Forillon National Park occupies a peninsula that juts out into the Gulf of St Lawrence. The main car-camping sites are in a wooded cluster just a short walk from a wide beach covered in smooth, flat rocks and pebbles; we took a sunset stroll there the night we arrived, finding another pair of long-tailed ducks bobbing in the waves, plus more murres and eiders and gulls. Around the corner, we saw three harlequin ducks roosting on a rock with their heads tucked back under a wing.
Since it's still early in the season, the campground was not entirely full, and the other campers mostly had a quiet vibe. We met one older couple who told us where to spot a seal swimming near shore, and another who told us about encountering a moose near the beach the day before.
The sun rises early in this part of Quebec, being so far to the east, and we were still on Atlantic time, so we were up and out of the tent extremely early the next morning. As everyone else still slept in their own tents and camper vans, a fox wandered boldly right onto our site. We took a second to marvel at it before shooing it away into the trees.
With nutella sandwiches in hand, we walked along the coast and listened to birds for a while before returning to our site for tea and cereal. In the late morning, we drove up and around to hike the Cap Gaspé trail, right out to the point at the end of the peninsula with a lighthouse and a lookout called le Bout du Monde.
We spent the afternoon relaxing at the site, including a roadside hammock setup that attracted chuckles from passing campers and an impressive fire that almost, but not quite, managed to burn down the big log left behind by the previous occupants.
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