July 10, 2008

July 10, 2008

We woke early today to try and put some speed into our travel around the Gaspesie peninsula of Quebec. While trying to make coffee, Aimee noticed the power was out. Must have been the rain last night. After unhooking I hit the switch to retract the stairs and….nothing. Uh-oh! When the campground electricity went off it must have surged and fried the stair motor. After checking the fuses I spent the next hour under the RV on the cold wet grass trying to manually retract the stairs. They won’t budge. Finally after removing all the bolts and screws I could loosen, I was able to pull the motor and push the stairs back in. But now with the stairs retracted, I can’t put everything back together! On a lark I hooked the motor to the engine battery and it worked. Hmmm, a wiring problem! So I reinstalled the motor and used a set of jumper cables to electrically retract the stairs. Eventually I need to find the wiring problem but that can wait for a warmer drier day. For now we are on the road again.

Finally we make it to the tip of the Gaspe peninsula at Forillon National Park. We drove days and hundred of miles only to see fog covering the sea cliffs here. Oh well time for some exercise. First we climb the Cap-des-Rosiers lighthouse, tallest in Canada. We then hike the two-mile Cap-Bon-Ami trail uphill to the Mt St Alban lookout tower atop the sea cliff above us. Exhausting, we are so out of shape. Luckily by the time we get to the top to our surprise the fog has mostly lifted. We can get some photos after all.

From Forillon we continue around the peninsula to the town of Gaspe, where we stop at an unimpressive memorial to explorer Jacques Cartier who set foot here in 1534 claiming Canada for France.

Our next stop is Perce, a small touristy town with towering sea cliffs. Its fame is its Rocher (Rock), a huge sea cliff separated from the mainland. After eating dinner in town, we take a stroll down the pier and squeeze in between some fisherman to take some photos of this Provincial Park of Quebec. We spend the evening in town with our RV facing the sea and the Rock of Perce.