Gaspe Peninsula (part two)

17 Sept

     Moving day today as we are planning to move from National Parc de la Gaspésie on over to the tip of the Gaspe Peninsula near the National Park Forillion which is located near the town of Gaspe. We are looking at some pretty cold and wet days for the next few and it began raining last night.

     We got up and, while enjoying coffee, Kathy decides to take a look out the door to see just how hard it is raining and low and behold, there stood a moose just outside of our camper door. She called me to look so I grabbed the camera and put on some shoes - by the time I got there the moose who was apparently startled by Kathy, had walked across the street from our campsite. I eased on over to see and there were actually two of them there - a cow (full grown female) and a younger one with her. They are huge animals.

Morning visitors

     I stood there trying to get photos and they didn't seem bothered by my presence at all but I wasn't getting too close just in case. Kathy managed to get Ed and Kay out of their camper to enjoy the pretty cool site with us. We watched for a good while as they chowed down on the vegetation they were surrounded by. I hoped for one to walk into the campsite nearest them so I could get a photo of one next to a picnic table or some point of reference to illustrate just how big they are. An exciting way to start our day.

I thought he would eat the tree!....but just the leaves

     Later that morning we hit the road in pretty bad driving conditions - it was rainy, cold (50 degrees) and very foggy. As we leave heading east on 132 again, we plan to stop at some of the many lighthouses that dot the coast along this route.

     As we leave the Sainte Anne des Monts area the scenery seems to change a bit - there are more mountainous cliffs overlooking the water and steep roads and rock outcroppings. Very pretty but not an easy drive in this weather.

     We did manage to get a couple of lighthouse stops in but by the time we got to the last one that we really wanted to see it was too foggy to even try and we were getting weary from the difficult driving conditions that day so we skipped it with hopes of returning.

Oliver in front of La Matre Lighthouse

Cap des Rosiers Lighthouse

     We get checked into our campsite at the Griffon Campground and we have beautiful sites right on a cliff overlooking the ocean - but now the ocean is angry and churning with hard winds and rain so it is difficult to enjoy the outdoors. We decide to stay in and keep warm and dry in hopes of improving conditions.

18 Sept

     Still raining but we decide to take a drive and see and do all we can in the National Park (Forillion) knowing that it will most likely be a stay (mostly) in the vehicle kind of day. There are two main sections of the park and we plan to visit both. It seems that the park is mostly shut down  - we are arriving at the end of their season and not much going on, especially since we are unable to do any outdoor activities such as hiking.

Coastline in Gaspe region

     We booked three nights at this spot for camping but pretty quickly realize that two nights (one full day) of this weather is enough for us - we seemed to have found winter....cold, wet and very windy!

Beach area in Forillion National Park

     We did go to the different points of interest (sites) and overlooks to enjoy the beautiful scenery there and I tried to get some photos even in the nasty weather. The one part that was open was an old General Store that was set up like a museum that depicted life in that area during the early 1900's - that was pretty interesting.

Restored Home in the Park

     After we'd seen the park we decided to ride on down into the village of Gaspe and find a café for some lunch and scope out a place for dinner that night - it was a special dinner evening as this was Ed & Kay's 47th wedding anniversary and we had plans to celebrate.

     Leaving Gaspe with still some time available we decide to drive to Perce which is about 70km away to check out that village and the Perce Rock.....a famous landmark - a huge rock at the tip of the Gaspe peninsula that has an arch opening in it.  By the time we arrived there it was getting colder and the wind was howling. It didn't take long outside to see all we needed to see.

Perce Rock

Perce Rock

     By the time we came back through Gaspe it was approaching dinner time so we made our way to the restaurant to celebrate their anniversary with a fine meal and plenty of wine for the table. A great evening! Over dinner we decide to head out of this area in the morning - yes, a day early!

19 & 20 Sept

     The next two days were travel days with lots of pretty scenery to see but no stops for touring. On day one, we did manage to make it to Cambleton, New Brunswick Canada the first night where we stayed in the Sugarloaf Provincial park & that was a treat - probably one of the nicest provincial parks we'd seen. It is a ski resort (waiting for the snow at the moment) but had very nice camping facilities. They also allowed us to wash our very dirty trucks and trailers.

     Interesting note  - From my days of working in Canada I was aware that the folks in Quebec, on a couple different occasions, had a vote to break away from Canada and become an independent country on their own - the vote failed. It is still obvious that a lot of people there want to be separate. The language is French, and we noticed that the Canadian flag is not very visible in that area - instead the Quebec flag files. But, as we made our way back west of Perce we started seeing more and more Canadian flags and found more and more people speaking English.

     Day two (20 Sept) we made our way back into the USA and are now in a town near Caribou, Maine. This was a maintenance stop as we needed to do laundry, some maintenance on the trailers, get a haircut, etc.... It is just a one night stop and we head out for an area in Maine near Mt. Katahdin in the morning.

Route Map