2019 Terre-neuve et Labrador

June 24 th We started the day with a visit to Memorial University then after moving to our new AirBnB we explored north of St. John’s. Flatrock has striking rock formations in its small bay. Cape St. Francis is reached by a very rough gravel road (supposedly onlt for 4x4s but the Yaris made it through like a real trooper) and is the most easterly point of North America, meaning the sun rises there first. There was another small iceberg off-shore. Next was Bauline a tiny village at the end of a very steep descent... but at least the road is paved. Earlier I forgot to talk about the composition of the passengers on the Bella Desgagnes. At the departure from Rimouski and at the first ports on the north shore the passengers were almost all pensioners, there were few exceptions, but during the stops at the villages we picked up some native families and there were suddenly a couple of small boys that were running about and a couple of teena...

June 22 nd Our first visit to downtown St. John’s. It was a blustery day, cloudy, spitting rain and a wind that nearly blew us over. When we came out of a café into the wind that pushed us back the way we came and we passed by a guy in a T-shirt and shorts we realised we would not pass for natives. We wandered around downtown...  to end up at The Rooms, which is the provincial Museum of Art and History. It is perched on a hill overlooking the harbour and with a view through the harbours entrance towards the Atlantic... where there was a little iceberg today.  The building is striking and the exibitions were interesting and well presented. We lunched at the museums restaurant which was rather fancy... but the food and view were excellent. After that we did the laundery... essential for the campers that we claim to be.  There are houses built into the hillside at the north end of the harbour, in this photo taken from there you can see the Rooms domin...

June 20 th We caught the 10am ferry at Stag Harbour, there was a long line-up so we were happy to get aboard. From Farewell where the ferry docks we drove on what was supposed to be a scenic loop along the coast via Musgrave Harbour. It was a bit disappointing because a lot of it was inland and all we saw was more trees on both sides of the road... like the route from Gros Morne to Grand Falls. There were some coastal sections and we saw an iceberg in the distance. We continued down to Terra Nova National Park and set up our tent for a 2 night stay. We were in the Newman Sound campground which is huge but nicely arranged so that most of the sites have some privacy. The season has not really started so there are few campers and the coffee shop-store is not open and none of the normal activities have started. The sites here don’t have fire pits or BBQs. There are some communal ones not too far but since we couldn’t buy firewood it was not a big problem. June 21 st We trekke...

--------------------- June 18 th We packed up our wet tent and other equipment and headed off for Fogo Island. The Trans Canada Highway is nice but very little traffic. We stopped off at Grand Falls and discovered that the pulp and paper mill was closed about 10 years ago and it has been totally demolished. As we approached Fogo Island it started raining, which reinforced or decision to skip the camping for tonight, instead we found a cottage in Stoneville not far from the ferry where we are staying the night. June 19 th We caught the 8:30 ferry from Farewell to Fogo. We started our exploration of the island while keeping an eye open for a place to spend the night. Our first stop was Deep Bay and Bridge Studio, one of the four residences for invited artists spread around the island. The studio is situated on a pond after a slightly challenging walk up the hills of an almost lunar landscape. All of the studios are in isolated environments and feature striking architectu...

---------------- June 16 th After being awoken at around 5am by a raven cawing practically on the roof of our tent I made myself a coffee and observed the ocean from the edge of our sit. A flock of birds was fishing by diving at impressive speed from nearly 50 feet in the air into the water. First time I have seen that. The nearest town is Rocky Harbour, about a 15 minute drive south of the campground so we made a run down to try to solve the mattress problem. Despite almost everything being closed we bought some tape and glue to try to fix the leak... but then were unable to find the leak. We finally decided to spend Sunday night at a motel in Rocky Harbour. Meanwhile we started to visit the park. In this area there are villages that are not part of the park which is a bit of a patch-work. We visited Norris Point which has a spectacular view from the road before it descends into the village of Norris Point. Inlets, mountains and a couple of villages along the water....

June 14 th We missed seeing La Tabetière because the Bella arrived in the middle of the night and was underway by the time we got out of bed. Another spectacular entrance to the harbour of St-Augustin via many islands. Again the dock is far from the village so we stayed aboard. C'est quoi que le Bella apporte dans les villages? Tout! (Les cones oranges étaient déjà là) After leaving St-Augustin the ship ran along the coast to Blanc-Sablon, the most easterly village in Quebec. On the way we saw several icebergs, small ones, smaller than our ship.  It was a long wait for the Yaris to be off-loaded... over 2 hours. Suzanne decided that she wanted some fresh air so we took our luggage down to the dock after the Yaris’s container was unloaded, but then it took close to an hour to remove it from the container because of other cargo being placed in the way and the employees doing other stuff. So we spent close to an hour standing on the dock in a strong, frig...

Selon l’horaire révisé, nous étions supposés arriver au village suivant, La Romaine, à 0h45 mais quand je suis sorti pour voir notre arrivée il n’y avait rien en vu, je suis donc retourné au lit. Nous avons accosté vers 4h. Le quai est tellement petit que les passagers ne sont pas permis de débarquer une fois que les operations de déchargement ont commencé, nous avons manqué notre opertunité d’explorer. Mais il faut dire qu’il n’y a pas grand chose à voir parce que le village est loin du quai. Nous avons regardé les operations du pont d’observation... et nous avons vu une autre petite baleine. Nous avons trouvé ‘notre place’ sur le 8e pont ou il y a des chaises lazy-boy près des  fenêtres.  Notre cabine est sur le 3e pont donc plusieurs fois par jour nous montons les 5 étages de marches... jusqu’à ici nous avons boudé l’ascenseur. Aujourd’hui le film ‘La grande séduction’ était montré dans le salon du 8e en préparation pour notre visite à Harrington Harb...