Québec 2024-2: La Gaspésie & la Côte du Nord

7 July 2024, 6:30 AM
Sept-Iles, Québec

    Doug: Is it Tuesday or Wednesday?
    Marilyn, consulting her watch: Sunday.
    Thus goes the meandering.

1st night in Queébc, boondocked on beach near Paspébiac. New Brunswick in distance across Chaleur Bay .

    A few pics of our so far 2 weeks in Québec province.

    We crossed the bridge over Chaleur Bay from Cambellton, New Brunswick, to Pointe à la Croix, Québec on the Gaspé Peninsula (la Gaspésie), June 27, and boondocked near Paspébiac.

Paspébiac. Decorated bikes on many street corners.

Percé Rock. 

Marilyn. Bonaventure Island off south coast of Gaspésie in distance.

Moose ambling along cliffs above Gulf of St Lawrence. It had just walked behind some houses. In distance Bonaventure Island & Percé Rock.

Tête d’Indien: "the Indian who never looks at the sea."

Tête d’Indien campground, Gaspé Peninsula, where we spent 3 nights.

Claudia & Marc, puppy Scott. Marc & his dad converted the van. 

    One of the joys of this trip has been all the wonderful Canadians we’ve met. Doug is outgoing, but the California license plate is definitely a conversation starter. People such as Claudia and Marc went so far as to give us their contact info if we needed a place to stay in Québec city.

Cap des Rosiers, Forillon National Park, Gaspé Peninsula.

    Forillon is a “real” national park–in Québec province, provincial parks are called “national” parks. In a similar fashion, the Québec flag is seen much more than the Canadian flag, and St John the Baptist Day is more important than Canada Day.

Machine is wrapping round bales of hay into long plastic tubes. Saw this throughout Maritime Provinces. 

Grand Étang. Spent a few hours here on counterclockwise route around Gaspé Peninsula. The weather could not have been more perfect.

Parc et Mer, Cloridorme, on St Lawrence Seaway. Our neighbors were another wonderful young Québécois couple. 

Municipal Park in St Ulric on north coast Gaspésie on St Lawrence Seaway. Chatted with fellow campers from Quebec. Camping is donation only (we donated). 

St Ulric. Lat night on Gaspé Peninsula. 

We took the ferry from Matane on Gaspé Peninsula to Baie Comeau on the north coast of the St Lawrence Seaway, about a 2.5-hour crossing. The ferry, about 5 years old, was clean, spacious, & downright luxurious.

View from our campsite near Baie Comeau, after getting off the ferry. 

La Côte du Nord: the north coast of the St Lawrence Seaway. 

Boondocking near Sept-Iles on Côte du Nord. 

Municipal campground, Havre Saint Pierre.

      Havre Saint Pierre is 5 hrs, 450 km from the Baie Comeau Ferry. We were just 200 km, 2.5 hours shy of the end of the road of la Côte du Nord at Kegashka. We spent 3 nights in Havre Saint Pierre. It's another absolutely stunning location, we were feet from the beach with no possibility of campers between us and it, and the weather was perfect. What more could one ask for?!

Havre Saint Pierre.

Doug coming up from the beach.

Marilyn of course had to take a dip in the St Lawrence. On her cool-refreshing-invigorating scale for open water swimming it was definitely invigorating.

Lovely church, Rivière au Tonerre (Thunder River). 

Doug talking with his son. Municipal rest stop in Pointe des Anglais. 

    Québécois folks who were also boondocked here came to visit. Marilyn doesn’t really understand Québécois French too well, but they seem to understand her French.

St Lawrence Seaway, waves, cool evening after a little rain. 

Lone seagull on rock.

    In Havre Saint Pierre we'd reached the furthest east point of our trip. We'd been in Québec almost 2 weeks and would spend another 2-plus weeks there.