Tuesday October 4th

It was a dark and windy morning, but still warm and a bit humid. There were lots of oohs and aahs as we came around the corners to see the next dazzling display of colours. We caught up with a porcupine which went into full defensive mode with its quills out and quivering. You could see how the story got around that they could shoot the quills at their enemies. I'm relieved to report that the story is a myth.

We dropped down the hill by the Manic 5 dam and as we passed over a bridge Sandie spotted loons in the spillway and wanted a picture. The security guard was really unhappy about us stopping there and he followed us to make sure that we didn't stop again. However, he did tell me where there was good spot up a logging road where we could photograph the dam and the whole valley.

We were now off the gravel road and onto bumpy blacktop and dicing with enormous logging trucks, which crawled up hills but would blast past us at 80 on the way down. They left us just before Baie Comeau, and we turned onto the Route des Balenes again, heading towards Tadoussac. We had hoped to camp close to Tadoussac, but the day had turned wet and dark and was quickly getting darker. We spotted a track off into the woods and it led to an abandoned gravel pit, heavily overgrown, but enough room for us. Not the most scenic spot, but the price was right.

Wednesday October 5th

In the morning it was a lot cooler with showers coming and going. Despite the weather it was a pleasant drive along the coast road along the cliff tops with occasional glimpses of the St Lawrence. We stopped at Longue Riviere to look at the waterfall cascading down the cliffs to the beach. The Longue river had smoothed great slabs of granite, coloured yellow and orange by the iron in the water.

We stopped for lunch a Cap Bon Desire, a real national park, one run by Parks Canada rather than Parcs Quebec. This park protects an old lighthouse and fog horn, and it's also a good place to look for whales. And that's what we did: a lot of looking but no seeing! We didn't see any whales and got extremely cold doing it. Temperatures were in the 40s with a stiff breeze coming in off the St Lawrence, which is about twenty miles wide there. The river is a favourite feeding place for belugas, minke, fin, humpbacks, and even the gigantic blue whales. There had been a single minke through that morning before we arrived, and it had come within a few feet of the shore.

	Cap Bon Desire (0.15)

So we missed the whale but Sandie found a bear. When she left the observation platform to go make some lunch she met the bear at the top of the stairs by the foghorn building. The park ranger ladies seemed more excited about the bear than the whales. I guess it's a novelty for them.

We needed to move on and camp. We could have retraced our steps up the east side of Saguenay Fjord, but there looked to be an interesting route up the west side, so we took the ferry across from Tadoussac to Baie Ste Catherine. Just like in many parts of BC, this ferry is treated as part of the road and it's free, so you just line up for a few minutes, board the ferry, wait for it to fill up a bit, and take the ten minutes trip across the mouth of the Saguenay River. Looking back at Tadoussac it looked an interesting village,and I was sorry to be missing it. Another time, maybe.