Taken from Wikipedia:
Percé Rock (French rocher Percé, “pierced rock”) is one of the largest and most spectacular natural arches in the world.
It rises sheer from the Gulf of St. Lawrence just off the tip of the Gaspé Peninsula in Quebec near the village of Percé. It is a massive limestone stack 433 metres (1420 ft) long, 90 metres (296 ft) wide and 88 metres (289 ft) at its highest point. The rock gets its name from a large 15 metre/50ft high arch near its seaward end.
If you go to Gaspe, you must go to Perce Rock. With that in mind and the nice day ahead of us, we left Gaspe and headed to the Rock. The only problem with heading to the rock is that the tide is your enemy so you never know when to head out to it.
The village of Perce Rock is beautiful, yet very touristy. It consists of one main strip of restaurants and souvenir shops. You can head down to the docks (which offer a great spot to take a picture of the rock with your girl) or walk down the beach to the stairs leading down to the rock itself.
Once we arrived closer to the Rock we realized that all we had to
do is remove our shoes and we could navigate across to the Rock! I have never been to the hole in Perce Rock and it was my hopes to do so on this trip. However, we never really planned ahead. From a distance it looked like the tide was too high to cross over but it wasn’t until we got closer that we realized we could walk through. But here we were with my jeans and sneakers on. Oh well, hike the jeans up and carry the sneakers in your hands, here we go!
I must admit that with the chilly water and the sharp rocks, my feet had seen better days. It was really hard on V
ero and once we got to the Rock itself and decided to keep going she decided to put her shoes back on and get them soaked.
To get to the center hole of the rock, you have to walk along the edge and jump from rock to rock and get wet. We were doing alright but it was starting to get harder as the water got
deeper and the waves kept pounding us against the rock wall! I think it would have been fine if I put some sandals and a bathing suit on but I was trying not to get my wallet wet and it was hard navigating with bare feet. In the end, we were close, but decided to leave it for another trip.
On the way back I was in a precarious spot and Vero kept telling me “If you put your foot there, you’ll fall in!” and I dismissed her warnings as I plotted my course like a seasoned video gamer playing a hard level of Super Mario Bros. As I put pressure onto my left foot to swing myself over to the other side of the rock I did in fact lose all friction between my foot and the rock and found myself in the water! I was not impressed as my wallet had become the victim after all this work.
In the end, we had the most fun part of our trip at Perce Rock as it was a nice day (although the water was chilly) and it always feels like and adventure when you’re surrounded by saltwater and seaweed.
We headed for shore and I convinced Vero to walk all the way back to the car so I could change my clothes and after some complaining we got there, changed, headed to a restaurant and had some great fish and chips before heading back out on the road.
Continuing on the coast, I set my iPod on The Beatles and shuffled the songs. I found it to be a great mix for the drive around the coast. Just some happy music that I can lose myself into. I let Vero drive for awhile and I think she appreciated it as you get to stare at the ocean along the road for all that time.
We crossed the border into New Brunswick, readjusted our watches and headed for Dalhousie to find a campsite. The campsite is right in town along the water and was…interesting. It was very modern and there were not many places to actually set up a tent. You’re very close to your neighbour.
After sarcastically speaking with the kid who rented us the lot for the night, we set up the te
nt and went on the hunt for some wieners and wiener sticks. We had to go to the grocery store up the hill and take a bunch of fliers to use for the fire and when we got back the sun was going down over the water. Just in time to set up the fire and set our wieners and marshmallows into!
Me: Hey, why are our shoes steaming? I guess they must be really hot.
Me: HEY, WAIT A MINUTE! (grabs shoe to discover the leather has melted on the back of it.
That’s right, my new shoes took a hit from the fire. Ah well…it’s not too bad and I can still wear them.
After a few beer we put the fire out and headed to the tent to watch an episode of Jekyll on the laptop. I found it amusing that they had a giant lamp over our tent so it was bright all night long. Very strange if you are used to camping in the deep dark woods at night.
iplaying: Rain King – Counting Crows (August and Everything After)