L’automne 2024: Day 4: Tadoussac, QC: Beach Day

Omissions from yesterday. I dumped the holding tanks and remained 100% faeces free. It’s rather inconvenient to dump tanks here. You have to go to the office and get a physical key to unlock the cap. I don’t want to do a culture on that key. I also learned that taunting Buffalo Bills fans is not a good thing to do.

Amazingly, the campground quieted down around 2200 last night and we were able to get a decent night sleep. This was a pleasant surprise.

Don’t freak just yet. I did not do my morning walk this morning. Our intent was to just get up, hit the road and head to our secret spot. We did that, but slightly later than we intended.

The plan was to drive over to the dunes area of Tadoussac, get a decent parking spot and relax on the elevated dune while watching the river for whales. Note that it is “watching for” and not “seeing”. That’s an important distinction. We set up chairs near the edge of the dune and stared. And stared. And stared.

We ate breakfast and lunch in place and made frequent trips back to the van for supplies and relief. There were signs in the parking area that said 1 Hr. Since I don’t speak french, I assumed it was just a pleasant greeting and not some statement about how long we could park.

At some point I decided to evaluate whether I should walk down to the beach below. It’s a big drop from the top to the beach. According to my watch it is 75m of elevation in about 100m linear. I wasn’t going to walk down but there were people way more out of shape going down so I followed. The dude going up the hill with the big backpack in the picture below is actually carrying a parachute thing he used to get down the dune.

We had many false sightings of seals (rocks) and whales (waves). We are pretty sure there was an actual sighting of a pair of belugas. I’ll have to copy the pictures off of the SLR. The show was far less amazing than that we got three years ago at this location.

Eventually I decided to do my “morning” walk and just did a short qualifying walk down by the larger paved parking lot. But alas, I found some things I had not seen three years ago.

After I got back from the walk at about 1630, we decided to pack up and go explore the new discoveries. It was getting a little too Saturday night party night up on the dunes at this point. Mrs Milddogs and I went over to “Maison Dune” and explored the little river running near it, the damn in the river and found the stairs down to the beach (which we did not take).

After that side trip we headed through a very crowded Tadoussac and stopped at the only gas station (avec service) and filled up the tank. We then returned to the campground to settle in for dinner and the evening.

Here are some of our keen observations:
-100% adults must carry a bottle of wine or a bierre froid while walking in the campground (I saw a guy with a Labatt 50!)
-32% of the ferrel children will dash behind your vehicle as you are backing into your spot
-91% of people will have campfires even if the campfire ring is 18″ from a wheel on their RV or car
-3% of people will leave their smoke detector going inside their RV for at least 45 minutes (see campfire item above?)
-2% of people will set of their vehicle alarm at least once (people beside us with the cute teardrop trailer have done it twice)

Prior to dinner, Tony and Barb offered us some fine pre-dinner appetizers and then shared some Wing Lee eggrolls that they had brought from home. Liz brought out the stinky cheese she had purchased at the fromagerie. I could not find enough clothes pegs for everyone. I stuck with good old marble cheese and a Busch Light!

For dinner we prepped some fajitas on the NomadiQ. We set it up as half grill and half griddle. I did discover that the fancy refillable propane bottles I bought are sold empty. Dang it! Fortunately we have the hose to plug into the propane in the van. Phew! We pretended to offer some to Tony and Barb but our timing was perfect as they had just finished eating.

Tomorrow we are heading a bit further east to check out some more whale viewing areas and staying at a campground on the river.

We are going to need some more whales tomorrow! Perhaps I should find another Patisserie!