A Week to Feel Our Way to Gaspé
Our trip wasn't about getting to destination points such as Percé or Gaspé or any of the numerous quaint villages and towns along Route 132. This trip was to immerse ourselves in the sights, sounds and everything that the five senses can feel and inform our imagination. Sadly, work and family responsibilities meant we had only a week to do this trip; not a great deal of time for an ambition that broad, but a week was what we had, and we made our peace with it.
Outbound in blue, east out of Toronto towards the Gaspé; homeward in purple, west along the river's other shore, at no less leisurely a pace. Total distance covered was about 3300 kms
We had seen Quebec City in our first couple of years of coming to Canada. The colours from nearly 20 years ago of this beautiful city were still fresh in our minds. Isn't it interesting that we might have only a handful of chances to visit a city despite it being in our own country; one of the odder truths of living somewhere rather than merely passing through it. While planning, we took the call that we would spend an evening in Quebec City, and a little more of the next morning if time permitted, before venturing into the peninsula of Gaspé, which was the un-sensed part.
Our plan had us start from Toronto in the early morning hours and reach our trip staging destination at Lévis, QC between 4 and 5 PM; an estimate that turned out to be roughly right, in the way these things usually are. We decided to leave Montreal, QC (another beautiful Canadian metropolis) for the return leg of the trip, if time permitted.
We set off at 8:00 AM on 2 August from Scarborough (a suburb of Toronto), taking Ontario Highway 4
01, which, upon crossing into Quebec, quietly becomes Autoroute 20, as though it had changed its name at the border and hoped nobody would ask questions. We skirted Montreal on the A20 until Lévis. From there we took the A20 to Saint-Jean-Port-Joli, then picked up the scenic Route 132, which hugs the south bank of the St. Lawrence River towards Forillon National Park. Along the way we passed through picturesque Kamouraska, Rivière-du-Loup, Rimouski, Petit-Matane, Mont-Saint-Pierre and others too numerous to list here.
The return leg took us back down the south bank of the St. Lawrence rather than completing the peninsular loop through Campbellton, NB and on towards Rimouski. Most travellers do the peninsular loop anticlockwise, and rather quickly at that. We chose not to, wanting instead to drive at a more sedate pace and stop wherever the mood took us, which in practice meant stopping rather often. Our return leg included a night at Cheval Tribal, an equestrian stay in the village of Saint-Onésime-d'Ixworth, a name none of us quite mastered by the time we left.
From there we crossed to the north bank of the St. Lawrence and continued along Route 138, arriving for a very exciting evening at ULM Québec in Saint-Cuthbert, QC. This was followed by an evening in Montreal, before we drove back to Toronto that night.
In all, the trip took seven days, from 2 to 8 August. The days unfolded slowly enough that we can still recall exactly what each one was like.