Rob-n-Hild, Eastward Ho!

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Forillon 30.2 km, 7:58 hours walking. 1,362 metres climbed

Well, we certainly got our walk in today! 30.2 km with 1,362 meters climbed in just over 10 hours away from our little teardop. We think that is the longest walk we have done in a single day - so now we are tired and we will add some more (from yesterday as well) when we get to Rimouski tomorrow.

We started off leaving our campsite and walking along the road down to the next one - where the walking trail actually starts. And it started off with a steep climb up a very rocky path climbing away from the coast over the penninsula - Rob was not looking forward to coming down this one! At the top of this climb is a junction where you could take off to an observation tower, but we decided to go out to the lighthouse first and do the observation tower on the way back. The thinking was that we would still have energy for the climb on the way back, but we might not get to the lighthouse if we did the climb first. Rememeber this decision for later...

On the (gentler) slope down towards the other side of the penninsula we met a black bear. Luckily, he was very experienced with people (better than people are with bears anyway) and he just ambled off the path and went on his way. We didn't even get a picture! There are clearly a lot of bears here - we saw lots of piles of bear poop! We told the guide abut the bear the next morning and he said they had between 80 and 100 bears in the whole park - we think we had a lot of them at this end just now!

Then we suddenly popped out of the forest to a hayfield running down to the coastline. From here the path went along the southern shoreline with a lot of little coves. Most are only accessible from the water making them popular with wildlife, but the odd one was possible to walk down to - and climb back up!

Then the track switched over the road and wound up through the forest until the lighthouse came into view - a welcome sight!

But we couldn't eat lunch yet - we had to go just a bit further down the cliff to the End of the World! There is a platform built out so you can see the cliffs - unless you are bit worried and would prefer to lie down on the wood to feel safe! After climbing back up to the lighhouse we had our lunch - and found out that even at the end of the world, the internet still works (as Kristin pointed out!). We had walked 13.5 km in just over 4 hours and climbed over 600m already - and there was still the observation tower to climb on the way back!

We took the road back down from the lighthouse - along with the other tourists who had walked 3 km from the car park - but we took to our path along the coast again to check out a cove where we has seen a whole bunch of seals on the way out. We wondered if they were still going to be there at high tide - and it actually looked like there were more of them now! Hild got some great shots through the binoculars - she is getting very good at using them as a telephoto lens for her 'phone now!

Rob had confidently predicted that if we walked back along the road to the historic sites at Grande-Grave we would be able to re-fill our water bottles, but there was actually no water there (well, no potable water!). So we bought a couple of bottles of Gatorade at the boat-tour shop and after sitting down while drinking them we felt quite refreshed. So we decided to make a loop of the Mont Saint Alban Tower trail, rather than go back the way we had come. We like loops, but maybe we should have bought a couple more bottles of Gatorade....

The loop turned out to be a poor choice because not only did it go around, it also went up, then down, then up again - and up again! We were getting a bit tired and very sweaty when we got to a wooden observation point and thought this must be it. We had a sit down for five minutes and had a snack and got on our way again - only to see the REAL observation tower through the trees!

It was another 40-50 steps to climb it, but well worth it as from the top we could see all the way down the penninsula (where we had walked) and up the other way (where we still had to walk home!).

After this, it was all downhill although some of it very steep and not too easy to walk down, but we made it back to the Oasis (a very appropriate name in this instance). It was about 5:45 and we had been out for over 10 hours - nearly 8 of them moving (acoording to Max, who is good counting when we are sitting down or standing still watching seals). The 13.5 km on the way out became 16.6 on the way back - with another 713 meters climbed. Not sure how much water we drank, but most of it ended up in Rob's shirt (he claims) as he could almost wring it out (Yuk!). We were ready for a shower - even the tiny ones in the camp toilet block - and then bed.

Coming up: Rimouski

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