Gaspé Road trip - first stretch

After 20 months at home with the pandemic, we finally ventured out on a road trip in September, with the Gaspé peninsula as our destination. On the way to and from the Gaspé, we stopped at many interesting places.  Please come along with us to enjoy some of the scenery.

Nicolet caught my eye when I was looking for a place to stop near Trois Rivieres - it is near the south shore of Lac St. Pierre which has a significant bird sanctuary. Since September is migration season, I was hoping to see some migrants while we were there.  As it turned out, we arrived late in the afternoon and caught the golden hour on the cornfields but the light was too dim for us to see anything on the vast meadow near the birding hotspot Baie-du-Febvre.  Since we had to be on our way first thing in the morning, we skipped the bird sanctuary thinking we would be stopping here again on our way home.

Corn fields catching the golden light

Minimalist farm scenery in Nicolet

Blue hour on the river

We headed for Riviere-du-Loup the following day with a stop at the Parc des Chutes-de-la-Chaudiere to see the spectacular falls. The bedrocks there are even more spectacular. We also stopped by a couple of the picturesque towns along the route - Michel de Belchasse with its many silver-clad rooftops and Kamourasaka, a legendary town. I stopped because of Anne Hébert's book (Kamourasaka) but the town has many other interesting aspects, including a chocolate shop and a romantic pier. I encountered two lifers here - the sanderling and the semipalmated sandpiper.  The sunset at Riviere-du-Loup that evening was beautiful and we were lucky to catch it before we arrived at the hotel.

Les Chutes de la Chaudiere

Spectacular bedrocks and the suspension bridge in the distance

  

Silver-clad steeple of the church at St. Michel de Belchasse - recurring theme throughout Quebec

 

The waterfront at St. Michel de Belchasse

 

Charming pier in Kamourasaka

Sanderling at Kamourasaka

 

 

 

 

 

Semipalmated sandpiper at Kamourasaka

Golden fields in Kamourasaka

Falls at Riviere-du-Loup

Riveire-du-Loup sunset

It was a long drive along Hwy 132 to our final stop before Percé - Carleton-sur-mer, again hoping to see some migrating birds in the bay. We saw several blue herons and some wigeons far away and not much else. But the awesome cloud formation at sunset gave us our photo fix for the day.

TIP: While everyone is supposed to be back in school in September, there are sitll many people on the road (retirees?). If you would like to eat in a better restaurant for dinner, it is wise to reserve ahead as they tend to be booked up. This happened to us in Carleton-sur-mer where the few seafood restaurants were all fully booked and some were closed.  For a while we thought it would be pizza for dinner until we found The Heron, a diner that served a decent fish dinner.

The "Old man and the Sea" and the lighthouse at Carleton-sur-mer

Awesome clouds at sunset (Carleton-sur-mer)

Next post: destination Percé