Driving thru Labrador & Quebec or not?

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bmaclac

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Joined
Jan 9, 2018
Posts
5
Location
Ontario, Canada
Hi all, we are planning a trip to the Maritimes, leaving from SW Ont in early Sept. Planning on doing Newfoundland and if we do, should we hop over to Labrador? If we do, timing should be around mid October. If we get to Labrador, would you drive home thru Labrador & Quebec or head back via the ferries?
What would the roads and weather be like in mid to late October thru Labrador & Quebec? We would be driving a 25? Sunseeker MH.
Thanks,  Bill
 
  Bill, welcome to the forum.  The trip by ferry from NL to Quebec, then into Labrador is supposed to be a lot of fun, but I'm told by several who have gone onto Lab City that the road is a major problem, and I have only spoken to 1 person who has driven the road between Lab City and Baie Comeau, and they called it the worst road on the continent.  It is around 600 kms of desolation built for heavy trucks to bring supplies to the mines, it is not intended for RVs.  Add to that severe winter conditions that you might encounter in October.
  All that to say, in my humble opinion go back to NL and take the ferry to NS.

Ed
 
Planning on doing Newfoundland and if we do, should we hop over to Labrador? If we do, timing should be around mid October. If we get to Labrador, would you drive home thru Labrador & Quebec or head back via the ferries?

We took the ferry from Newfoundland to Labrador and spent the night in Red Bay.  Great fun!  Red Bay was a Basque whaling outpost from about 1530 and they are now a UNESCO World Heritage Site with a good museum.  We left the motorhome in a locked yard designed for people like us and drove the car onto the ferry which, by the way, goes to Blanc Sablon, Quebec and you then drive up to Red Bay.  It's well worth the trip.  By the way, Newfoundland also has some World Heritage Sites.  Don't miss them!

As to driving back west through Labrador, I wouldn't.  We met two couples while in Red Bay who had just driven up through Labrador and they said it was awful.  They said the road was terrible and they weren't even going to do the Newfoundland part of their trip.  They just wanted to get on a ferry and go home the easiest route possible!  Just for kicks we drove the car out that road for a few miles and it got really bad, really fast.  Had we been starting west in the motorhome we would have turned around and not gone any farther.

Spend your time instead in Newfoundland which is really neat.  We've been there twice.  The first time we only went to the west coast and loved it.  The second time we went east to St. John's first (the oldest city in North America) and then made different stops on the return route.  I HAD to see the airport at Gander, having lived through the Berlin Airlift.  Gander played a major role in it as well as taking in many unexpected visitors who were stranded after 9/11.  The "Newfies" are great people too.  Very friendly and helpful.

It's a wonderful trip and there are some trip reports in the RV Forum Library by people like Betty Brewer.

ArdraF
 
This would be a awesome trip.  Kind of rough on your RV though.  We we took our 40' diesel pusher and toad to Labrador on the ferry in 2008 and drove the toad about 5 miles up the gravel part from Red Bay.  Pretty bumpy, some washboard.  Doing about 100 miles a day at 15-30mph would be best in my opinion.

More info by doing a internet search of " road from Red bay, nl to goose bay" brought up links like:
https://en.wikivoyage.org/wiki/Trans-Labrador_Highway
https://www.canadianbucketlist.com/experiences/tlh/

 
Thanks guys. The responses seem all to be the same, ?don?t do it?. I think we will follow these recommendations. Head back from NL to NS and head around the southern tip of NS before heading west on the NS to NB ferry.
Thanks,  Bill
 
We just got back from Labrador via Nfld. We spoke to several people who came through the long way from Quebec in rvs. They all said the same thing. DONT DO IT.
 

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