On to Nova Scotia.

We left Renfrew early on a Sunday morning planning to get as far as Quebec City by the end of the day. This leg of our travels is more of a transit stage, as we have driven this route from the Ottawa area to Nova Scotia many times. We also wanted to try to by-pass as much of Montreal as was possible to avoid the constant traffic jams and continuous road construction work.
The drive down through Ottawa was easy with minimal traffic, although the traffic levels increased considerably going through Ottawa. Everyone was in a hurry at 9:30 AM Sunday morning. There were a lot of people either rushing to church (which I doubt) or a lot of people who thought they were important or what they were doing was important (which is possible when you look at the number of politicians and their staff that live in this area).
We drove along the Ottawa River on old route 17 to Hawkesbury and crossed the river into Quebec. Our plan was to travel route 50 to 15, then south to 640, east to 40 and then on to Quebec City on 40. Things went smoothly until we hit the junction of 15 and 640. Last year when we travelled this route, this junction was under construction, and it still is this year. Not a lot has changed. Traffic was bumper to bumper and there were six police cruisers with cars pulled over in a 1 km stretch. It appears they were really enforcing the 50 kph construction speed limits, which was great. However, where they had cars pulled over it narrowed down the traffic lanes and further slowed things down. We eventually reached route 40 and the traffic eventually thinned out.
DW then suggested that we cross the St Lawrence River at Trois-Rivieres and link up to route 20 east. We had never crossed here before so it would be a bit of new road for us until we got on 20. Route 20 was it's usual self. Lots of traffic, mainly transport trucks, and lots of construction which we were able to get past quickly as no one was working at the sites.
We finally reached Levis and pulled into a KOA campground, just off route 20 and settled in for the night. This is a nice spot with full service, clean and modern. Great place to stay if you want to tour "Old Town" Quebec City. They have a shuttle service to the Old Town which means you can leave you vehicle at the campsite and not have to worry about where to find a parking space in the city. The other advantage is that you can visit as many wine bars and bistros as want and not have to worry about driving back intoxicated. The only requirement is that you have to remember where the shuttle is going to pick you up and what time the last run is! We plan on doing this on our next trip up through this area.
We left the next morning and continued east on 20 until we got to Riviere-du-Loup and then headed south to New Brunswick. The drive through the rest of Quebec and into NB was colorful with the trees in full fall colors. Once into NB we drove down the St. John River as far as a RV Park in Gagetown. We have stayed here before and it is now under new ownership and is called Coy Lake Camping. A lot of changes have been made and this park is slowly being improved. They still have a lot of work to do to make their sites comfortable for big rigs.
We left on Tuesday morning for the short drive to Amherst NS where we were stopping next. We arrived in Amherst around noon, got set up at Loch Lomond Campground in Nappan and then spent the rest of the day visiting relatives.
We got a later than usual start on Wednesday morning but knew we only had a short day's drive to Lunenburg NS. This was our last official day of travel for this trip and we were both a little sad that this one was over. On the flip side, we were happy to know that we would be spending time with old friends and family for a few months until we leave again, probably around Christmas time when we plan to head south to warmer climes. We will be posting occasionally over the next few weeks keeping everyone updated on our future plans. We regret that there are no photos in this post but there is a new album posted called fall colors in Ontario. Not many photos, but beautiful color.