CROSS CANADA MOTORHOME TRIP 2019 – GASPE PENINSULA

Now we are in camping and farming territory and lots of small towns, mostly starting with St. …

Catholicism is alive and well in every town as evidenced by the church which in all cases has the most prominent location in each town. The highest vista.

This church in St. Simon is very typical. Marg wanted to do a collage of all the churches we passed. I said ok and took 8 pictures of this one as she will be napping thru most of the towns.

I saw many of the churches, but Ken would not stop to take the pictures but this one he stopped at because it was named St. Therese, I’m sure we would have found a church for all my sisters and nieces had we checked them out, ha, that may have added another day or two.

Our campground is in Rimouski, which is a town of 50,000 people that are principally working at the large hospital here of 2200 employees and maritime research as well.

Our campground is quaint and locally owned. We went for a short hike thru the woods, but a little drizzly and mosquitoey. Talking to people earlier today, the weather here, like the remainder of eastern Canada has been cool and wet with flooding a real danger for certain areas. A guy in Baie St Paul told me that they had 300 cm of snow last winter and that he had to cancel a fishing trip to the mountains last week as they had 500 cm of snow and still had a few feet of snow on the ground. He was older so he can talk cm and feet at the same time like I can.

They told us we had to visit the mini farm, so here it is. I did not take a picture of the goat as he was grumpy and stomping his feet.

Rainy night so our anniversary supper is a boiled hot dog. It was not bad, and we went out last night knowing today was on the road. Nice and cozy inside and watched a good Netflix show about a girl and a horse called Rock My Heart. A German film with subtitles but good.

We are off the next morning to do the peninsula to Land’s End which is at the end of the land. A lot of driving so I will post a bunch of pictures of the scenery as only one longer stop to do a hike in Forillon.

We stopped and did a small hike to a waterfall. Nice trail thru the woods.

The highway along the peninsula followed the water and there was a town or village every 8 to 10 kilometres.

This is a typical house, so as you can see they are all very well kept and most had quite a bit of colour and it does not show here but a long line of split firewood. All the piles are uniform so businesses must provide. For an area that is into forestry, it is odd that we have not seen any logging trucks. Lots of poplar, spruce and pine here though. Lots of farming on the south of the peninsula but north is tall trees and mountains. Many higher degree grades that the diesel had to work at. Some at 12%. The population of the peninsula is only 140,000 and 50,000 are in Rimouski so sparse for the rest at best. Fishing and forestry were the major industries but overfishing has taken its toll. The area is increasingly turning to tourism. Interesting dumb fact is that Jersey Norman is spoken by a few here yet and is the only place outside of the Channel Islands that this form of French is spoken. I could have had Jersey Norman spoken to me today but my keen ear did not pick up on it.

We thought that we would have a campfire tonight, so I walked back to the check in site to buy some firewood. The girl there said that you had to go back to the park entrance to get it. I replied, forget it as we are already set up and too far to walk to which, she said that they would deliver if I wanted to pay her now. I asked if the bundle came with marshmallows? I got a real blank stare to which I concluded, some things get lost in translation. The guy who delivered the firewood was there to hear our exchange, and when he dropped it off, said that he put in a few extra pieces. I asked, what about the marshmallows? He said, that is why you got extra pieces! We had a laugh.

So we will have a good campfire tonight but no marshmallows. Land’s End was about 8km from our campsite so a little far to start tonight, so that is tomorrow morning.

We are off early for Land’s End, which is a short drive thru the park. However, “Travaux”, French for construction, makes us park early for the hike, and a 4km hike has turned into a 18km hike. The trails are good but lots of ups and downs, so overall elevation gain of 1200 feet. We met a nice young girl from Gaspe and her camera, meant she was a photographer either amateur or professional. She showed us the pictures of a moose and porcupine on their hike up. All we had was a crummy squirrel, but he was cute. Getting a sore neck looking up in the pines for that porcupine noW.

A moose and a porcupine are nothing compared to what I captured here.

The scenery was magnificent and the views even better.

We reached the end and even sited in a seal in the rocks below.

One of the restored houses of the fisherman

A short drive from here to the other side of the peninsula and the town of Gaspe. Our stop is the museum here of history of the area.

Off to Percé to our campground. The lady there is so apologetic, that she has very limited English and can only speak French and Spanish. I told her that she has me beat by one language.

Our campground view across the Bay of Gaspe towards the peninsula

We are off this morning to Percé on the Peninsula to take a boat excursion to Rocher Percé (Percé Rock)

In breeding season, now, there are 150,000 birds on Ile de Bonaventure. Northern Gannon’s are the largest population of 120,000 to the least which are puffins, 10! Iceland has populations of tens of thousands of Puffins, so there!

I felt I would add this picture of the rock on the island that we took a boat ride to, the guide said it was a profile of an Indian, I had to agree, he had a watchful eye over the Bay. I is not me! Indian? My god.

Ok, now we have done Quebec, after we eat this. It was good but you can feel the pounds adding on as you eat.

An afternoon drive to Bonaventure, still in Quebec. Again we pass many French towns on the Gulf coast, every 8km or so, 20 or more and a Catholic Church in every one. Where do they get all of those priests? Our stop is with Cime Adventures just outside of Bonaventure.

This place looked cool on the website but a disappointment! We wanted to canoe the river, but they only did guided canoe trips that ended at 2:30 and we arrived at 3:00. They had lots of kayaks and canoes but did not rent them out without a guide. My bad on that one! The units were on stilts, primitive, and you brought your own bedding and towels. A bad taste on this one, but the canoeing would have made the difference.

Off the next morning to New Brunswick, and Tim’s has to be the 1st stop. They are huge here just like the rest of Canada. While in line, a fellow moved me up, saying you had to be tight or else you lose your place. Engaging guy, like all Québécois we have encountered. 99.9% can engage in English and are a delight to talk to. We have chatted with a few in the campgrounds and they have lots to share. The Gaspe is awesome and a great place to visit!!

So we have hit 7500 km and getting great mileage. We are getting 19.05 miles/gallon of fuel. I redid it in metric as I was really shocked and 15.1 litres per 100 km