Betty Brewer
Moderator Emeritus
- Joined
- Mar 10, 2005
- Posts
- 4,778
June 24, 2008 Perce, Quebec, Camping Du Phare (418) 782-5588
We left Matane at the honorable hour of 10:20 this morning as we waited for the fog to lift. I combed the tour brochure and found an interesting place to visit less than an hour away, Le Nordais Windmill Park.
On our way we got our second fuel up of diesel. It was $5.84 per gallon?.. But we are getting better mileage than Russ because we drive more slowly than he does. He makes rest stops then races to catch up with us. I practiced my French with the fuel station attendant and learned that the windmill park we wanted to visit was on the right and up a hill. She said a whole bunch of other things that I hoped meant it was ok to take our big rig up that road! We spent a delightful 2 hours at Eole Park. It is in Cap-Chat on the Gaspe Peninsula. Having lived in California we?ve seen the wind turbines in Tehachapi and in Palm Springs areas but today was the first up close and personal visit we?ve had with the behemoth size machines. The Vertical axis wind turbine in Cap-chat is the tallest in the world ( 110 meters). It was built as a joint private industry and Government venture to experiment on the use of wind to generate electricity. It started during the 1970 fuel crisis. Through a series of political and economic reasons, it has not run for over 20 years but when it did, it provide electricity for 400 homes. The developer had an initial contract to receive 25 cents per kilowatt generated and made millions dollars. It now sits still awaiting parts. It takes 3 of the smaller wind turbines with 3 blades that are more familiar to us to generate the equivalent amount of electricity. Gaspe is the right place for wind turbines as they have lots of wind!! It will soon run again as a private Canadian Company is undertaking a new power venture. All the companies who service the windmill park must live in Quebec so it is good for the Province! The experimentation done by the first turbine resulted in changes made with subsequent wind farms. I?m sure I left out critical details but this place was wonderful. We drove our 40 foot motor home with car attached to the site . The turn around radius was wonderful as they had to truck those huge wind thingys up that road so it was big enough for us. What a treat!
The rest of the journey around the Gaspe Peninsula today was very scenic even though it was up and down and very bumpy roads. I was reminded of frost heaves and Mexican roads. The road was narrow but NO traffic. It is Jean the Baptist Day so locals are at home with celebrations and not on the road. Par for our travels, it rained hard in the last part of the trip. The coastline villages all have pristine white box like houses with colorful shingles on roof. Every part of the ground is lush green, a testimony to the rain. The scenery was that of post cards. Ohhhhh ahhhhhhhh.
We arrived at our Campground after 7 pm, exhausted and ready for supper! We are tourists? again in morning but will go by boat.
We left Matane at the honorable hour of 10:20 this morning as we waited for the fog to lift. I combed the tour brochure and found an interesting place to visit less than an hour away, Le Nordais Windmill Park.
On our way we got our second fuel up of diesel. It was $5.84 per gallon?.. But we are getting better mileage than Russ because we drive more slowly than he does. He makes rest stops then races to catch up with us. I practiced my French with the fuel station attendant and learned that the windmill park we wanted to visit was on the right and up a hill. She said a whole bunch of other things that I hoped meant it was ok to take our big rig up that road! We spent a delightful 2 hours at Eole Park. It is in Cap-Chat on the Gaspe Peninsula. Having lived in California we?ve seen the wind turbines in Tehachapi and in Palm Springs areas but today was the first up close and personal visit we?ve had with the behemoth size machines. The Vertical axis wind turbine in Cap-chat is the tallest in the world ( 110 meters). It was built as a joint private industry and Government venture to experiment on the use of wind to generate electricity. It started during the 1970 fuel crisis. Through a series of political and economic reasons, it has not run for over 20 years but when it did, it provide electricity for 400 homes. The developer had an initial contract to receive 25 cents per kilowatt generated and made millions dollars. It now sits still awaiting parts. It takes 3 of the smaller wind turbines with 3 blades that are more familiar to us to generate the equivalent amount of electricity. Gaspe is the right place for wind turbines as they have lots of wind!! It will soon run again as a private Canadian Company is undertaking a new power venture. All the companies who service the windmill park must live in Quebec so it is good for the Province! The experimentation done by the first turbine resulted in changes made with subsequent wind farms. I?m sure I left out critical details but this place was wonderful. We drove our 40 foot motor home with car attached to the site . The turn around radius was wonderful as they had to truck those huge wind thingys up that road so it was big enough for us. What a treat!
The rest of the journey around the Gaspe Peninsula today was very scenic even though it was up and down and very bumpy roads. I was reminded of frost heaves and Mexican roads. The road was narrow but NO traffic. It is Jean the Baptist Day so locals are at home with celebrations and not on the road. Par for our travels, it rained hard in the last part of the trip. The coastline villages all have pristine white box like houses with colorful shingles on roof. Every part of the ground is lush green, a testimony to the rain. The scenery was that of post cards. Ohhhhh ahhhhhhhh.
We arrived at our Campground after 7 pm, exhausted and ready for supper! We are tourists? again in morning but will go by boat.