The Last of the Gaspé

Today was to be our last day at this end of the province. We woke at about 6:30, with Barry's obligatory run from bed to washroom stirring us all to life. The sun was up, but the sky was hazy; not that it mattered to Percé, which stood magnificent and tall with the gulls circling around it and diving from it into the ocean.

We had decided yesterday that we would take an easy time to get to the north shore of the peninsula, but Nancy woke with a mission to get us packed and out. So we were in the car and down into town at just after 8, having already had breakfast, and hungry for a good coffee. The patisserie that we had been to the previous day unfortunately did not open until 8:30, so we decided to go up the hill for more pictures of the "Rocher" before going back to the shop for our coffee. This task done, we left the town of Percé, up the hill and through "La Grande Crevasse", on our way up north. The land was awesome, going from barechois to flat farmland to hilly forests. And the sea is always present. Houses were less well-kept than on the South Coast, but still good. And the towns did not look as properous, at least until we got to Gaspé (the town). there we stoped for another coffee, a brief visit to the jacques Crtier cross and the curch b uilt near it, and then to the Gaspé Museum for a pleasant visit and course in the history of the area.

From here to the Parc National de Farallon, at the end of the peninsula ("Gaspé" come from the Mig'mag word for "land's end"), and through that to have lunch by a wonderful area of the park called the Cap de Bon Ami (named after M. Bonamy), a spectacular place at the end of the Appalachian chain of mountains, as the tumbled into the sea. We ate well, stayed a while to admire the flora and fauna of the area, then went off, stopping briefly to photograph the lighthouse at Cap-des-Rosiers and talk to a retraitée who very pleasantly talked with us about the caiplin fishery there, the number of older folks in her community, and so on.

But the land had changed a lot: we were now into mountainous areas, some of them topped by large windmills slowly revolving in the high winds of the area. Hills were often at 15 degree grades, and the poor Lexus struggled a bit to take us all to the top before racing down again to the fishing villages at the sea. There was a large and clearly commercial fishing fleet at Rivière-au-Renard, and a wonderful church at Saint-Maurice-de-l'Échouerie.

We pushed on, but were enticed in the end by a lovely building in the town of Pointe-à-la-Frégate. Nice motel, no internet or phone service, so this entry will wait until I can post it later.

No biking today.