Part Four | Motorcycle Guide to Exploring Highway 132

Ultimate Ride Episode 4

VO

So as you know, this season we’re in the province of Quebec exploring Gaspe with our ultimate destination being the famous Pearcé Rock in the Gulf of the St. Lawrence. It’s located just off the peninsula Jacques Cartier first spotted it back in 1534 while the guy who officially named it, Samuel de Champlain circled it back in 1603 so after picking up a couple BMW K1600GTs in Quebec City we’re now exploring highway 132 as we ride south out of Rimouski on day 2 and we’re heading for Matapedia.

 

Dave

Well Norm, here we are in Matapedia, Quebec. It’s midway through day two on our Ultimate Ride of Gaspé and I can see New Brunswick from here.

 

Norm

Well here we are right at the border, the Restigouche River is actually the border for this area of Quebec and New Brunswick.

 

Dave

Right and maybe we should tell folks why we’re in Matapedia and why we decided to stop here and why we’re standing in somebody’s driveway.

 

Norm

This is where my sister lives and my brother-in-law and they knew we were going to be in the region and they said hey, why don’t you stop by for lunch on the way through.

 

Dave

Right.

 

Norm

So here we are, we started off with a little local smoked salmon and we’ll see what the main dish is when we get inside.

 

Dave

Yeah, well so far so good. Well it’s been quite a morning, it’s been absolutely beautiful this morning, about fourteen degrees, sunny, blue sky, we started out in Rimouski and we took one thirty two and just headed east and my goodness me, what a beautiful, beautiful ride.

 

Norm

Yeah absolutely and it was pretty typical, not boring but typical, ride to Amqui but as soon as we got past Amqui and started heading further east, wow, by that river, holy mackerel that was beautiful.

 

Dave

Yeah we had at least forty-five minutes to an hour of nice, windy, beautiful pavement and the whole way we had a river to our right and we caught glimpses of guys out there fly fishing, we found a beautiful covered bridge dating back to 1931 and just what I love, just that sort of classic riding along the river and through the valley’s and just beautiful.

 

Norm

The mountains, I mean you’d come over a rise and you’d see this big, beautiful mountain on the side and some of them had patches cut out for farms and very typical coming into a town Quebec steeple which is almost in every town.

 

Dave

Yeah, we saw some beautiful churches along the way.

 

Norm

Yeah very typical riding.

 

Dave

Yeah, so I would highly recommend this route so far and I know now we’re in Matapedia and we’ve crossed over the river and we’re going back. What’s the game plan after we have a bite of lunch.

 

Norm

Well we’ll leave Matapedia, apparently a KM up the road is the longest bridge in the world so maybe we’ll cross that bridge, take the two minutes it takes and come back.

 

Dave

Apparently it takes an hour.

 

Norm

The joke is the time changes at the bridge.

 

Dave

Right right.

 

Norm

But after that we’re going to head up to New Richmond so this is going to be our first lok at Bai des Chaleurs so this should be a very nice coastal little ride up here and then from there we’ll hit the two ninety nine north and go through Parc de Gaspé.

 

Dave

Right

 

Norm

Up to our final destination of St. Anne des Monts.

 

Dave

Well so far, since leaving Quebec City we’ve had water on our left for hours and hours to Rimouski and then so far, this journey today we’ve had water on the right. It looks like we’ll have the same as we go by the Bai de Chaleurs and man, it’s just been so far, delivered the goods.

 

Norm

Absolutely.