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Before we left Gaspe in the morning, we visited the site where Jaques Cartier placed his cross after discovering Canada. There are some really beautiful large sculptures depicting his meeting with the First Nations and placing the cross. They looked like large stone tablets but they were actually made of bronze but must have been cast from original wood carvings because the signature on them was from Bourgault, a famous wood carver from St. Jean Port Joli.
From there it was on to Perce, but we stopped along the way for the boys to play at the playground at Indian Head Rock rest point. The rest stops in this area are great. They typically have great views of the sea and often really good playgrounds. This one had both.
Got to Perce to see the famous Perce Rock (Roche Perce) just before lunch. It had been very cloudy when we left Gaspe but it was beautifully sunny here. We had a great view of the rock. Mom and dad had been here for 3 days on their east coast trip and had only managed to see the rock for 15 minutes! The Gannet birds were fascinating to watch. They
are a large white bird with a golden head. They were in large flocks and would dive into the water in huge numbers. It is hard to see them in the pictures but neat to see in real life. Had lunch here and played at the great ship playground. Claude said it was a Quebec tradition to buy a wooden boat in the Gaspe so we bought one for each boy here. Just as we were leaving Perce, in the next town, there was a man selling his own homemade boats on the side of the road. They were much nicer than what we had bought and cheaper too, so we bought a large one for the family.
Our destination for the day was the BioPark in Bonaventure. This was a really great animal park of the wild animals found in the Gaspe area. We only had 2 hours here but the boys really liked it and we would have stayed longer if we could. They got to see the feeding of the bears, cougars and lynx. They really loved the petting zoo. Marc was in his glory with the goats. As you can see in the photos, they
Replica of Jaques Cartier's cross
Placed to claim Canada for the king of France loved him too once he started feeding them hay. When we went to see the wolves, it was interesting. The wolves were not interested in us at all, but when Marc showed up the one wolf came right over and kept watching him and following him along the fence. Claude figured it was Marc’s size, but it was really interesting to watch. He was completely taken with Marc. Marc thought this was pretty neat and liked talking to the wolf. Paul was jealous.
We spent the night in Bonaventure at a really nice hotel right on the ocean, the Riotel. It was an older hotel that they seemed to be upgrading. The beds were very comfortable and the deck hung right over the beach.
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