Our first stop was the Tadoussac Dunes, an area of large sand dunes rising several hundred feet front the water. It is also one of the observation sites for the Tadoussac Bird Observatory. There wasn’t much to observe. The St Lawrence was fogged in and the woods were quiet. It is very active during migration, but not much now. We stayed about 30 minutes and only found 9 species.
It was back to the road and on to Les Bergeronnes and La P’tite Cochonne (Little Pig) artisanal bakery for a chocolate brioche and a Breton butter cake with orange and chocolate…and coffee. We also stopped at the quay just down the road from the bakery, but it was still too foggy to see anything. Back to the road.
After several “Travaux” (Roadworks), we stopped at the public park in Ragueneau. It offered free camping and dinosaurs. The site was evidently given to the town by some eccentric who cast at whole series of concrete dinosaurs and a very tall obelisk right on a rocky point. Even though the site had a nice building with toilets and showers, it was still very early, so we just stayed for lunch on Speedy and went on through many more “Travaux” until we detoured off the main road to the little town of Godbout. None of our camping sources except iOverlander showed anything at Godbout amd it showed a municipal campground that may or may not be closed.
It wasn’t closed. It is a delightful stop at the end of the road along the shore (practically the only road in town), overlooking the entrance to the Godbout river. When we arrived, there didn’t seem to be any office and almost seemed close…but there were three RVs parked inside the locked gates. With the help of another group tring to enter, we found out that you had to go to the tourist office at the other end of town. We followed them there and were able to get the last available site for two night.
It seems to be a “secret” spot. It doesn’t appear in any camping guides and you can only make reservations by phone. Even though it was full on Wednesday night, we are the only RV here on Thursday.
The campground has 7 paved, almost flat sites, with electricity, water and sewer, along with several tent sites, one with power. The sites are all in a row, with good space between them and they all overlook the river entrance. It was a very windy, but pleasant night last night, looks to be even better tonight as the wind has dropped and the temperature should as well.
There isn’t much in the way of facilities, but there is a new washhouse with two rooms, each with toilet and shower. They are very clean and the showers are hot and free.
After sleeping soundly, we did a bit of birding along the shore in the morning. Lots of seabirds off the beach and a few onshore. It was a good test of Ellen’s new Kowa spotting scope.
After a bit of a rest we walked along a trail up the river that turned inland. It went to what our map showed as another unknown campground. We found it and it was closed and almost deserted, with a handful of recent Class A motorhomes an fifth-wheels in permanent sites. We thought it might be a private club of some sort that was not yet open.
We were walking through on the way to the entrance road that went back to the center of town when a woman and her dog drove up in a golf cart. She spoke fairly good english and told us the campground was closed. It had been bought recently and closed and not all the permanent seasonal campers had been removed. She was the caretaker for the new owner who was only going to use it for friends and family.
She told us the front gate was closed and locked we couldn’t get through so we needed to go back the way we came. Ellen asked if she could just open the gate to let us out, so she went back to get her key card and we continued up the road to town.
The road came out about a block from the shore road. As it was close to lunchtime, we decided stop at the local Resto-Pub for lunch, Pulled pork sandwich for me and a bacon, onion, cheeseburger for Ellen. Stuffed…we walked it off on the mile stroll along the shore…finding quite a few more seabirds on the way back to Speedy.
Time for a rest.
We will be moving on tomorrow, to at least Sept-Iles, with a couple of stops along the Gourmet Trail as we head northeast.
It is supposed to be a big weekend as the school year ends tomorrow; I hope we won’t have trouble finding a site for the weekend.
Godbout is also the terminal for the ferry to Matane on the Gaspe side. We will most likely be back here to to take that ferry on our way home as it is the northernmost one we can get that goes back to the other side.
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