Rose Blanche Newfoundland to Cow Head Newfoundland 264 miles
The B&B filled up overnight. The water here is on a boil order. A cereal bowl full of the water is a light brown. Not real appealing. Dry cereal, milk, juice and oranges are available for breakfast. Two of the folks are headed out the door as we come down. They are going back on the ferry and want to be there early. The next couple are going on a boat tour of some of the nearby sites. The single lady is headed out to somewhere. We ate some breakfast and then loaded up. Once again the car is flooding and won’t start. Rob talked to the ladies in the gift shop. One of their husbands will come pull the car. He arrived in about 10 minutes. He pulled a very short distance but quite fast. Rob told him to go up the hill but slower. That didn’t work either. Now the road up the hill is gravel with numerous potholes so fast is not a good thing. Rob got out the rubber hammer and beat on the carburetor. Then he tried starting it again. After a couple of tries it started without a tow. We had to go the 25 miles back to where we got off the ferry. It’s much better today because there is some blue sky. The road is dry other than the water filled potholes which could be called small swimming pools. From time to time we can see the coastline. Everywhere there are small ponds full of water. Obviously it rains a lot here. We merged onto the Trans Canada Highway. That road is in much better condition. We went through lots of different landscape. Some areas had almost no trees and other areas were forested. Now there are much bigger mountains in the distance. The further north we went the cloudier it got. The clouds are covering the tops of the mountains. We did get a little rain but not much. We found a pull out and had lunch. While we were stopped Rob had his car door open. A squirrel came up and sat on his foot. He didn’t even know it. Then when another car drove up the squirrel made a loop through the front floorboard and out the door. It scared Connie. This is a major highway and there are no rest stops. We have only seen one official rest stop in the entire country. Several signs have warned of the presence of moose. One said there have been three accidents so far this year. In one area tall fences on either side of the road are designed to keep the moose away from vehicles. Eventually we also saw a sign warning of caribou. At Deer Lake we turned off onto a lesser highway but it was still good. This part of the drive is known as the Viking Trail and is considered a must do in Canada. In places we followed right along the coast line. The trees are very short and all point away from the water. The wind blows a lot here. The drive is beautiful. There are lots of hiking trails all over. Cars are parked at nearly all the trail heads. We turned off once more onto a local road in order to get to Cow Head. The road is more narrow and full of potholes. Our hotel has a pub and restaurant. Looks like the place to come. While Rob checked in most of the people in the pub came out to look and ask about the car. Then we went to the grocery store to get sandwich materials before returning to the hotel. We ate in the pub. Connie had Newfoundland mussels that were delicious. In the gift shop were jars of bakeapple spread. Turns out these only grow in arctic tundra conditions such as Newfoundland and Labrador. They are berries similar to a large raspberry but are amber in color when ripe. Some say they taste like apricots. The locals have a unique dialect. A combination of all the different ethnic groups that have settled here. Cell service doesn’t exist here for us at least. Rob did some routine maintenance on the car tonight. He is convinced that bringing only two carburetors on this trip was not enough.
Spoffords Travel 