Shediac, New Brunswick

 Lobster Capital of the World. 

Hmmmm, gotta get me some!

World's Largest Lobster

Lobster bike at the local poisioniers (fishmonger)

What could be better than lobster with beer?

Between the 2, they weighed 6 lbs

No, not Julie

Perce' Rock

Packed up and started on our way out of Quebec. On the way is Perce' Rock. Arrived about 9am before many other tourists. Walked around the little tourist trap and up onto some overlooking hills, of Perce' Rock. Then down to the board walk. Nice place, very clean. One of the arches broke in the 1950s. Erosion happens....

At low tide you can walk out to Perce' Rock

Then down the road, destination Bathurst NB.

The North Gaspe'sie coast

Rode back along the north Gaspe'sie's coast to check out what we missed yesterday. We had traveled the interior road to Gaspe' yesterday.  Found a beautiful fishing town and rode down onto the docks as the fishermen were mending their rigging and nets.

Rivie're-au-Renard

Mending nets

Notice the artwork on the front of the boats bow...

Carried on and saw a turnoff to Pointe-a-la-Remommee lighthouse and one of Marconi's transmitting stations. The lighthouse, when decommissioned, was disassembled and moved to Quebec City and on display there for 20 years until 3 ladies lobbied to have it brought back. Buildings were reconstructed and made into this presentation centre. Pretty cool, the one downside for us motorcyclers, is that we had to ride 6-7 kms each way on gravel road to visit it.

From the top of lighthouse

By this time we were very hungry for and the next little fishing town we stopped and had the worst fish and chips ever!

On our way back, stopped and bought fresh shrimp. Had a shrimp cocktail for din din. Hmmmm!

Travel to Gaspe'

Up on the road at no particular time (usual for us). Back into town to buy smoked fish at a local company. Very yummy! Then through town watching cops patrolling and catching speeders. Looks like a real speed trap.  Make sure you slow down in Mont Louis...

Campsite view

Campsite view

View from Atkins & Fre'res Fine Fish Products

Mont Louis

Then down the road to the turn off up to Murdochville and over. Very hilly. Some hills slowed us down to 50 kph. Don't know how they can climb them in the winter. Lots of trees, felt like the middle of BC. Got to Gaspe' Campground. Owner allowed us to wash the dog on the grass. Kyle was not impressed as the water was only cold and got colder. (he is used to nice warm water) What a lucky dog. Next 4 hours was brushing him and taking him for walks to dry him of and get the hair out. Amazing how much hair come off this dog, but not really as he is a Husky..

Dry dock and Windmills

Got on the road at no particular time and started driving back down to the coast as our campsite was 10kms inland. Wonderful hilly road with new pavement, would be fun on a bike. Once on the highway headed east in search of Todd and his dry dock. Going on memory of the night before, we found it at noon. Had a great tour of one of the largest dry docks on the St Lawrence River. Todd was explaining that they are expanding to fit Super-max and Panamax freighters into it. 90ft wide door to 160ft wide and from 790ft long to 1000ft long, approximately.  Thank you very much for the tour Todd. Made our day!

Yours truly on the dry dock gate

Largest Icebreaker in the world

Check out this link

Expanded area of dry dock awaiting funding to replace gate

Rebuilt propellers due to the abrasion of ice

Todd Harwood-Jones (Dockmaster)

New pump for the expansion 1of 6

This entire knob up to the metal building has to be removed and below another 40ft

Machine shop, with Umiak 1 in dry dock (behind)

View from parking lot

Headed east again and saw a wind turbine farm on the hill. Has the largest experimental vertical turbine in the world. Shut down in 1987. They do tours. We took the tour and was very disappointed! Very deceptive pricing. They charge $17 for a tour of obsolete useless technology and said that we could climb the old wind mill, but after a tour geared for children (waist of time) then they told us that it would cost another $25 to climb the tower. Save yourself the money and the time, just google wind turbines. 

The ferry and Rimouski, Pointe-au-Pere' (Father Point)

Up early to catch the ferry from Les Escoumins to Trois-Pistoles. Met some nice people at and on the ferry trip over. Still raining at the other side.

Very small ferry

By the time we arrived at Rimouski (on the Gaspe' Peninsula) the rain had stopped and the sun came out. Arrived at The Maritime Historic Site, Site of the only Submarine on display in Canada, named "Onondaga" In Canada's service from 1973 - 1999

The nose houses the sonar and radar

Dry docked in 2007

Rear torpedo tubes area

CO2 scrubbers

electrical panel for the 3000hp propulsion motors

4000 HP Diesel engines to charge batteries

Looking through the periscope

Controls for the pitch of the boat

Next to some bunks

Torpedo bay able to hold 16 

And the tallest lighthouse on the St Lawrence Seaway. Has been decommissioned due to the GPS tracking systems on all ships.

Yours truly climbed 128 steps

Lighthouse lens

Looking east from the lighthouse

The clockwork mechanism to turn the lens, once operated by a 600lb weight having from the cable. Had to be wound up manually every 6 hours. Later an electric motor was installed

And the historic site of the "Empress of Ireland" ill-fated sinking in 1914 of a CP Railway passenger ship in the St Lawrence River. Got no pictures of the exhibit.

After our history lesson, headed for our night's camping. Found a place Base Plein Air Saint Demase, on Lac Demase. Nice place, but no internet or cell service. Talked to many people who loved Kyle and the kids were all over him, but very few knew any english. Was approached by a guy who's english was quite good. After dinner took Kyle for another walk and was invited to sit down with these same people. Turnes out that Todd Harwood-Jones was the last radar operator on the Onondaga Submarine and has pics and tattoos to prove it. Very interesting guy, does surveillance work for the military and turns out that he knows our friend Bob's son... Has a day job also at a large dry dock. Invited us for a tour. The company Todd works for built the rails and dry docked the submarine. He said the historic society paid $7 for the Onondaga and 1.5 million to dry dock it...