Ambassador, Ambience - Havre St Pierre

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Wednesday 4^thOctober 2023 Havre St-Pierre, Canada

Off the ship by 8.00am after sussing from the ship, that there wasn’t going to be a lot to do there!! Went to the Information Office and booked a rib boat trip for 4 hrs to the Archipel-de-Mingan National Park, that consists of 20 large islands and we could visit two of them!! This left us an hour and a half to visit the town! Started with the most boring looking church I have ever seen – hoped it would surprise us on the inside ……..it didn’t!! Bumped into Hong + Conor again who had explored everything and confirmed that there was nothing there!! Just houses and two shops on the harbour front, Chez Julies ( re-nouned for delicious seafood dishes!!) and a tourist shop!! Walked along the beach past the marina for a little while (looking for wildlife…there wasn’t any!!) saw a small shrine and walked back to get the boat at 10.10am.

Excellent boat trip!! First we all put on our orange life jackets/coat then set off for our first stop Ile Niapiskau. Passed islands on the way, all with strange rock formations! Landed at Anse des Bonnes Femmes on Ile Niapiskau meaning Pointed Rocks in Montagnals language (Had to wait for the Ambience Boat Trip to leave first!!) and our guide/boat driver took us on a board walk to show us strange rock formations – with a bit of imagination he pointed out a crocodile, tortoise and Richard Nixon as well as a few others!! He only spoke French ( the English guide couldn’t come today!!) and someone who came on the trip translated for him!! Just as well because my French isn’t up to sediments and granite and rock formations!! The monoliths, which have been eroded over many centuries, are actually 500 million years old!! ( I think!!)

We then took the boat to Ile Quarry,where we 1 ½ hrs free time ( as long as we stayed on the boardwalk!!) and had a magical time following the boardwalk along the coast, through the forest, past huge rocks dripping with water, ponds, up and down steps, viewpoints to finally reach the monoliths in the sea, on the other side of the island!

Got back to the boat at 1.15 ( 15 minutes early!!) to get back on the ship by 2.00pm ready for the sail away at 2.30pm!! A good visit!!

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