les oiseaux

Yesterday Véronique invited us for a bike trip to the south shore. Dan had found a map of cyclotourisme for the south shore region and we picked out a relatively short route to do (60 km – the longest ones were over 100 km!). Véronique came and picked us up at Vendôme metro and we were able to fit all the bikes on her rack without dificulty. We got out of the city relatively easily but got horribly lost trying to find the bike route we had chosen. I don’t know what it is about this part of the country and useless maps, but we basically gave up and found a path in Boucherville which led to the south shore of the St. Laurent instead. We all agreed that it seemed a better route in the end, so it turned out well.

It was a lovely bike ride. We went through the town of Boucherville and then along the river. On the way the path went over an old bridge and we saw a pair of blue herons in the slough. I’ve never seen a large wild bird before so it was incredible. Dan was able to take some video of one of them walking through the water. It was really an amazing experience. After that the path continued along the river and went through a lovely park where people were flying the biggest, coolest kites we’ve ever seen. It was quite a breeze coming off the river so they had just tied the kites to a post and left them there while they had a picnic. After that we went through the town of Varennes which had a tiny chapel dedicated to one of the saints, so we took a look inside for a few minutes. Not long after we turned around and headed back. We hadn’t had lunch yet but had all agreed where we were going for lunch … Monseiur Patate!