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September 2022 - Toronto ON to Port aux Basques NL

September 2022 - Moncton NB

Saturday was a muddled day of packing, laundry, organizing etc to get out early on Sunday morning. 

Devices and batteries got charged. Keys to a friend to pick up our mail.

We needed ice packs for the cooler and bought some wine to take with us.

Click here for an overview of Newfoundland and Labrador along with our itinerary.

I am not going to include a cooking section while we are travelling. 

Saturday we ordered Swiss Chalet chicken to make life easy.

Sunday we were up early, had bacon and tomato sandwiches and we made egg sandwiches (finishing off the eggs) for lunch. We managed to pull onto the road at 8:30. We stopped three times, bio break, lunch and gas and got into the hotel at 4:30 but the room wasn't ready until 5:30 due to "staff shortages". Not happy campers!

We brought cheese and crackers to have with a bottle of wine in our room.

A couple of photos from the drive Toronto to Victoriaville Quebec. Click here for more.

This was good when we finally got into our room. I did some posts and we caught up on Wordle and the crossword and just relaxed and read.

The TV selection was horrible so we read and went to bed at 10:15, something we never do!

Victoriaville QC Monday Labour Day and we were up at 7:15, an unusually long sleep for us. The bed was very comfortable, the one redeeming factor.

A free breakfast was provided, glad it was free...Food was cold.

 Only in Quebec would you see this on a breakfast buffet. 

In Quebec cuisine, cretons is a forcemeat-style pork spread containing onions and spices. Due to its fatty texture and taste, it resembles French rillettes. Cretons are usually served on toast as part of a traditional Quebec breakfast. It is not to be confused with "fromage de tête" or head cheese.

We decided to drive around Victoriaville before getting on the road.

Took this for my cousin. There is always an Irish pub no matter where you go!

We headed to Edmundston New Brunswick. We lost an hour so it was 3 PM before we found something to eat.

Nothing was open in town. We finally got in the car and drove to Boston Pizza.

We shared a large order of beef nachos.

We got into our room at the Four Points Sheraton and discovered my laptop screen had shattered and wouldn't do a lot of things!

Click here for Day 2.

EDMUNDSTON NB Tuesday we had a good breakfast with pleasant service in both official languages!

FREDERICTON NEW BRUNSWICK

We decided to make a stop in Fredericton to get a new laptop at Best Buy which was done in record time. We headed to the Garrison District for lunch. I had found a place offering gluten free.

I had to salmon cakes and sweet potato fries. The cakes were not crispy enough. John had a burger on a gluten free bun. 

He said the burger was good but the condiments, which were meant to be spicy were mediocre. He had a gluten free beer and I had a local Beliveau cider, Scow from Memramcook, a town we had passed earlier.

We took a walk before getting back into the car and driving to Moncton for the night.

MONCTON NEW BRUNSWICK

Click here for more of our day.

In Moncton we stayed Hilton Garden Inn Downtown Moncton on points. Great hotel and service.

We had cheese and crackers for dinner.

MONCTON NB WEDNESDAY we took our time in the morning.

Click here for our day.

 Breakfast was free (Gold Hilton Honors) and we lounged about until we headed downtown to walk for a bit.

John getting a mural for me.

Next stop - Sydney Nova Scotia.

We had visited this area in 2013, click here to see more photos.

The view from our room at the Holiday Inn Esplanade in Sydney. This was a good hotel.

Then we spotted the Big Fiddle! I thought we would find it tomorrow, not that we could see it from our room!

We did room service. Scott could not have been better. I had asked for fries for John as the mussels came with garlic bread. Scott called and said the kitchen had messed up the order so it would be about 15 minutes later as he had them redo the fries in a gluten free fryer. John loved his mussels! I had a delicious chicken club.

SYDNEY NS THURSDAY

We had breakfast in the hotel.

We were only 30 minutes from North Sydney so we strolled the Esplanade.

On the spur of the moment we decided to drive to Glace Bay, never been there, thirty minutes away.

Back in North Sydney we took a stroll along Commercial St., pretty deserted.

NORTH SYDNEY NS

Check into our Hotel, Hotel North and we were very impressed with everything. Large spotless rooms. We decided to have a beer in the bar which is where we heard of the Queen's death.

Nova Scotian beer.

We ordered dinner and ate it in our room. John loved his haddock, I should not have ordered the  roast beef dipper. It was frozen and not very good.

Click here for more of our day.

NORTH SYDNEY FRIDAY we were up at 7:15 and this was the view. We are having incredible weather!

Breakfast was very good. I had French toast with bologna (called Newfie steak). John had scrambled with delicious tomatoes.

No doubt you’ve heard the saying: “You’re full of baloney.” It usually refers to someone who is offering up a bit of nonsense, but it could be taken quite literally in Newfoundland and Labrador—given the popularity of the food it refers to.
“Baloney” is a variation on the word bologna, a cold cut meat product made of chicken, pork, beef, turkey and other ingredients. It is sold by the millions of kilograms in the province each year. Scott Warren of Maple Leaf Foods—a major manufacturer and distributor of the product—says the average resident eats about five pounds of bologna every year.

We packed our essentials for on the ferry. We decided to take the rest of our cheeses and crackers as lunch on the ferry. We booked a cabin on the ferry.

We loaded up the car and headed out. We have to be there two hours before departure.

Terminal lounge.

Lots of trucks bringing goods over to NL, there was even a McDonald's truck.

John.

Everyone waited patiently, inside or outside their car.

Click here to see photos on the ferry. The journey from North Sydney NS to Port aux Basques NL is 7 hours and we lose another 30 minutes.

Prior to joining Canada, the Dominion of Newfoundland had the right to adopt a time zone. They opted to create their own. While most of the island of Newfoundland is west of the exact meridian where a half-hour time zone would fall, the capital city of St. John’s, where most of the population resides, is almost exactly on the line. Since it’s arguably at the halfway mark, a half-time zone was born.

The Newfoundland Time Zone subtracts ​3.5 hours from Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) during standard time, (UTC−03:30) and ​2.5 hours during daylight saving time. Most Newfoundlanders are most familiar with their time zone in relation to the Eastern Time Zone. 

To make things more interesting, part of the province of Newfoundland & Labrador doesn’t even observe Newfoundland time.
While the official province name is Newfoundland & Labrador, it is common to refer to the island portion as just “Newfoundland” since it does not geographically include Labrador.

Only the island of Newfoundland along with a small portion of southeastern Labrador actually use the Newfoundland Time Zone. The remainder of Labrador joins the rest of Atlantic Canada in observing Atlantic Time.

Docking in NL.

Our hotel, we were almost the first car off the ferry so we didn't have to wait to check in. We are not staying here on our way back. The hotel was okay, but rather dated and the rooms were very small.

We went for a drink before dinner.

We both had the "healthy choice", the "Bermise" ginger moose. It was basically a stew over rice. The meat was a little tough.

And so ends our first week of vacation. We have been through Ontario, Quebec, New Brunswick and Nova Scotia (approx 2,000 km) before taking the ferry to Newfoundland and then driving to Deer Lake.

Tomorrow we join our tour and the car will stay in Deer Lake.

WATCHING

Not sure if there will be anything to report here.

READING

Also not sure how much reading will be done.

I did read The Shadow Man. I also started The Last Week, just full of nasty unlikeable characters. A good vacation read.