20020519

May 19, 2002

Day 10

Start: Camping Annie, Metis-sur-Mer, QU
End: Camping Panorama, Perce’, QU
Miles: 256

The low last night was 37f, and 46f when we hit the road at 9:05. It was cloudy, with a few sprinkles. We headed east on 132 again.

We stayed on 132 most of the day, but its character changed significantly as we went. Someplace along here, we saw a wind farm - a large group of electricity-generating windmills.

Near Matane, it’s just a normal two-lane road. It gets close to the shore in places, and away a little in other places. The bluffs on the shore aren’t very high. There’s a small town every five miles or so. Road conditions are pretty good here.

The north shore, on the other side of the St Lawrence, disappears about here as the St Lawrence widens.

Later, after Ste-Anne-Des-Monts, the road runs along the shore on a section of what was probably beach. Now the road is behind a solid concrete barrier that keeps the waves off the road. Still, signs warn of waves coming over it at times and onto the road. Every few miles there is a bay, in the bay a harbor, and the road curves inland around the harbor and through the village, and back to the shore. Road conditions are usually quite good.

Later still, after Riviere Madeleine, the road has to climb over high headlands between the bays. It never gets very high, but the ups and downs are abrupt. Signs warned of gradients of 9%, 11%, 14%, 15% and even 17% going up and down in this section. Quite a few times I had the truck in second to get up the hill without lugging down too badly. Also, the road condition was not at all good in this region - the Alaska Highway was better. 

Figuring that we didn’t need to look at Forillon National Park (it’s still closed anyway), we took route 197 from Fox River to near Gaspe, where it rejoins 132. Fox River is aptly named; we saw a big red fox run across the road not far ahead of us.

Then we finished the day by pulling into the campground in Perce’, Quebec. Perce’ gets its name from a large, narrow. headland that’s been cut off from the mainland and then had a hole worn through the narrowest part – close to the waterline on the seaward end. Now the rock is Rocher Perce’ – the pierced rock.

As we pulled in, it started raining, but that turned out only to be a transient thing – it rains for a few minutes every half-hour or so. Odd weather here. The sun came out briefly and we got a few pictures of the rock before the clouds returned. 

We found the cash machine, bought a few groceries at a market and fueled up the truck for tomorrow.

After we put the groceries away, we went out to eat. We were the first couple into the local nice restaurant. Several other couples followed soon after. The waitress spoke French, but the menu was French/English, so we got through that. The foursome behind us were Japanese, but one spoke English and was able to carry the French-to-Japanese translation.

I had french onion soup and steak, Dolores had a nice pureed vegetable soup and then a little filet mignon with half a lobster and half a king crab set of legs. Three glasses of wine, two slices of homemade apple pie, and coffee came to $80 with tip – about $52US.

Then back to the little house in the campground on the point above the Rocher Perce’. We watched the rock and the water until it got dark.