July 30, 2024. St-Vallier to St-Augustin-de-Desmaures

   We slept well overnight, except for Jim having to get up because of the linden flower tea. Rain was predicted to start soon after sunrise, but we woke up to almost clear skies so didn’t rush to pack up as quickly.

Early morning view from our campsite.

   As we continued on toward Quebec City, along with beautiful vistas, we saw 9 high voltage towers all in a row, each supporting a line that was crossing the river. Closer to the city, we saw the huge Montmorency Falls from across the river; these were the falls that we had visited on our our way out to the east coast. 

    The last part of our trip on the south side of the river was on a paved bike path with an adjacent pedestrian path that was full of bicyclists, walkers, people rollerblading, electric bicycles, and even a few people riding electric carts like those that are available to use at some grocery stores. 

  We took the ferry to cross over to Quebec City, and it was impressive the number of people with bicycles also lining up with us to board. We had a great view of the city as we crossed.

 

            Bicycle area inside ferry

   We didn’t go up the bluff into the old city but followed a route that started out taking a bike path along the shore. Eventually the route did work its way up the bluff. Then at one point the route took us to a path among some trees that steeply went down the bluff. Yes, this was the route we were supposed to take! It had fences going partway across to keep you from trying to ride down—it was hard enough to walk down, then near the bottom were stairs! But then we noticed that they had a wooden trough on the side to wheel your bicycle down. All that work to get up to that elevation and we didn’t get a fun downhill ride out of it! 

 [Jim wheeling bike down

   Shortly after, we came to a river we had to cross on a bridge near the water so that explained the descent. But high above us was a huge railroad trestle crossing the valley cutting through the bluffs.

  At our Warm Showers host, who lived west of the city, we had a fun meal together. They spoke pretty good English with occasionally one of us having to figure out what word was needed. He’s a retired government employee in environmental policy, she's a retired psychologist. It was their first time being a Warm Showers Host, they did a good job!