Gaspe Peninsula (part one)

12 Sept (Leaving Quebec City)

     We head out of Quebec City headed east towards the Gaspe peninsula with a destination for the night unknown at this point. We start on the equivalent of our interstate highways but quickly exit that and get on route 132 east which travels along the seafront with magnificent views of the St Lawrence river and some really cool villages and coastal farms along the way.

Coastal Village Town

     It is interesting to find that each of these very small villages that don't seem to be heavily populated have their own very large and beautiful church....like some I'd seen in Europe. All of the towns are pretty and located right on the water (mostly) with nice looking farmland in the soil leading from the sea to the hilly terrain.

Scene along the route

    We have identified several "attractions" that we want to visit while on the peninsula but this drive is also a "highlight" of the area. The traffic is light and the driving is relatively easy on good roads and it looks like we will easily make the area of a town called Rimouski, Quebec for our next stop. There is a National Parc (National Parc du Bic) there and we decided that would be a good spot to put down for a couple nights - a couple nights is one full day in the area. The park is in a heavily forested area right on the shores of the river.

Coastal Road

    Some of the attractions in the park are harbor seals that climb on the rocks near the shore to rest and sun on the rocks....in addition they talked about a place for beautiful sunsets, biking and hiking trails and just overall beautiful coastal scenery. We are excited about the park and the surrounding area.

     Maintenance Problem - As we've mentioned before the nights are getting cooler and wouldn't you know it, our heater decided to quit! We do not have a back up heater (but will next time) so I spend some time at this stop trying to fix it. After the first cold night here I think (fingers crossed) that the heat situation is resolved.

13 Sept - National Parc du Bic

     After checking in and a quick look around we realized that the park itself deserves a day and then we had some attractions in the area to see so this morning we get to the ranger station to see about adding a day....preferably without having to move from one site to the another. We were able to get a third night but Kathy and I will need to move.

Evening view from the campsite

     We also dedicate some more time this morning to other admin/planning activities - we've identified our next two stops after this one and some of the things to do at or near them. This planning takes a good bit (most) of the morning so we have the remainder of the day to enjoy this park.

Park shoreline

     A day in the National Park is spent looking at seals, riding bikes, hiking and enjoying the scenery it has to offer.

Morning fog on the water

Harbor seals resting on the rocks

     As the tides go out, it exposes rocks in the shallow waters near the shoreline and the harbor seals climb on the rocks to sun and rest....the park rangers told us when and where we could expect them to make an appearance based on the tide charts...pretty cool!

     Later in the day we make a run into the town of Rimouski to just have a look around and get some groceries in their local market. We've found trips to the grocery store interesting also - different products, lots of seafood, and fresh baked goods.

14 Sept

     For the touring attractions in the Rimouski area we had identified two stops - Pointe au Pere and Le Canyon des Portes de l'Enfer both of which turned out to be good stops.

     First we head to Pointe au Pere which is where the second tallest lighthouse in Canada is and this area also has two other attractions that we enjoyed. We bought tickets to do all three - the lighthouse, a museum dedicated to the "Empress of Ireland", and a Canadian Submarine called the Onondaga.

Pointe au Pere Lighthouse

First mate in the crow's nest

     We did the museum first - The Empress of Ireland was a passenger ship that sank in 1914 (only a couple years after Titantic) where 1012 lives were lost. It is located only 14km from the lighthouse in about 130 feet of water. The museum was very interesting as it included a movie about the accident along with many artifacts that have been recovered since the wreck was located. Interesting to learn that the ship had a million dollars worth of silver (cargo) and when the public got word that divers were trying to blast the ship open to recover the treasure the government of Quebec stepped in and declared the site a national historic site and nothing can be removed from the site.

     Also of interest to us - as they normally highlight a passenger or two to tell the story on a more personal level, the little girl they chose to tell about was Dorothy Brooks a 9 year old who shares the name of Kathy's mom who we lost earlier this year....quite a coincidence.

     Next we climb the lighthouse and hear of the importance it has for navigating the rocky/foggy waters of the St Lawrence. We got to climb to the top of the lighthouse and see the nice view and hear about how it worked and some of the duties the lighthouse keeper had to perform to keep it operational.

Coastal view from lighthouse

     Then we get to the Submarine and do an audio self- guided tour. The sub was manufactured in England and built to the plans very similar to the German U-boats. Just stepping onboard, the smell reminded me of my shipyard days. The tour was well done with several different stations where we listened to audio descriptions of what we were seeing and what life was like onboard.

Canadian Submarine - Onondaga

     We leave Point au Pere headed for Le Canyon des Portes de l'Enfer which loosely translates into Hells Gate Canyon. There, because of time getting away, we have time to do two relatively short hikes. The first takes us to a suspension bridge overlooking the canyon for some nice views. This bridge is larger and more stable than most we've encountered so not a lot of movement.

Suspension Bridge

     The second hike was to a really nice waterfall areas called the Grand Saut for nice views and an area at the bottom along the river bank where the many tourist have enjoyed stacking stones - a common practice near rocky river areas we've found.

     From there we are heading to dinner out - we've been talking about it and planning for two days. We'd identified a restaurant in Rimouski called Restaurant de la Marina - a seafood restaurant on the water featuring seafood that rated high on trip advisor. We arrive pretty hungry only to discover that they are closed for a private party. The owner said there were no other seafood restaurants in town (we were amazed) but she referred us to another town not far away for a different restaurant.

     By now it is after 7:00 and looking like this may be "one of those nights", Kay started talking about the fish sandwiches at McDonald's and how good they were <smile> but we decide to give this one restaurant a try before we cave into something less desirable.

     We arrive in the village of St. Luce at the restaurant called L'Anse aux Coques (don't ask me) and the place was packed. This restaurant was also right on the water and had a nice ambience to it. When the hostess asked if we had reservations I was worried but she seated us right away. We had a great waiter who spoke pretty good English  - his English was much better than my trying to interpret the menu with the app on my phone! and we enjoyed a fine meal to end the day. 

15 Sept - National Parc de la Gaspésie

     We find it interesting here that the check-out time for campers in the park is 3:00 P.M. - very much different than the 10:00 or 11:00 A.M. that we are used to. We decide to take advantage of this and wait until noon to leave since we are not traveling too far to the next park. As such we spent the morning working on photos,  reading books, updating the blog notes and going for a long walk while Ed and Kay did some bike riding in the park.

     The National Parc de la Gaspésie is about three hours drive away and we take it slowly, enjoying the ride. We pass by a little village called Cap-Chat on the way in that has a "point of interest" that we plan to come back to but no time on the way in - we want to get in and set up well before dark and we've found the well-forested National Parks to be difficult to navigate sometimes.

     We arrive and get the information we need for this park and directions to our camp sites. We are here for two nights with no hook-ups, but no problem, especially for such a short stop. This park is about 25 miles inland from the coast and in a mountainous region just south of a village called Sainte Anne des Monts....lots of rivers, waterfalls and hiking trails - no bike trails but in these hills we decide that is just fine with us! We have an easy evening with plans to hit it hard the next day - our only full day here.

16 Sept

     The night before we devised a plan to go for a nice hike in the morning and in the afternoon we would take the drive back to Cap-Chat. The morning hike we decided to do the 7km hike called the La Chute (waterfall) du Diable trail which looks to us like a loop trail on the map - remember, nothing much in English here and the ranger desk was too crowded to get confirmation....besides between Ed and I (expert map reader) what could go wrong?

Sainte Anne River

Friend from hiking trail

     We head out early enough to get back for lunch and execute our afternoon plans. When we arrived at the Chute du Diable falls we were taking photos and just admiring the view when a young man from Quebec City came upon us - he was very friendly and spoke good English so, just for reassurance, we confirmed with him that it was a loop trail. Thank goodness we did - we were about to head off on an 18km hike that would have taken us to the top of Mont Albert....we felt like we dodged a bullet there. With his advice, we did return back to camp on time.

River du Diable

Hikers extraordinaire in front of Cute du Diable

     Ed had read about (or maybe heard about) a place in the little village of Cap-Chat where there was a wind-turbine (electricity producing) farm that allowed visitors and offered tours. We had seen the hillside covered with the wind turbines on the way by there and we were all interested in getting a closer look. That was the after lunch destination for the day.

     The wind farm was interesting - they had an old (not in use anymore) vertical axis wind turbine....looking at it you would not have guessed that's what it was (see photo). Along with that piece of history (a failed experiment) there was also 76 turbines in production producing energy they sell to Hydro Canada. The tour focused more on the older failed experiment than the newer stuff but it was all still pretty interesting - probably more so to Ed and I than the girls. They also offered (for an extra $10 fee) the opportunity to climb the 300ft tower of the one no longer in commission. It was all ladders and straight up - no thanks!   

Vertical axis wind turbine - who knew?

Cap-Chat Wind Farm - from Highway 132

     (Note on tides): you can see in the photo above that at low tide it goes out forever - the tides are great and since this shore line is gently sloping (versus steep drop) there is a rocky shoreline exposed for what looks like almost a quarter mile in some places/times.

     After the wind farm tour at Cap-Chat we make a stop at the grocery store in Sainte Anne des Monts for a few things and then back to camp for the night and planning for a morning departure.

     Weather  - the weather is getting steadily cooler with daytime temps in the 60's to low 70's and the nights are dipping into the low 50's but that is nothing compared to the forecasted weather for our next stop! 

BTW - the heater is still working (keeping fingers crossed)