Week ending June 20

Finally some progress, and we were able to leave Ottawa. Almost $2,000.00 lighter we have new axles, new tires and new brakes, what more can a person want. The people at Frisby Tire in Ottawa where really great - we dropped in about 9:30,(no appointment) and had 4 new tires on the trailer by 11:20. They even had to go to the suppliers and get 2 tires because they only had 2 of the required tires in stock. So we programmed our travelling companion to take us to Drummondville, Quebec. After 100 KM we stopped at the Canadian Tire store in Casselman. (Following the tire installers instructions) They torqued the tires with the same torque wrench John had bought earlier in the trip. It took 3 people to do the job, one working the others chatting with us. When they found out we were from Calgary the one fellow told us that his brother is the GM at Mount Norquay. Not only did we get the tires torqued for free, we got all sorts of travel info about places to see in New Brunswick. All in all a very good stop. 

At the Quebec border we stopped at the Quebec visitor info and picked up enough info to keep us reading well through Quebec. Camped at Drummondville, where most of the campground was permenant sites, we were the only overnighter, so had lots of space and made a back-in site into a pull through, they were very level, so didn't even have to unhitch the trailer - made this morning a breeze, hit the road before 8:30. Stopped in Levis (Accross the river from Quebec City) visited the Levis Fort. Time to improve our education. The purpose of the fort was to protect us from those nasty Americans. It was never used for the purpose for which it was built.  Had lunch and then carried on.

We then arrived at the beginning of the Gaspe. Stopped at a municipal campground in Trois Pistoles. It reminds us of National Park campgrounds, because there are loads of trees, only difference is they have full services. There always seems to be a disadvantage, the one here is we can not get satellite because of all the trees. So much for watching the 7th game of the playoffs.  We couldn't even find a radio station.  Trever emailed me with the news that my Boston Bruins won (I've been smiling ever since).

At Ste. Anne-des-Monts, we still didn't have satellite reception, but could send and recieve email, but no other internet service here on my computer. Our travelling companion (GPS Lady) was very unhappy with us today, as we took the scenic route , which was clearly marked NO TRUCKS - she figures we are the same size as a truck and at every intersection she insisted that we turn around. It took her almost 30 KM to figure that we were not going to heed her warnings.  

The next morning, we woke up to rain, rain and rain. Once we got packed up, we went to retract the sliders. All went well until the bedroom slider, which wouldn't move.  We checked all of fuses, and found one that looked suspicious.  You just can't drive down the highway with the sliders out, so we went to ask the campground host if he knew where we could get someone to look at the problem. It turns out he was an electrician, so he came over with his circuit tester and confirmed what John had suspected - we had blown a fuse. He replaced it with a fuse of lesser strength, allowing us to close up the slider. He advised us to get the correct fuses.  No charge for his extra service.

The drive along the St. Lawrence was very picturesque, numerous waterfalls, sea birds, and water lapping up against the rocks. 

We arrived at Camping Des Appalaches in Gaspe where we had made a reservation for 3 nights, in order to allow us to explore the area around Gaspe and do some hiking in Forillon National Park.   As we drove around the area, we found that every campground was overlooking the Bay, except the one we were staying at.  The weather was not the best, typically it still always seems to rains on weekends.  We still got out and did some sight seeing. It did put a damper on out hiking plans though. The Gaspe is scenic and well worth the visit even though we had to tolerate low cloud with rain, rain and more rain.

Sunday dawned cloudy, but no rain, so we hiked up to Mont St. Albans lookout. We encountered a fox on the way up. John was standing on a bridge waiting for me, when a fox came out of the bush, wanting to cross the bridge, he waited,and I arrived at the bridge, so he disappeared into the bush. The weather on the way up was good, but by the time we got to the top, clouds had rolled in.  The view none the less was spectacular, and well worth the uphill trek.

Today, we packed up early and headed around the south shore of the Gaspe toward New Brunswick. We set the GPS for the campground we had located on the internet the night before, but our GPS lady wanted to take us back along the north shore to Ste. Anne-des-Monts and then south to New Brunswick. We ignored her, and headed south.  We had to ignore her for quite a while, because everytime we passed a point where she told us to turn back, she would recalculate the route and tell us to turn around at the next opportunity.   This kept happening until we were within about 20 km of the junction with the highway coming across the Gaspe from Ste. Anne-des-Monts.  She is nothing if not persistent in deciding what route we should be taking.  Usually she gives up long before she did this time though.

We got a shot of Perce Rock because we were lucky enough to find a spot to pull the trailer over. 

One thing we learned driving around the Gaspe was that they have all of the rest areas and viewpoints on the shore side, which makes a certain amount of sense.  However, this meant that we always had to cross the highway to stop.  We were surprised at how much red rock there is in cliffs along south shore. The color reminded us of the Sedona area in Arizona.