Today we crossed the Rubi ... errrr ..... St Lawrence.

We left our motel at Tracy, which is a small port on the south bank of the St Lawrence between Montreal and Quebec, and had a leisurely drive this morning through the beautiful countryside to Quebec.

There's no doubt about it - the southern shore of the St Lawrence between those two cities is by far the most beautiful shore and at this time of the year as the leaves are falling (and it's funny that the further north-east I travel the more the trees have lost their leaves - it's quite remarkable) it's really quite splendid as you can see.

This was where I ate my lunch today - just over my left shoulder is the St Lawrence and across the river is Quebec. It was something of a late lunch as I went to the Walmart that I found here to buy another SD card - they had Kodak ones on special offer - 4GB for $10 but they had sold out. I bought a tim opener, a mixing spoon and a microwave bowl to go with the pile of pasta in tomato sauce (4 for $5) and tins of beans (99 cents each) that I bought in a food supermarket in case I find another motel with a microwave. I have to be prepared.

After my lunch I crossed into Quebec and had a drive around. The Old Quebec is really beautiful and I hope I'm able to fit a day into my return journey to go for a wander round. It's just like a late medaieval European city in places and has somehow managed to escape the developer's bulldozer.

After that I headed north-east along the north shore of the St Lawrence and this is really where the beautiful part of Canada begins. After maybe 15 miles you abruptly leave civilisation and go right into the mountains. It is just so spectacular, as you can see in this pic. The St Lawrence is down there in the valley and Quebec is on the skyline.

And this is what it is like - all up hill and down dale all the way along the coast, with the St Lawrence never more than a mile or two away

Tonight I'm staying in St Simeon which is a ferry port across to the southern shore where I crossed over last time I was up here. And what I don't understand is that last time I struggled to find a motel and had to drive another 25 miles until I found one quite by chance. I've passed 6 at a small town about 15 miles south of here and there's 5 motels that I can see from my window just here. I really must have been asleep that evening.

But even now I'm not lucky. It's quite expensive here and there is nothing - no coffee machine (although I've sorted that out) and no microwave either. And even worse, there's nowhere around to eat. I'm really not having much luck, am I?

Tomorrow I'll be driving the 4 hours up to Baie Comeau, going by the famous Tadoussac ferry, which you will have seen from the last time I was here, and then it's into the interior. 200-odd miles of dirt track through the interior of Quebec and then 300 or so miles through Labrador and out to the Atlantic Ocean. Now that's what I call the wilderness!