On the other side, the sun came out at last and lit up the mountainsides, masses of red, yellow, and orange trees. Now that we were further south, we were seeing the maples, mountain ash, and sumac in all their glory. It was tough to stop taking pictures.

The road did prove to be interesting, winding past small hobby farms, through rounded mountains, all a mass of colours. We camped for the night at Baie Eternite, part of Saguenay National Park. With the mountains cutting off the sea breezes, it was warm enough to cook outside over the fire.

Thursday October 6th

It was cool and damp again, but a short walk showed us that the park is beautiful, with great granite cliffs overlooking the valley of the Riviere Eternite, and the fjord of the Saguenay. The colours were still gorgeous, but the trails were ankle-deep in leaves, so the show was almost over. The ranger in the visitor centre was kind enough to find us an English guide to the park, but some genius had translated all the trail names to English too. It may be nice to know that the English name for a trail is the Newt Trail, but that isn't much use when all the trail maps and signposts are in French and you don't know the French for "Newt". Some names I could guess but eventually I just gave up and hiked up and down any trail that looked interesting. The vertical cliffs were obviously carved by glaciers, but today there is just the lazy river winding along the valley floor. The result is an exceptionally beautiful place, similar to Yosemite valley in some ways, a place I'd like to come back to.

Home

Letter index

Previous

Next