CANEAST 20,21

AUG 16 GASPE TO MIRAMICHI NB

Elizabeth here:  A few things I forgot to mention about our drive in the Gaspe, for those who enjoy puns. We passed a small roadside food truck with a big sign that said they were the “Pout Inn” and another place painted a deep purple named the “Auberge Inn.”

A pleasant ride to Miramichi where we will meet up with Ashley and Kori to go for a boat ride/tour and dinner.  We are being hosted by Walmart here and have a great spot overlooking a forest.  Thanks Walmart.

We’ve been having trouble off and on with the “breakaway” switch on the trailer.  This actually was acting up the day we hooked up at the dealer lot but it was intermittent and I thought it was solved by contact spray and conductive grease.  Not so.  When it’s raining it intermittently interrupts power to the trailer brakes so it has been a bit of a pain.  

I bought a new one here in Miramichi and just installed it. (A whole $10) As we were leaving the dealer’s lot, I turned 360 degrees out in their backlot and as we were leaving, the salesman waved us over.  It turns out as I turned past them, our trailer just “touched” the corner of another trailer and we were sooo fortunate there was no damage to either!  Miss Adventure Too is longer and has more tail whip than the last one…I’m really going to have to be more careful!

We stopped at a fish market and picked up some nice Salmon for tomorrow night.  We had to ask twice for directions to find the place.  There was a sign on the highway with the exit number but when you got off, there were no more directions!  Poor marketing, good fish YUM.

When Ashley came by he said he was supposed to “inspect” our trailer. LOL!  Seems he has a friend that works at the trailer dealer where we stopped for the breakaway parl.  Ashley knew we had been there.  Ashley, Kori, Elizabeth and I went for dinner at the docks and then on a great boat tour up and down the Miramichi River including one-man band live country music. It was a very busy cruise with a large group celebrating a school reunion.  Normally there would be a commentary but the live music was non-stop so Ashley provided us a brief history of the area as we passed sections of the town and river.

Sat 17 August 2019

Today we travelled to Kouchibouguac National Park (pronounced Coo She Boo Guac – as in guacamole).  Looks to be a beautiful place and we are going to Wigwam Sunday and cycle around. They have 30+km of crushed stone two-way trails and we’ll see how riding goes.  

We changed our camp from two nights in no service to one night in no service and one night in a serviced site so we would have to move. We decided to change back to two nights, no service in the site we’re in which is nice.  That way we don’t need to spend time moving so we can spend time cycling or doing nothing.  

AUG 18, Sunday Kouchibouguac National Park.

An amazing park.  Lots to see and do…as usual we can’t do it all.  We cycled to the Wigwam and were treated to history and culture for 1 1/2 hours by a First Nations person.  It was great.  There were tanned pelts of various locally trapped animals and some that no longer were in the area.

Then cycling more on these excellent trails that are also cross country/snow shoeing in the winter.  We had our sandwich lunch in a hut (that had a wood burning stove for the winter) and continued back to camp.  A very nice fairly level ride on manicured crushed stone cycleways and we easily rode 25 km.  Time for a nap in the hammocks.

One of those sign posts points to Wood Buffalo National Park which we were in last year: 3800km away!  Also Louisbourg where we were two years ago.

View from the office

After dinner we went to the park program “Sounds and Sights of the Dunes.”  It was excellent.  The two interpreters provided lots of great information about the dunes and the plants and animals that live there while making it a really fun activity for kids and adults.

The park was created in the 60s from with land expropriated from about 7 seven small communities.  We heard there was a great deal of controversy and protest then and even still resentments today.  The short film about the park said that this was the last time that a National Park was created by expropriating land.  I remember in the 80s when the Bruce Peninsula National Park was created that there was a lot of protesting and bad feelings even when the government was buying the land.

Aug 19,20 PEI National Park

We’re in the land of Anne. Another beautiful drive; Confederation bridge is spectacular.  13 km long. There is an interesting film in the information center about the construction.  I didn’t really get a picture of the bridge but take my word for it, it’s amazing.

Hi Anne.  Looking forward to seeing you!

Pre-fab Bridge sections.  The bricks in the circle are the names of the folks who built it.  I chatted with one of the concrete construction workers in camp at Miramichi (we were camped at Walmart) and he mentioned the video and this display above telling me we should not miss it.

The wifi where we are for the next 9 days is not so good.  Had more pics but can't easily upload...stay tuned for our next episode!  It has something to do with Anne and also catching and eating something that is in season here and lives in salt water...