Travel Day Five and Six / Montreal, Quebec / July 5 & 6, 2019
We spent the next day in Montreal, renting bikes, touring the city and catching a free Cirque du Soleil show in the park. With the bustling Trans Canada Highway hovering above the city and no great place to thumb, we decided to take public transit as far East as we could and hitch a ride from there.
The day was getting on by the time we figured out the transit system and the ticket booth operator finally understood my poor pronunciation of the French town Saint-Hyacinthe. We got off the bus, strolled through town and picked up some food at the grocery store.
Both feeling a little lacklustre and exhausted by the hyper nature of our trip, we decided to spend the night in the Parc Les Salines, hoping to have our energy restored for the next day. It worked. Leaving the Tim Horton’s early the next morning, I stuck out my thumb as we neared a highway off-ramp and a young French man picked us up.
He wasn’t going far, he told us, a few hours down the road to the other side of Quebec City. We assured him that any little bit helps and we set off down the road. He knew a good highway rest spot on the outskirts of the city that would be full of weekend traffic. “You should be good there,” he said.
We stood at the rest stop for all of ten minutes when a little white sports car pulled over at our feet. A young man named Louis was on his way back from a Def Leppard concert in Quebec City. He was tired and hungover and thought the company would keep him awake. Smelling the stagnant beer in the air, I offered to drive.
Louis told us he was going to Grand Falls, New Brunswick, which would get us 300 kilometres from our final destination. We were stoked. “Where are you guys going?” he asked. “Shediac.” Matt replied. Louis looked baffled, “Seriously?” Seriously.
As luck would have it, Louis was driving to Shediac Bay the very next day to meet at his family’s cottage for the weekend. “Well,” Matt joked, “if you see us on the highway tomorrow, feel free to pick us up.” We all laughed.
When we arrived in Grands Falls, Louis had a change of heart. “What the hell,” he said, “I’m going to stop by my parents place, pack a bag and then we’re going to Shediac!” We could hardly believe his words. “Are you sure?” we asked. He was sure.
Six travel days after standing on the shoulder in the B.C. mountains, we would arrive at our final destination on Matt’s parents back porch our “EASTCOAST” sign tattered and torn, but us, alive and well. We had spent less than $500 on food, gas and accomodations and doled out many a sticky bud to our grateful new friends in lieu of their role in our adventure.
It turns out that you can still successfully hitchhike across Canada in the year 2019.