Canadian Maritimes with Mahoney/Brewers 08

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Ron said:
Must be all Terry's fault.

Much as I would have liked to blame him, I don't think he had a clue of the need for reservations.  The big consulation is that Russ purchased a few of the local CD's and we are able to enjoy the music anyway.  But I am still stung by not getting to  see this group.  On the  other hand  the fog is so thick here tonight we can't  see our car beside us so maybe I was  not meant to drive tonight!

Betty
 
Betty Brewer said:
On the  other hand  the fog is so thick here tonight we can't  see our car beside us so maybe I was  not meant to drive tonight!

Betty

See somebody planned ahead for you. ;D ;D  Sorry you missed the event though.
 
Sat 7/19. At 6 AM the fog was unpenatrable but by 8 the sun had won. I like to get an earlier start so left while Terry was still brewing the coffee. The trip N, up the Viking trail closely follows the west coast and is gorgeous. Saw 3 moose(meece?) grazing by the road and happily all headed for the trees. The first one I came upon had a limp> Makes me wander if she had had a near miss with a car?

St Anthony is on the east side of the peninsula with a narrow SE facing bay. The town surrounds the bay and warrents a small coast guard ship. The Canadian coast guard favors a red hull with I white stripe similar the the USA.

When we leave here to head S along the same road, we will only go 70-80 miles. I think I will stop and unhook the car at least twice to rove up and down coast trying the capture the many photo-ops I spotted on the way N.
 
Russ,

Here's a completely useless tidbit of info re the Canadian Coast Guard.  When I grew up in Detroit in the 1950s we had a 30 foot sloop.  Because of being boaters we learned that Canada, at that time, did not have a Coast Guard presence in the Great Lakes so the American Coast Guard was given "stop and arrest" permission to be the law and rescue folks up to the Canadian shoreline.  We were even told that if it involved a "hot pursuit" case they could pursue detain and turn the fleeing folks over to the Canadian authorities.  Actually all this meant was that jumping on the shore or a dock was  useless.  Some time after that Canada developed there own Coast Guard presence.

JerryF
 
Hi Betty

Please try to get back to see Anchors Aweigh - we stayed at the Gros Morne RV Campground Ltd and it was only a 10 minute stroll down to the Ocean View Motel/Restaurant and Show at the Anchor Bar - after a few beers, the walk back up the hill wasnt too bad either.

If you go, say hello to Alma for us (she works behind the bar and reception) - she still emails us the ocassional NF photo, even though she wouldn't remember us by now.

Ann-Marie saw two huge bull moose with full racks at the gas station just down street from the CG - she was up early at 7am though........so I guess you wont see any that are around at that time then  ;D

Are you going upto L'anse aux Meadows? - there is a wonderful boondocking spot for your 2 RVs there (on top of the hill and within walking distance of Norstead Viking Exhibit in one direction and the museum in the other). She saw another moose there too, but that was really early as well.

BTW we are really enjoying your journey - bringing back many happy memories - thank you !!

Paul and Ann-Marie
UK-RV


 
Paul:

Unfortunately Betty couldn't get a table the night she tried to see Anchors Aweigh so Sue and I will have to do it for her in a few weeks. ::)
 
She'll have another chance on their return from L'Anse Meadows and St. Anthony's.  There's only one road up and back and they'll have to stop somewhere!  :)

ArdraF
 
Yep they can try on the way down too.

But they wont see these messages before then as I think internet will be VERY patchy up there (though there was a tiny CG who advertised WiFi IIRC).

Paul
UK-RV
 
July 19, 2008  St Anthony,  NL  Triple Falls RV Park  (No internet. )  (709) 454-2599

We left the Rocky Harbor,  Gros Morne  area this morning and filled up with our first  fuel over $6 bucks a gallon.  Diesel was $6.10 this morning!  What are we to do?  Moan and groan or go for it to the next destination.  Onward we say!!!

We traveled along some of the most  scenic vistas of the trip.  We were along the  coast and could see white caps breaking on the  beaches.  We could see  meadows on the other side of us and  lot and lots of forests with thin little trees. They say  trees here don?t get very big as their feet are always in water.  Indeed there are lots of marshes and we learned on our walk the other day that  decomposition does not happen as there is so little oxygen in the soils to  cause decay.  Small gardens pop up along the road as villagers till any plot of fertile soil they can to get a crop.  A telling sign of the winters here,  are the numerous stacks of wood along the road.  We are told people cut  trees from the forest and stack them near the road and  in winter they use their sleds to haul them to their homes.  Newfoundland has the largest number of snow  mobiles  per capital than any other province.  We saw lots of them sitting in yards of St Anthony.  Some Towns  have been given the Tidy Town award.  Those town are well kept and have no visible junk yards. St Anthony did not win such an award.

Now the ROAD?This was the worst stretch of road we have encountered  in our Canadian Travels.  The whoop de do hilly road is filled with frost  heaves.  Fortunately they are well marked by the skid marks on the pavement.  It is easy to see why  people lose their  tow equipment.  Terry says he would NEVER drive on this road at night towing a vehicle as then the  heaves would not be  visible.  It really slowed us down today,  All that being said  the road was still better than most of Mexico roads.
Triple Falls is a large campground and we are in among the trees tonight with only 15 amp service as a caravan is in and they got all the good sites.  They leave in the morning and we may move to a better site or we may just stay here.

We have a 5 mile drive into town to catch a wireless internet signal at the  Town Hall.  Russ traveled  in front of us today as he rises much earlier than we do and he saw moose along the way.  We did not.  We took a brief drive through St Anthony and viewed the light house and fishing harbor.  We had  a pizza tonight in a local restaurant (the first in along long time) and spoke with  a few  members of the Fantasy caravan.  We know the good spots to visit tomorrow.

 

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July 20, 2008, St Anthony NL  Historic Harbour Drive

Most of our destinations on today?s driving tourist day,  were not  in any of the guides,  brochures or logs of fellow travelers.  We spoke to our  campground neighbors  last evening who  made the recommended route today.  And what  a day it was!  To recap before I start,  we saw one  iceberg, one moose, 4 osprey (2  parents and 2 babies high in a nest) , the most northerly inhabited community in Newfoundland, several ancient  rocky  fossil filled  ledges, rocky oceanfront and a light house in Harbour Cove  dating back to some  early date I can?t recall.  We did not see any cell towers so had no  phone service at all today which  is a first for  our entire Canadian travels.  We are in a really really remote and  beautiful  section of the  world.

We could see Labrador across the Straits of Bell Island today.  The  sky was a perfect clear blue for most of the day and that always enhances our spirits.  We started out with a packed lunch ( of course) and headed out to Cape Norman to find Cooks Harbor, Wild Bight and Boat Harbor.  These little villages have no more than a  few hundred residents and we learned many of them spend the winter inland after the fishing season ends.  The plants here are unique in that they must adapt to the shortest,  coolest summer season found in NL, with the windiest and the  wettest soil.  Plants hunker down low to the ground and the few trees huddle together and stay low.  Despite this, the locals find fertile grounds and  till wonderful gardens along the road with  potatoes and turnips as their main crop for their root cellars in the winters.  I?ll show you some of the hundreds of woodpiles along the way.  Wood is cut in winter and allowed to  dry out in the summer.  In the fall it is hauled closer to home for those cold winter days and wood burning stove.

Once out on Cooks Harbour on HWY 436 we photographed the lighthouse and  crawled down the levels of  rocks to view the hidden fossils in them.  Terry found what he  thought to be a fish and Russ found what he thought to be a worm.  We had our picnic lunch in the car overlooking the sea due to the wind and the big black flies. Courtesy of a fly, (I think)  I have a welt the size of a sand dollar on my arm and it itches like crazy but I do not complain as this  rustic scenery is some of the best I?ve ever seen in the world.  Oh wait did I tell you that yesterday?  It just  keeps getting better up here.  While up at this vantage point Terry  says, ? There?s an Iceberg.?  I said, ?No I think it is a cruise ship.?  Russ? powerful binoculars confirm it as an iceberg.  This is our 7th sighting of a berg so  far.  It was way off on the horizon and not  possible for a good photo but  made us excited all the same. 

We followed the bay back around to Cape Onion and Ships Cove. Cape Onion boasts of being the most northerly community, geographically on the Island of Newfoundland.  In Ship Cove we saw the handicrafts of a local who has created an exquisite miniature village.  We stopped the car at every angle to get a good vantage point of the fishing villages.  At one point I  holler, ?Moose at 10 o?clock!?  Sure enough out on the meadow is a moose grazing.  Terry can see through his powerful telephoto that he is a male with the early start of antlers.  It?s a fuzzy photo blown up that many times but I saw him first! I had been practicing saying this location for  miles and indeed days.  Thank you to Fred Thomas for teaching me  the directions.  It worked. 
In Raleigh we stopped so Russ and I could visit Taylor?s Crafts.  This man carves beautiful things from soapstone,  Talc, whale bone , moose bone, moose antlers and a variety of other stones.  He has participated in  the Olympic Carving events.  His stuff is NOT the  cheaply  made in China tourist stuff.  We shall think overnight about some of his creations.  He was very good.  I think his shop was the only business in Raleigh.  There may have been a ?Supermarket, gas bar.?

Burnt Cape Ecological Reserve is along the way but we did not go in to the  Pistolet Bay Provincial  Park for a guided tour.  The book says this place has some of  the world?s most cherished and botanical wonders.  Rare plants are found here nestled among the rugged stone, mossy mounds and low shrubbery. Lots of limestone here.

Terry is  fixing photos and  I am making ready for our trip into the  library parking lot in St Anthony where we can send our email.  From there we will attend a Viking feast.  This will be covered in the journal tomorrow.






 

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RVOA said:
BTW we are really enjoying your journey - bringing back many happy memories - thank you !!

Paul an Ann Marie,

Glad you are enjoying the journal. We most likely won't get back to See Anchors Aweigh but we are parked by the St Anthony Municipal Buildingn this Sunday evening and are being treated to the local "Drive in" Church service.  Their music and sermon is blasting through the hills.  Not too bad to get religion and internet access all at the same time.  Their are lots of cars here in the lot.  I wish you coud  hear the  songs!

Betty
 
"But they wont see these messages before then as I think internet will be VERY patchy up there (though there was a tiny CG who advertised WiFi IIRC)."
I am reading this in St Anthony at 9;45 pm, sitting in the Brewers car. All 3 of us have our laptops out and are downloading at the public library parking lot. We were here earlier and got our dose of religion with the internet...There was a drive up church service going on in the lot next to the library.
 
July 21, 2008  L?Anse Aux  Meadows, St Anthony , NL  Viking  Home 1,000 years ago

Today was a  dream come true that I created in 5th grade when I studied the Vikings who  landed in Vinland.  Today I stood in the  community they landed !  The  most  surrealistic fact was the couple who searched for this site  finally found it in the mid  60?s . Those  archeologists had tenacity and  vivid imaginations.  I would never have found this spot.  The mounds were found after 1,000 years.  We took  a walking tour from a Parks Canada Guide who  told  us  about the  building mounds they found.  The definitive  find was a  steel pin that proved the Viking Settlement was here.  They  recreated  sod huts  to reflect life in those days.  I saw a few children try to  work the bellows to fuel the fires that made nails for their ship repair.  The view of the bay was spectacular on this clear warm sunny day. 

I bought a  jacket to  memorialize my visit here. 

Terry was  good sport and  toured us though each gift shop along the way.  I have lots of souvenirs as a result, incase you are on my Christmas list I won?t tell what I bought today.  But I will show you the scenery of fishing villages, coastline and yes we saw another iceberg today. 

We let Russ off at our campground after a full day of touring and  ventured out to St Anthony to see the Grenfell Experience.  We learned of  a man who was  true pioneer as medical Doctor, a missionary and an humanitarian.  He  contributed  opportunities of the  folks on this Northern  Peninsula and Labrador who  had a really  tough life.  His story is told in sections of buildings in  the town. If you are in St Anthony you MUST visit this  place to learn of a man  who made  difference in is life.  I wish we all could.

The  hospital rotunda has  a Jodi Bonet  mural.  He  lost an arm at an early age and  overcame this to become a brilliant  ceramist and  was invited to  give  memorial to his hospital  which is  the only one in the north of Newfoundland and Labrador.  The tiles murals  are wonderful especially considering the obstacles he had to overcome to make his  name here .

While  typing up this journal tonight, I noticed  our neighbors gathering outside.  They saw  a moose munching on the  trees in our campground. We got our cameras  and I radioed Russ on CB so he could also get shots.  Whew it never  gets blas?.  I just love our  life.

 

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July 21, 2008  Part 2, St Anthony Evening Activity

As promised, here is the information on  The Great Viking Feast at Leifsburdir, our  dinner experience, last night.  The caravans attend a supper here and so did we.  We would not attend it again.  If you had a  caravan of friends to  make fun at the trial it  ?may? be worth the $45 per  person admission.  The  appetizers were salted Capelins and cod tongue.  Terry is still  wanting water for the salt.  I ate the cod tongues and am still politely spitting into my napkin. The Red wine Russ ordered sat  unfinished.  Each table was asked to find a person among them who had broken a law.  Now if we had broken any law, we are not the sort of folks to admit it in public,  so we were the only table  who did not submit a  wrong doing.  We did sit with folks who were here on  medical business from Labrador to visit the Curtis Memorial Medical Center.    More on this later.

After a buffet dinner of  roast beef, steamed  cabbage, potatoes and our choices of salmon, moose stew  or cod we were under whelmed. Dessert was  Partridge  berry  pancakes with a dollop of whipped cream.  This may have been ok at a lesser price but we did not think this event warranted the price.  So tourists be warned.
 
Jeff I forgot to mention, there are several lobster pounds in Shediac where they'll sell you live or cooked lobster.  I usually buy select canners, which run about 3/4 of a pound, we paid $745 per pound but that was about 3 weeks ago.  Also, get a few crab clusters, they're as good if not better than the lobster.  You'll get about 3 times the lobster/crab for your $22.  A quick stop at the Save Easy will get you some rolls and potato or pasta salad, and you've got yourself a fiest.  Sorry we won't be there to host it.  Maybe on your way back.

Ed
 
July 22,2008 St Barbe, NL St. Barbe RV Parking (709) 877-2272

We traveled from St. Anthony?s this morning the short distance of 71.7 miles to St Barbe. This is a basically a fenced parking lot right across from the ferry office where we will leave our rig overnight and tomorrow night. We will take the car onto a ferry to Labrador in the morning. We left Russ to stay another day in St Anthony as he did not want to pack up his C-pap machine for an over night in a motel. The lot is a reasonable $16 per night or $20 if you get an electrical cord to your rig. I did a load of laundry and talked with fellow escapees who have been down the coast we are headed. We exchanged travel hints.

Interestingly enough Terry got a US TV signal tonight. I?m not sure if I am glad or sad to have gotten a local US news report tonight. We have been cushioned from the world with no news for almost a month. The news casts are not especially positive!

I?m reading up on all the brochures and will pack a suit case tonight for our overnight in a motel. Ukkkkkk we hate packing up a tooth brush.

We will both take our laptop computers in hopes of reaching a wi-fi signal tomorrow. There is NO public wi-fi signal here in St Barbe, NL tonight. Oh boy we are roughing it!
 
Betty

I wouldnt take your laptops to Labrador - I've heard the flies are that big in Labrador they will carry them off.  ;D You may have to tie the slimmed Russ down too  :D

Paul
UK-RV
 
Paul, from what I hear it's not the flies you need to be concerned about, it's the love struck moose.  The anti aircraft guns left by the Americans keep the flies under control.
 
Betty, regarding the flies.  DON'T FORGET BUG REPELLANT AND BENEDRYL!  Aside from Key Largo's no-see-ums, those little tiny Labrador black flies gave me the worst welts I've ever had.  We loved climbing the lighthouse and seeing the historic whaling village at Red Bay, but we went unprepared for the flies and their bites itched for a couple of weeks.  If we ever return I will take our Alaskan mosquito hats.  Plan to wear long sleeves and cover up well.  They "got" me near the lighthouse when we went to see the shipwrecks.

Have a great time!
ArdraF
 

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