Forillon du Sud

The park has two entrances, and two exits. That is, you enter the north part of the park, see the sights, descend and ascend 101 steps, then exit the park. Then you travel to the south part of the park and enter again. If you pay at the north, you get into the south on the same day for free. So we did.

There was a multistage geocache that for some reason I thought was at a cemetery. I'll tell you the reason. It was called GRANDE-GRAVE, and part of the cache was looking up the date of death of M. Xavier Blanchette. Turns out that it has nothing to do with a cemetery. The first stage was down by the shore, and where the sign used to be was a large skip. They were tearing down and rebuilding the pier. Unfortunately, to get the second stage, you needed the info from the first stage. Fortunately, I am a genius and figured out where the second stage must be, based on information from a reenactor at the shop up the hill. So up the hill we went again, and sure enough, there was the second stage. The shop was an old general store and fish buyer. Inside, besides the reenactors, there was an animated M. Hyman telling a fisherman that he couldn't give him any money because they had overfished the cod and the economy was bad. The third stage took us to a typical 19th century farmhouse which had been donated by the family. There were reenactors inside that building as well, all of whom spoke decent English, about as decent as my French, so we had a good time. An old man came in and sang a folk song with the girls. I'm not sure if that was part of the show or if he was a tourist as well. And I only caught bits and pieces of words, but it was a typical folk song about girls and loves and losses. In the farmhouse, we picked up the third stage, using the date of M. Blanchette's death (he lived a long life and was a farmer as well as a fisherman, thus surviving the overfishing of the cod) and found the coordinates for the final. It was outside, and as we were leaving, we found a swing set.



Aren't the blue flowers pretty? They grow in the woods and are a type of violet. Perhaps a wood violet. I saw it on a sign somewhere, but have now forgotten.

Note the school bus at the top of the hill in the picture. It let off a couple of classes worth of preschoolers. We followed them into the next building on the farm, the barn. The nice reenactor girls let our kids play with their kids in games of cod fishing farm life. They washed clothes by putting soap on a washboard, soaking the garment in water and scrub, scrub, scrubbing. Then rinse, rinse, rinse and race to the clothesline. I have one picture which didn't come out but which captures the scene exactly.



Then they played a salt cod carrying game. Then we left. I don't know why I don't have pictures of the farm house. I guess I just forgot to take them.

And then it was off to the pierced rock.