South shores of St. Lawrence river

Woke up pretty early and I realized that this motel stinks and not to book here again. We packed and headed out. The view was beautiful, with small rocky hills that broke the plain colourful flat hills and provided a great view. The river was right behind that, and the mountains on the other side looked magnificent but hard to see through all the haze. We stopped many times to take pictures and then continued on our way and started yearning for breakfast.

Infrared view from the motel room. There was a cat roaming in their garden, too (not shown).

Stopping for photos with the newly acquired Fuji X100S, which we have tried out several times before finally committing to it for this long trip.

Let the road never end!

Rocky formations in the middle of St. Lawrence.

We decided to stop and gas up at Rivière-du-Loup and rolled through the town trying to find a place to eat. We settled at an interesting looking place and parked our bikes in front. That was a delicious breakfast! Crèpes with chocolate and fruites, yum yum. On top of which we got a sugar coated glass with a delicious freshly squeezed fruit cocktail.

Food, glorious foo-ood!

The day was starting to look up :). We proceeded to take in some beautiful views along hwy 132 and had our lunch at Sainte-Anne-des-Monts. I ordered Italian pasta with pepperoni and minced meat sauce, which was delicious and I didn’t leave a drop on the plate. As we headed north we started seeing that it was hard to make it without riding at night. I insisted that we take Rue Rivière which was a great looking dirt road that would let us continue on 299 and ride through Parc national de la Gaspésie, however after riding a couple of km by this road we quickly realized that we wouldn’t finish riding it before nightfall. With limited fuel and coming close to sunset we didn’t want to get lost at the foothills of the Chic-Choc mountains. So we turned back and crossed through Forillon National Park by hwy 197. We came across a beautiful bridge and Marina lead us all the way into Percè.

Parc national du Bic

Parc national du Bic

Stopped at one of the road side picnic areas and ate strawberries that we just bought at a farm along the highway.

Shrimp!

Taking a break in the setting sun.

On the way in Marina caught a big live bug in her jacket’s sleeve, and as we were checking in, it started tickling her, causing her to erratically try and take the jacket off. A monsterous looking bug came out flicking its wings on the floor. The hotel owner even thought it came from Mars. I was thinking of releasing it but the owner quickly took initiative and killed it, but he had some trouble and the bug wouldn’t go down easy. We parked on the grass and Marina was exhausted so I helped her park her bike. Our room was smaller and more secluded than usual, but had a beautiful view of Percè – both the village and the rock.  We chewed on a blueberry turnover and went to bed.