We are exhausted! Being a tourist is hard work! However, we did have an excellent day and saw lots of sights, so we are happy that we made the effort.
First of all, the guidebook says that there is a shuttle from our marina to Percé but that is wrong. We got a ride with the guy who runs the marina and he was nice enough to take us past the town and see Percé Rock from another viewpoint – very spectacular!
Once Jacques let us off, we went down to the tour boat. We were able to tour Percé Rock up close. Here is another shot:
After that, the boat went over to l’Île-Bonaventure and we were able to see thousands of birds flying around and resting in the cliffs. There is a huge gannet colony but there were many other types of seabirds too. We also saw lots of grey seals lounging around on the rocks.
We docked on the island and were met by the Quebec Park people. The lady asked who wanted the introduction in English and three of us put up our hands, so she sent us over to the other park worker who gave us the spiel in English (which took about two minutes – don’t go off the trail, don’t smoke, don’t pick anything…) The other lady’s speech was apparently much better. I am not sure, but it was definitely a lot longer!
Anyway, we paid our park admission fee and headed off on the trail to see the bird colony. The hike was about 45 minutes and as we arrived, we could hear and smell the birds first! It was a sight to behold – I have never seen so many birds in one spot! Here are a few pictures:
We headed back on a different trail which took about an hour. Dennis set a mean pace as he wanted to catch the 1:00 boat back! (We did with plenty of time to spare).
Once we got back to the mainland, we watched a guy play the accordion.
After that, we had lunch and shopped for a bit. Jacques picked us up at the post office. Here is a picture of his and his car. It was a fun ride back!
We then went to the museum store. This store was the general store for 150 years in the community and in 2001, the father decided to close the doors and served his last customer at 2:00 pm. At 4:00 pm, he died of a heart attack. His children decided to turn the store into a museum and it was quite interesting. Here are a few pictures:
After the store, we walked back to the boat and we saw this in the parking lot:
That is all the excitement for the day. There is a full moon and all the tour boats are in this harbour – they do that when bad weather is expected. However, it is quite beautiful out and Environment Canada does not have any warnings out, so we are not sure what this is about. Oh well, we will see in the morning. We will be heading towards the Baie de Chaleuar – perhaps Chandler.
Last picture – full moon.
Split Crow 