After crossing the St Lawrence River, we arrived at
Riviere-Du-Loup. We spent the night at a
nice municipal campground. After I returned from taking a shower in the rest
room, Pat informed me that our sewage (black water) tank had overflowed into
our shower. Sure enough, the shower pan had stinky liquid in it. We could dump
the tanks, but this would involve moving the RV and it was already late, very
dark, and the RV was up on leveling blocks. We considered turning the exhaust
fan on, closing the bathroom door and dealing with it in the morning. Pat left
for her shower, and I decided to do a bucket transfer. I slowly drained the
black water tank into a small bucket and dumped it into a nearby sewer drain.
After 10 bucket loads, I expected to see the shower floor drained. To my surprise,
the level had not changed. Then I remembered that the shower drained to the
gray water (wash water) tank. I went outside and drained 10 bucket loads from
the gray water tank and this took care of the immediate problem. The next day
we dumped both tanks and Pat cleaned and disinfected everything stored in the
shower. Normally we dump our waste tanks every second time we fill our water
tank, but our routine got messed up when we topped off our water tank on two
occasions. Lesson learned (the hard way, of course!).
We had a nice hike around Parc de Chutes and then headed for du Bic NP.
This park is known for its seal colony and we saw about 50 harbor seals resting
on rocks at low tide. It was a good area to bike and hike in. During one bike
ride we came across two foxes along the road. Our next stop was Gaspésie NP in
the most mountainous region of the peninsula. We went for a sunset canoe
(voyager type) trip with a park naturalist. Unfortunately all interpretive
programs are done in French only, so we didn’t learn much on that outing. A
week of on-and-off rain started, and it was difficult to get a hike in without
returning soaked.
We left Quebec’s National Park system and entered Canada’s National
Park system at Forillon NP, at the eastern end of the Gaspe Peninsula. The
rainy and foggy weather continued through our stay here making picture taking a
challenge. We were at the start of a hike when an excited couple ran up to us
and warned us about a small bear just up the trail. We went to investigate and
found a large porcupine. We assume this was the small bear they found. Later
while seaching for seals, we saw 2 more porcupines.
The weather improved and we moved down the coast to Perce so we could
explore Bonaventure Island. For a $20 boat ride, we inspected Perce Rock, an
interesting rock formation, and then circled Bonaventure Island. Along the way
we saw at least 50 gray seals, a minke whale, and thousands of Gannets. We got
off the boat and walked across the island and saw a few more minkes and a fox.
On the opposite side of the island was the world’s second largest gannet
colony. This colony has a population of 250,000 birds and, trust me, it smelled
like it! I think there were a dozen flies for each bird, but unfortunately, the
flies liked the sweaty hikers better. After a short visit we circled back to
the boat, learning about the history of the island along the way. Our last stop
in Quebec was Miguasha NP which is famous for its fossil laden cliffs, where
they found fossil evidence of the link between fish and land based animals.
There is an outstanding fossil museum on site.
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| Perce Rock |
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| A portion of the Gannet Colony |
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| A Gannet and a Minke Whale |
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| Pat on Bonaventure Island |
After seven weeks in French speaking Quebec, we were quite happy to
enter bilingual New Brunswick. We soon
found out that our 6 year battery died after 18 months. We got a Ford
replacement battery and found out all we had to do to get a pro-rated refund
was to take the old battery back to the Florida Ford dealer who sold it to us!
Ford will be hearing from us. We took the coast road south and spent a few days
in Acadian country and then went to Kouchibouguac NP. This is a large coastal
park with lots of bike trails and short hiking trails. We spent 5 days here until
the Labor Day weekend approached, and then we packed up and headed for Halifax,
NS.
