6500km in a Jeep TJ to the east coast of Canada

CanadianGuy

New member
The grandeur of this trip is not great compared to some of the adventures on this site. It was our first foray into the world of car-based-long-distance exploration. I want to preface this by saying the eastern coast of Canada is absolutely incredible and I highly suggest anyone with a spark for adventure and natural beauty to explore what it has to offer.

The route was vaguely Montreal, QC --> Rimouski, QC --> Moncton, NB --> Halifax, NS ---> Cabot Trail/Cape Breton, NS --> PEI ---> Montreal. The plan was to camp out every night as various semi-preplanned sites.

The vehicle: My 2004 Jeep Wrangler with almost 200 000km (120k miles).

We left Montreal in early May, it was around 10 degrees Celsius.

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Kamouraska Quebec; super cool fishing village

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To locals Quebec is known for its construction, trips like this remind me what an incredibly beautiful place it is when you leave cities.

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Error #1: Almost all of the 'cool' camping spots we had planned to stay at were closed because of a very late spring. It also went down to below 0, we ended up at an ugly campsite; with awful pouring rain that unexpectedly soaked us.

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After a horrible night realizing none of the camping stuff we brought was even vaguely up to the task of subzero temperatures spirits were high as we rolled into a new province. Temperatures were around -3 at this point.

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We tried to find dirt roads to go adventuring, but all we could find was awful crater infested asphalt.

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We stopped to buy warmer things, because the forecast called for an equally cold and crappy night. In the meantime, we tried to dry our gear in the midday sun.

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The night in Moncton was equally cold. Luckily we got a great fire going and made a drying rack, we powered through into NS.

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NS had beautiful blue water and sandy beaches aplenty
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The rubber duck that lives in the Jeep was lovin it

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Cape Breton!

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We had no firewood, stopped on a beach to collect driftwood as the sunset for another long cold night. (LUCKILY A DRY NIGHT!) The driftwood provided warm, unfortunately we were in a national park and couldn't cut down any good wood for fear of being shot by an overzealous park ranger.

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The next morning I work up, slightly beer-grogey from the night before I heard trotting coming down the road. When I looked up a moose was standing 3' from me. I watched enough National Geographic to move away slowly and it went on it's way- amazingly memorable experience!

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CanadianGuy

New member
My personal fav; Meat Cove, NS... Tiny fishing village a good drive down a gnarly dirtroad in the middle of nowhere. Awesome!

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Love this shot of my Jeep.

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Awesome couple and kids from the UK overlanding from Halifax to South America; awesome diesel 4x4 VW army thingy (They're probably on this forum...)

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Camping on the edge of the continent

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Crossing into our soon-to-be favourite province, PEI!

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We found some cool trials behind farmers' fields which were actually marked roads! The dirt was mainly clay and an awesome deep red colour.

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Got a lot of looks driving around Charlottetown... had a lot of beer and met awesome people! At this point it was almost 20 degrees during the day.

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The end of the trip gave way to endless blue skies, beaches and red clay

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Except on the way home. It poured for 13 hours.

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Until we rolled into Quebec and the skies broke

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"Life is nothing if not a daring adventure..."
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We plan to take what we learned an head into Newfoundland next spring. We're going to do more intensive research this time around and travel with 2 vehicles. For our purposes we didn't have enough space in the TJ and were missing some key pieces of equipment that we won't make the mistake of going without again! All in all a great first trip!
 

andysgreenxj

Observer
Thanks for sharing you trip with us! Looks like you guys had a great time... I have plans for a similar trip, just not sure of the actual area that I'm going to explore yet, just depends on where my budget is gonna let me go... :cool: But with any luck, I'll be doing something similar to your trip. I'll be driving my 00 cherokee towing my expo trailer! The last pic you have posted is an awesome shot! Again, thanks for sharing:coffeedrink:
 

Lucky j

Explorer
Hey canadian guy, nice report!

Get on overland canada forun and on overland quebec forum as well!

Some of us are also up their!
 

matthewp

Combat Truck Monkey
Great pictures (Your dog is awesome by the way!). My wife and I are planning the same trip next summer.
 

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