Day 10: Thar she blows!

 

We went to bed at 11:00pm last night. If you know us well, then you know that is unheard of. Why did we do such a thing? We had to get up at 5:30am so that we could be in Gaspé for 9:00am to go whale watching. It was exactly 3 hours away from where we were staying in Gaspésie. Not only that, we only got there on time because we asked the locals what the most direct route was. On the way back, we took our originally planned route and boy were we happy we didn't try to go to Gaspé on that route. Construction, construction, construction. It would have been a disaster!

We arrived at the pier with minutes to spare (we had left at 6:15am and the boat was scheduled to leave the dock at 9:30am!). We dropped off our helmets, picked up our supplied rain gear and hurried onto the boat; we were still dressed in all of our riding gear, sans helmet and gloves. The cruise was 2.5 hours long. I managed to snap a few shots of a blue whale. We could see their long, pale shapes in the water. They were longer than the boat we were on! I didn't get very many shots. Too many annoying people in yellow rain jackets that just would not sit down. Grr.

After the whale watching cruise, we stopped for lunch at Le Café de L'Anse du Centre culturel Le Griffon, about 45 minutes westward along the northern coast from the tip of the Gaspé peninsula. We were starving! We were a little concerned that we wouldn't be able to communicate with the staff (je ne parle pas français!), but it worked out. We enjoyed a tasty meal. On our way back to Gaspésie, we stopped to refuel and buy some groceries in Sainte-Anne-Des-Monts.

Matt made a yummy dinner in our kitchenette that we enjoyed with a nice bottle of wine. One thing that we need to remember: every time we plan ahead and have accommodations that have a kitchenette, we should actually plan to bring some basic cooking condiments (salt, pepper, sugar, olive oil, etc.).

Oh right. One last thing: Matt's camera woes. It turns out it is the lens that's messed up, not the body.  I suppose that's the better of two evils.

We're expecting rain (oh noez! not again) so we're going to take off and post up photos when we arrive at our next destination.

Update on Sunday, August 2, 2009 at 10:54PM by Matt

Day 10 route:

Blue whale:

Lighthouse on the eastern section of the Gaspé peninsula:

Scenery outside Le Café de L'Anse du Centre culturel Le Griffon:

Waterfall along Route 132: