Canada - Tadoussac - Animal Day

Today we were having a long day - taking in (hopefully) whales and bears.  We had found out that there was a wild black bear viewing platform near Tadoussac (on the north shore of the fjord) and then we found that Tadoussac is also a great place from where to see whales.  So, we got ourselves booked on both.  

It was 130km from Saguenay to Tadoussac, we left our hotel early so we could take it easy, take in viewpoints, etc etc.  Matt got us out of the city and then I drove the rest of the way (cities confuse me - I don't understand the whole traffic light thing - what is the difference between a square red light and a round red light and the whole filter thing on a red light - too scary for me!) Anyway, I drove without incident - of course we came across lots of roadworks, but no rue barrée which was a nice change! (There was no other route!)  We saw a sign for a covered bridge along the way - so we stopped, it was very pretty but more exciting we saw a small creature playing on the rocks by the river, initially we thought it was otter (Castor in French) but on asking a man out fishing we discovered it was a Marmot - he was a cute little thing.

We carried on and got to Tadoussac - the first place where we have found it hard to park and had to pay to park ($20!) We went to the whale place to pick up our tickets, but just as we got there the computers went down so we got a hastily scribbled receipt instead.  We then went to the intermarché to pick up some lunch and sat eating it on the rocks overlooking the Saguenay River.  

The boat picked us up at 12.30 and we went into the St Lawrence (17 miles wide at this point) hunting some whales to photo.  The morning trip had come across some Belugas, so we were hopeful.  It was very very windy on the boat and quite cold, but we were prepared and had all of our warm clothes with us.  We saw quite a few seals, but we were wanting whales.  We followed all the speed boats that had overtaken us and were rewarded with lots of 'blows' of air and then a tail in the distance - it was a humpback whale called Jesper.  Yay, we slowed down and got nearish to him and saw him blow and stick his tail in the air about 6 times - we were very happy with that. The time went very quickly, before we knew it we were heading back to shore, just as we were close, a Minkie whale swam with us - the icing on the cake. 

We walked back into town to the ticket place to pick up tickets for the bears (computers worked this time) and then went in search of some food - we found a cheap pizza place overlooking the rivers and munched happily into them whilst watching waves of rain coming across the river.  After looking in a number of souvenir shops (disappointed as no patches here!) we drove to the black bear place.  With the rain came bugs so we went total British and tucked our trousers into our socks, and wore our coats with velcro tightly strapped round our wrists and doused ourselves in insect repellant  in an attempt to keep them out (the bugs are much bigger here than we are used to and they seem to love poor Tom who currently has 13 bites on his legs and hands!).  

We were given a talk on the black bears - we were to ride on a school bus to the outpost and then we must walk and sit in silence and hope they come - they are wild, they put food out for them at dusk every night but they don't always show up.  The school bus was really very basic and very rickety.  Think Tom has a much nicer experience on his school coach everyday!

We got there and everyone was compliant and sat in silence hoping they would come...we waited half an hour, no bears, but we saw a beaver which was a bonus.  Tom suddenly moved and whispered that he had seen one, true to form he was right and a skinny bear turned up (apparently 3 years old) - he had a light coloured nose and a light marking on his chest that looked like a bowtie!  He came, ate some food, left, came back, ate some more, left, came back ate some more and so on...

A second slightly bigger bear then arrived and the smaller one ran away...then the smaller one came back, got braver and braver to the point that both of them were munching away.  Not 100% sure what they were eating, but when they took the lid off the feeding station nearest to us - it really did pong! I think we probably watched them for about an hour. It was a joy, we were very happy.  However, they left, and it was getting dark and the guide asked if we were happy to leave and everyone said yes.  We had quite a journey ahead of us - we had to get a ferry across the river and then 90km to our next hotel. 

We were very lucky in that when we arrived at the ferry they were just boarding, so we scooted on.  This is a free car ferry - only took about 10 minutes to get across.  Apparently the river is too deep at this point to build a regular bridge across and they reckon a suspension bridge would be $billions so they have a 20 minute free 24 hour car ferry instead. We got to the other side where Matt drove.  It was a difficult drive, in that the car behind us decided to have his full beam on and completely blinded us.  It was pitch black so finding somewhere to pull over was difficult, took a while but he managed it in the end.  We found the hotel with no problem, but then couldn't find the car park and then had a bit of a comedy situation where I checked in, but then couldn't find the boys who had parked in the wrong car park.  They had unpacked the car and got the suitcases to our hotel room, but I was still walking around in the dark trying to find them in the car park.  I was calling them - they weren't picking up, they were calling me, I wasn't getting their calls.  I then couldn't find a way into the hotel from the car park and had to walk all the way round - things are so much more difficult in the dark.  Anyway, we eventually found each other, I then had to drive the car to the right car park.  It was midnight before we got to bed.  A long day but it was worth it for the bears and whales (and marmot)