At breakfast we decided we had to go back to the beautiful beach one more time before leaving. Of course it took longer than expected because a young couple had to say hi to Pepsi. Pepsi was slightly irritated because she wanted to hunt for more seafood shells. The weather was magnificent and we vowed to go swimming in the ocean at some point, but not today.

We packed up and let our adventure begin. Where would we end up? How many kilometres would we drive? As it turned out, we made 88 kilometres because there was so much to see and do.

The next gorgeous sandy beach was not far down the road and we had to stop and devour a Haagen-Daz ice cream. Then we went to the beach and waded through the warm, sunlit, crystal clear ocean water. A school of tiny little fish provided a skin exfoliating spa treatment. Ruth swears they had tiny teeth. A crab was curious enough to crawl up to us to investigate us and then buried itself in the sand.

It was time to say goodbye to the beach and move on to the Gaspe Museum where we learned of the history of the area. A really neat exhibit had two “paintings” talking to each other (each was a computer monitor) and told the story of Jacques Cartier arriving in 1534.

A special exhibition featured Madame Bolduc, a Quebecois singer/songwriter from the Gaspe area. Most interesting was the exhibit itself with its multimedia components projecting information and video clips on the walls, floor and car.

After some grocery shopping we made it to our final destination for today. Ruth was driving around a corner and exclaimed “look at these amazing red rocks” and Martin said, “that is the campground we are looking for.” They had plenty of room for us to stay and the red rocks for us to photograph. A highlight was “Le Tete Indien”, a rock that clearly resembles the head of a person.

The legend of the origin of this head goes as follows:

It is on board a large sailing ship that a European crew came alongside St-Georges-de-Malbaie’s coasts. They dropped anchor in a little cove near Ile Plate.

Eager to find fresh water and wild berries, some of the crew members reached land. Once on dry land, they saw a young Indian princess playing with children. Obviously entranced by this young girl, the white men decided to capture her. They took her on their boat and headed back to their distant continent.

The young Indian girl’s sudden disappearance caused her lover very much grief.. Even today, the pain of the man afflicted by the loss of his loved one can still be perceived. This face inlaid into the cliff is that of a fiance endlessly waiting for his lover to return. With his back turned to the sea, the Indian is sadly waiting for the waters to bring is love back.

After a frantic search for Martin’s glasses, which turned out to simply be hiding in the sunglass case, we could leave our campground. We said goodbye to the surprised owners who had hoped we would stay a bit longer, and set out for nearby Perce Rock.

Upon arrival, we bravely walked to the rocky beach that would take us to the land bridge to the Perce Rock itself. The walk along the beach was somewhat dangerous as the cliffs above aren’t entirely stable and are known to slide occasionally. We marched along across pebbles, large rocks and slippery seaweed that had washed ashore. The tide was rising and the land bridge was already knee deep so we decided to take pictures from a safe distance instead of going across.

After seeing the rock from the bottom, we now had to see it from the top. We walked a safer trail up a hill and photographed from the top.

After two hours of hiking, we deserved an ice cream and luckily there was a small artisanal ice cream shop with delicious ice cream and sorbet. Ruth enjoyed Maple Pecan and Dark Chocolate and Martin had Maple Pecan with the most amazing Blueberry sorbet.

Exploring Perce downtown was fun with all its people, shops, cafes, restaurants, motels and traffic but we could not settle on a place to eat so we made our way back to the van, took a last look at the rock in the distance and left just before the rain began.

The drive took us through many small towns and great scenery and we made it to the municipal campground in Saint-Godefroi which is right next to the water and a small fishing harbour.