Gaspesie Peninsula

12 August

We left Cap Chat and headed toward what we thought was a National Park, but found out that Parc National de la Gaspesie is a provincial park (state park) de Quebec.  We walked about 2 miles to the Lake of the Americas.  Along the way we saw fly fishermen, an abandoned beaver dam and lodge.  On the way back there was a grouse with a couple of chicks on the trail path.  The rest of the trails were really long, 10 plus miles and I wasn’t up for it as I had a minor headache (which decided to hang around all day.)

From the park, Roger took the eastern scenic highway along the St Lawrence Seaway and the Gaspesie peninsula.  It was a long scenic day with a variety of coastline mostly with rock shores and cliffs.  I think we passed 3 different lighthouses.  Roger also wanted to drive the coast in Parc National Forillon (which really is a National park), but the paper maps and software maps were not accurate.  There is no road along the coast and it is all back country hiking routes.  I am not a back country hiker.  So we drove as far as we could and then detoured back to the scenic route along the southern coast of the Gaspesie peninsula with a westward heading. 

We made it to Perce for the night and looking at the map, it really doesn’t look like we covered a lot of miles, but with an average of 50kmph you don’t get a lot of kms in a day.  Plus there were several construction places that we had to wait for one lane passage.

It never got above 70 here today.  Last night we had to break out our heavier blanket because it was chilly sleeping.  We have yet to have to use the space heater like we did a couple of times on our western Canada trip last year.  There’s a chance of rain tomorrow, so Roger isn’t looking forward to driving in the rain.  Hopefully we’ll get to New Brunswick and back into the land of the English speaking Canadians.  Signs are confusing in French, but we’ve figured out what the construction signs all mean, based on all the detours and slowdowns we saw today.  The people that we’ve met are friendly enough, but French Canadians remind me of Texans, first claim is to their province/state, then to their country.   Seems silly to me, but I’m still undergoing the “naturalization process.”