Storyline: Unfinished Roadtrip
I can’t believe we’ve forgotten the matches. I am sure the box was in the compartment above the spice rack, but it isn’t there anymore. How do you start a campfire without matches? Alex comes up with the brilliant idea to light a piece of paper from the griddle’s burner. There, the fire is on.
Doranya is perched on a terrace at the edge of a forest laced with goldenrod and blue-wood asters, air filled with crickets’ tunes. The smoke from the wet wood pulls up a blue-greyish curtain over the green, blue and gold from the sun setting over Bonaventure Island.
We are in “Chalets et Camping Nature Océan” just south of Percé. I had booked 3 nights at the camping with the hope that we can take the boat to the famous pierced rock and the Bonaventure Island (île Bonaventure). We arrived early here and with two more nights there is plenty of time to burn a bag of wood. Or so we thought.
Alex lugs a big bag of wood uphill all the way from the reception to the campsite, while I am setting up the van with a beer in hand as a helper.
Next day he’d walk to the tiny village, look for matches and buy what he could find. A box of 50 matchbooks. In all our life together, we had not used one matchbook. Now we have 50 books! If anyone needs some, just shout loud.
The small village of Percé was jam packed when we drove through it. Looking for matches Alex also checks the tour boats. “We are not going on this boat”, he declares when back. “They pack them like sardines. Masks or not it is rather risky.”
For someone like me who suffers motion sickness, driving from Mont-Louis to Gaspé and then Percé was interesting and challenging to say at least. If you are one of those people you know that the best is for you to be behind the wheel. You know your state and react accordingly, entering every sharp turn slowly and accelerating after. A skill I was taught way back when in driver’s school in Bulgaria.
Windy and winding serpent roads open up to spectacular views and create a nerve-wracking feeling – one strong wind blast around a steep downhill corner and the campervan can end up in the water, one fears.
With the comforting feeling that Doranya is on the inner side of the road (something I had thought about while planning our trip) I was keeping the rhythm of a swing dance as in Glenn Miller’s “In the Mood” (we were in the mood for travel, after all): swing to the right, twist to the left, up in the air, down to the water, full gas, sharp up-right spin, brakes to the floor, down-left twirl.
And repeat for 220 kilometres with a stop at the 145th kilometer to visit the birthplace of Canada in the town of Gaspé. In 1534 the explorer Jacques Cartier lost an anchor during a storm and was forced to land in the bay. He then placed a wooden cross with the king’s coat and proclaimed possession of Canada. Soon it would become a fishing port for the New France. Many historic turns and twists are recorded since then. Reading “A Brief History of the Gaspé Peninsula, the “Birthplace of Canada”, I’d say that the events are almost as many as the turns of the meandering coast of the Gaspé Peninsula. However it is believed that ”The Mi’kmaq occupied this land centuries before the first Europeans arrived.”
We left Doranya up the hill in an IGA grocery store parking lot and walked downtown, taking the “Promenade Jacques Cartier” route to the bay, which is currently a reenaction site that reconstructs the events from the past. Due to Covid the historical building was closed.
There was a gift shop and a small tea & coffee shop, but that was about it. There is a big cross and Mi’kmaq signage at the small bay enveloped by a busy highway.
After having tea for Alex and coffee for me that we both found not even close to drinkable, we returned to Doranya and she took us further onto the meandering road following the river bends that enfold the Gaspé Peninsula.
At one of the turns the road opened up to the breathtaking view of the famous rock. The road however was narrow, one lane, and there was no way we could stop there or further around to enjoy the view. Soon we reached the village of Percé.
After being in so many quiet places, including the town of Gaspé, we were surprised how busy this place was. There was nowhere to stop and look at the map, because our great navigator (Alex’s apple phone) had lost the location of our campsite. We continued and just after we crossed the village, we noticed the sign for the campground on our right.
If you haven’t figured it out yet the name of the village Percé means pierced in French. It takes its name from the rock which was named Isle Percée (Pierced Island) in 1603 when the French colonist and explorer Samuel de Champlain visited the area. The rock is a natural formation in the Gulf of St Lawrence facing the village.
Apparently one can walk up to the hole at low tide. This massive rock cliff is absolutely stunning in clear weather and in the fog. It is part of the crags, bays and hills of the Gulf and has about 150 fossil species. The arch, the giant moody eye of the rock, is one of the biggest arches in the world.
Next to the rock is Bonaventure Island, nowadays famous for its bird sanctuary, where northern gannets (over 110,000 nesting birds), razorbills, puffins, black guillemot, kittiwakes and many other can be seen. The island was expropriated by the Quebec government in 1971 and the 35 families from Irish descent living on the island were evicted. In 1985 the island was bundled together with Percé Rock as a tourist attraction, which is the main business in the area today.
That evening we sat by the fire and enjoyed the phenomenal views from our quiet terrace, accompanied only by the crickets.
Little did we know that the this would be our last stop in a fantastic journey. Next day was rainy, and Alex managed to do a video of Doranya.
The day after, he felt ill and slept for the most of it, while I was enjoying the last lavishing summer rays and the ever-changing colours of the rocks and the waters.
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