Jack’s Walk

Perce Rock, ©voyager, all rights reserved

It’s been a long and difficult journey this year, but we’ve finally arrived. We won’t have internet access until tomorrow, but once we do I’ll share more photos and stories. For now, I’m still posting with my phone. This is the classic tourist photo of the Perce Rock, but it doesn’t really give any idea of scale. I know a better spot to take this photo, but there are so many tourists in town today that I just couldn’t get there.

Barcelona: The Aquarium 4: Creatures of the Sea

The last images from the aquarium. Oh, and I won a bet that day. When we walked past the gift shop on our way in I swore we’d leave with one of the penguins on display. Sadly, nobody who knows my kids would have held that bet.

Head of a seahorse


©Giliell, all rights reserved

Green and blue corals


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Jellyfish in a blue light


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Jack’s Walk

Jack and I are having a grand adventure. We’re in a place called Saint Luce, Quebec with no wifi and only my cell phone to post from. We had a short walk on the beach and are now collapsed. It’s  very pretty here, but it’s also dark and I can’t do night photography. Instead, here’s the only road photo that I have on my phone today. The pretty pictures should start tomorrow.

On the way to Perce

Jack’s Walk

We had an uneventful and generally boring drive yesterday which is just the way we like it. This part of the trip is just about putting kilometers behind us and that we did…about 650 km so far. We’ll spend today in Pointe Claire (we’re all exhausted) then tomorrow we’ll get back in the car and head east again for the next leg of our journey which should take us as far as Rimouski, Quebec. We’ll spend the night there in a motel and the following day we’ll drive the last leg of the trip all the way to Perce. Thankfully, the scenery improves once we get past Quebec City and the last part of the trip is so pretty that you can almost forget that your ass is asleep and your legs are numb.

 

St. Lawrence River, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Pointe Claire Yacht Club, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Barcelona: The Aquarium 1

One of the many tourist attractions and one the kids insist on visiting every time is the Aquarium. It has a lot of thematic basins, but of course the main attraction is big shark tank with the glass tunnel. Seriously, how anybody can think of sharks as monsters after seeing them will be eternally lost on me.

Pictures are a bit on the poor side, because the light is always low and a good camera needs good light.

Shark swimming through water.

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Shark in water

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Shark in water

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Jack’s Walk

Highway 401, looking east from Woodstock, ©voyager, all rights reserved

Jack’s Walk is on the road today. We’ll be traveling down Canada’s busiest (and most boring) highway the 401 all the way to its eastern end in Montreal. It’s about an 8 hour drive for us once we add in about 4 or 5 stops for Jack (and us) to get out and stretch.  We’ll be staying in a place called Pointe Claire, which is on the west end of the island of Montreal, where Mr. voyager’s mom lives. We’ll stay a few days to visit with family and friends and then we’ll hit the road again, this time along with my mother-in-law and brother-in-law, for a much longer drive (about 1000 km) all the way to the Gaspe Peninsula.

This is an annual trek for us. In a little village at the very tip of the Gaspe Peninsula is a place called Perce where my husband’s mother has a second home. It’s a very special place. It lies nestled at the base of the Chic Choc mountains in a small valley on the edge of the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It’s full of  colour and charm and I can’t wait to show it to you. It’s a well-known vacation spot because of the Perce Rock which lies just off it’s coast. It’s a stunner! It also has the world’s largest colony of gannets on Bonaventure Island which is also just off the coast.

But I’m skipping ahead. The next week or so is all about getting there. Jack’s Walk will still be here daily, but the timing will probably be wonkier than usual. My mother-in-law doesn’t have internet (she’s 92, although you’d never know it!) so I’ll be posting from the Tim Hortons down the road. Same thing once we get to Perce…no internet for the first few days, but one or two of the local motels has accessible wi-fi so we’ll get here somehow.

See you soon from la belle province, Quebec.

The Daily Bird #780

We’ve been neglecting the Daily Bird, which is a thing that cannot be.

So here’s a gorgeous Sardinian Warbler for you.

The funny thing about shooting with the 600mm lense is that I sometimes don’t even know what I’m shooting and only find out at home when I look at the pics on the computer screen.

Small bird sitting on a fence

Sardinian Warbler
©Giliell, all rights reserved