alongside the river, you are travelling either east or west, no matter which way the compass is pointing.

I passed by Trois-Rivières and its spectacular bridge, as well as by Québec (I hadn't yet got back into the swing of this photography business), and continued onwards into the dusk and gloom.

The bridge was such a magnificent specimen that I made a vow then and there that I woudl come back and look at the bridge properly. And, much to my own surprise, I actually did, although once more we had to wait quite a while to do it.

This photograph represents the first view of the frozen Saint Lawrence estuary about 40 miles northeast of Québec.

The main highway had left the banks of the Saint Lawrence after Québec and headed off over the mountains. As the traffic thinned out, I found myself driving alone through the dusk and into the night through the remains of the previous day's snow.

The full moon was probably the brightest I'd ever seen anywhere, and as I crested a hill somewhere along the road ... "it was Cape Tourmentine" - ed ... there was this spectacular view of the moonlight reflecting off the frozen river that had suddenly come back into view.

There cannot have been any more spectacular view than this
"oh yes there is"; he replied to himself."After all, I have seen the script!""
and it is really disappointing that the photograph just can't do justice to what I saw.

I carried on through the evening along the shore of the Saint Lawrence, and by now, I was totally alone. I don't remember encountering another car from here on.

One thing that I remember and which stuck in my mind was driving past a small town and then climbing a long hill. A glance in my rear-view mirror showed a beautiful view of the streetlights reflecting off the river, and I was tempted to go back for a visit, but I was far too comfortable in the warmth of the car for that. It was perishing outside.

That was another "come back later" moment although, once more, we had to wait a good few years for that to happen.

TADOUSSAC

The crew of the Saguenay Ferry a short way up the road told me that there was no ferry north of here that crossed the Saint Lawrence at this time of the year - a fact confirmed by the guys in the petrol station in Tadoussac a mile or two further up the road where I fuelled up.

I'd already driven through Saint Simeon (about 10 or so miles south) where I noticed that the ferry over the Saint Lawrence estuary to Rivière du Loup still had a couple of days to run and that there was a crossing next morning.

The presence of a respectable motel at a respectable price here at Tadoussac together with a little local restaurant open up the road meant that this was a better place than anywhere else to call it a night.

I could nip back down the road tomorrow morning and catch the early morning ferry southwards across the river.

After a meal up at the restaurant on the main road, I went for a walk around the village.

It's a typical North American rural village - Church, Post Office ("what's one of those?" I hear British rural dwellers ask) Police Station (ditto) Petrol Station doubling as village shop (ditto), and wooden houses. All lit up for Christmas.

Here are the two best - very good but not a patch on Long Island.

There wasn't a soul out on the streets.

I reckon in rural North America there must be some kind of communal battery powering all the inhabitants, and that at nine o'clock at night someone switches it off.

At first I thought it might have been the television but after seeing 100 satellite channels with absolutely nothing to watch except banal drivel, it can't be that! Maybe the presence of a stranger drives them all indoors seeking shelter.

But I definitely felt that I was completely out of place here just walking around here sightseeing.

And if you think that this is bad, just wait until you see what happened at Bar Harbor, over the border in Maine later on.

I could see what Springsteen was on about when he received his message "back from the great beyond - fifty-seven channels and nothin' on".

From here, I had a walk down to the estuary, and then along the beach and round the point, where there were these houses.

Just about here was the site of one of Jacques Cartier's first camps on the Canadian mainland. When he left here to return to Europe in 1534, he left 15 of his sailors behind to spend the first winter here. When he returned in the spring, there were only 6 still alive.

It seems that serial killers are not a new phenomenon in North America!

I read somewhere (and I can't remember where now) that there was an attempt to colonise here in 1600, but it failed.

Anyway, back to tonight, and the moonlight was so bright that I was able to walk along the bay, take the coastal path around the headland and climb the rocks back to where I started, without the least difficulty.

Back to the hotel and call it a night. I have an early start in the morning.

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