Forillon National Park

August 13, 2019

One of the primary reasons I came to Gaspé and spent an extra day there was to go through this National Park, which is pronounced  for-ee-yaw.  No emphasis on a particular syllable, it just flows.  There are two theories as to it’s meaning but neither one really explains it so I’ll just skip it and we’ll enjoy the simple beauty of the name.

I had now driven all the way around Forillon on Route 132 so it was time to venture inside.  I had done everything else on my list for the day and figured I had all afternoon to explore the Park.  Unfortunately my visit would be short lived.  Let’s just say all the beautiful pictures from earlier in the day were the calm before the storm….

1151 am – I had gone in the south entrance of the Park and had found this beach.  Here is a four shot, left to right panorama:

A little threatening in the last shot perhaps but the hill on the right obscures what’s coming.  Things were fixin’ to go downhill real fast.

A little further up the road (literally) I topped a hill, parked at the bottom and walked back up to take a photo showing the road descending back down towards the water.  I had also taken the digital camera with me to get some zoom shots.  Time now is 1206, only 15 minutes after the beach pictures and I still hadn’t noticed what was about to happen.

I felt a few drops and looked back over my right shoulder.

This was at 1209pm…

and at 1222pm…

In that interval I had used the digital camera to zoom in and take photos as the rain overtook a small town on the other side of the bay.  I’ve learned that photos of rain taken with the zoom are just a blurry mess and are not blogworthy.  I now knew the storm was quickly overtaking me as well.

Suffice it to say I made a hasty exit to head back to my Airbnb northwest of the Park and check the weather radar.  I’ve learned that the radar app I use on my phone doesn’t always give an accurate depiction of conditions in many of the places I’ve been while in Canada.  I love it in the US but there seem to be lots of “holes” up here which make it appear clearer than it really is.

It started dumping rain before I could even get back out of the Park.  I hadn’t realized the road I was on was a dead-end and when I did I had even further to drive to get out to the main road.

After I got back to the house and checked the radar on my computer I determined I was effectively in for the day and spent the remainder of the afternoon trying to get caught up with some postings on the blog.

Some of the photos I have seen of Forillon are amazing and I have now officially decided I am coming back to spend even more time in this part of Canada next year (Yay!!).  I have a growing list of places to revisit and will budget more time in various places, as well as adding some new destinations.  I actually considered backtracking at the end of this trip but was told that, especially in Newfoundland where I plan to spend LOTS more time, snow in September may actually be an issue.  Parts of western Canada are already getting snow.