Gaspésie Road Trip

Our road trip out to the Gaspésie peninsula did not yield many new species, but the breathtaking views made up for the lack of fish and I still think it's worth writing about. This was a shorter trip, Alex is working full-time now so she took a long weekend and we had a total of 3 days to complete a good 28 hours of driving and touring.

It started with a stop in Matane where I hoped to find some Lumpfish before we set up camp for the night. The Lumpfish were nowhere to be found but I did see plenty of Sand Lances and even managed to scoop one up by hand! I later managed to get one on hook, adding the American Sand Lance to my list :)

After that bit of fishing we set up the car for the night and went for a quick walk on the beach before going to bed. We woke up to a gorgeous view over the St-Lawrence gulf, happy to have chosen another great free camping spot.

No fish of interest were caught on our first full day out on the peninsula, but we did get some great hiking done and I finally saw my first Moose! It had been a running gag that I had driven across Canada and still had never seen a Moose until now :p Other than the ungulate sighting, we saw a ton of waterfalls during our hiking and ended the day by visiting an aquarium. Unfortunately, that aquarium was the closest I'd come to seeing a Lumpfish.

The visit to the aquarium pretty well summed up the day (other than some failed fishing attempts we won't mention), so we made camp at yet another beautiful stop on the side of the ocean. Day 2 was really the day of beautiful sights, The eastern portion of the peninsula is truly a spectacular drive with many great natural wonders. Other than the many viewpoints along the way, some of our favourite stops included Forillon, the Emerald River, and the Rocher Percé. Here's some of the pictures we took along the way:

Even looks good through my cracked windshield!

The "tip" of Quebec

The Emerald River

The classic Rocher Percé

The final day of the trip mainly consisted of completing the drive back home, but we did make a stop to do some fishing in St-Anne-des-Monts. At the pier, I finally managed to land a decent sized fish! This cool-looking Shorthorn Sculpin: