Tag: canada maritimes

8/17 Beautiful day to see St. John’s. We parked downtown, had breakfast at Velma’s, and walked around for a while before heading up to Cabot Tower and Signal Hill. The view of the harbor and city from both was breathtaking with a lighthouse in the distance on the water. We stopped by the Signal Hill Historic Site.

We went down the hill and visited the Johnson Geo Centre that has exhibits on the world, but most particularly Newfoundland/Labrador geology. The center is actually dug out of the rock they discuss and the left the raw rock walls showing around the perimeter of the display area. They had a theater where we caught the end of a very good movie on tsunamis.

http://www.geocentre.ca/

8/18 Day was a total rain out. Miserable at the park so we went into town to Coffee Matters and hung out all day catching up with email since they had wifi. Dinner at Velma’s that night again that night when it finally stopped raining.

Note on Pippy Park: It’s close to everything so it’s convenient, but the sites are small, it’s in the middle of the city, the place is packed, and the sites are solid gravel with no ground to set the tent up on. The gravel was surrounded by trees so there was shade. There are some open camping areas for tents that provided no shade since they’re out in the open and you can’t park by your tent. Next time I’d check to see if there might be a better place to stay in the area.

8/19 We packed up left St. John’s for Cape Spear — the eastern most spot in North America. They had both the original, restored lighthouse (a national historic site) and the new working lighthouse.

We visited the Cape Spear bunkers used during World War II to guard against the Germans. We had read in St. John’s that a German submarine had fired a torpedo into the harbor even though they were unable to enter because of the wire net that protected the harbor entrance.

After Cape Spear we went south on 10 to Witless Bay and then cut northwest on 13 to get to one and return to Clarenville to visit a friend of Jean-Francois’s.

St. John’s and Cape Spear pictures:
http://motorcycle-journeys.com/past/canada_2009/photos/newfoundland/newfoundland.html

8/15 The plan for the day was to get over to 330 and north, do the 332 loop to Frederickton Harbor, and then continue on 330 to Musgrave Harbor and then take 320 to 1 so we could go to Bonavista peninsula.

Jean-Francois had told me time and again to turn into whatever I want to see and he’ll come back. He rode past the the turn onto 332, so I went ahead expecting him to catch up in a couple minutes. After 15 minutes there was still no sign of him and I was afraid he’d be too far down 330 for me to catch him so I continued on 332 alone. Joke was on me — neither the map nor mapsource showed that the road sort of ended and turned to rough gravel with absolutely nothing out there.

With gravel issues it fortunately struck me funny and I just kept going , hoping the road would not get any worse, and look at it as good practice. I was more worried about finding Jean-Francois and being slowed down by gravel didn’t help that situation.

Eventually the gravel turned back into pavement and I made my way back to 330. Still no sign of Jean-Francois so I stopped to turn on my radio and tried calling him. Nothing.

I continued on around the peninsula to Musgrave Harbor and got off the road to go see it as planned. Back on 330, still calling on the radio and no answer.

It had been a couple hours and I was starting to get concerned. When I got to Nells West Valley where 320 started I didn’t think it was a good idea to start off on a new road, so I turned around and went back. We heard each other on the radio and saw each other a short time later.

This was part of Jean-Francois’s extra 500+ miles that he rode — he had been all over the place, up and down 332 two times, trying to locate me. So much for having a plan.

We stayed at Lockston Path Provincial Park near Trinity which could only be reached down a long gravel road. They were full when we arrived and we were sent to overflow — it was on a slope by the water and was actually very nice.

8/16 We started packing in the morning despite the fact that rain looked imminent. We up at the motorcycles chatting with some of the neighboring campers when we had to make a run for the tent when a heavy thunderstorm hit.  It stopped raining around 10:00 so we dried things off and packed. Before leaving we asked our neighbors for a good lunch spot and he recommended his mom’s place on 235.

Jean-Francois wasn’t that excited about heading out to Bonavista point — he figured another view and lighthouse after many.

On the way there, near the town of Maberly (the Root Cellar Capital of the World. I’m serious) is Puffin Island. We parked a ways away and walked. The view of the water was gorgeous. We stopped at a root cellar.

Puffin Island was a surprise. The island is separated from the mainland so the birds can only be viewed from a distance. We were lucky to notice that two puffins had nested on this side and we were able to get a lot of pictures and watch them for quite a while.

Watching the birds on the island is funny since they aren’t the most graceful bird. Put the were like missiles in the air and would fly out to float on the water for long periods of time. I found out that puffins spend 9 months of the year on the water.

Puffin Island was awesome. The people of Maberly maintain it and don’t charge admission, so if you’re there they would appreciate any donation you can make.

Next was the lighthouse. Turns out it was restored to look like when it was in use in the late 1800’s so we took a tour. It had the original oil lamps still in the tower. It was really nice and we were both glad we’d gone out to the peninsula.

We stopped at Suzie’s on 235 as recommended. Jean-Francois got to have cod tongue one more time. It’s a quaint little restaurant with home cooking.

While we ate lunch we reviewed maps and decided it was time to head for St. John’s and camp somewhere along the way. We stopped for fuel and made the decision to go all the way into St. John’s and stay at Pippy Park in town. After getting lost and having a very nice man hop in his car and lead us there we arrived at 9:00 PM.

Puffin and Bonavista pictures:
http://motorcycle-journeys.com/past/canada_2009/photos/newfoundland/bonavista/index.html

8/14 Fleur de Lys had originally been on my stop list, but after asking some people decided to head back out of the Baie Verte peninsula and go to Twillingate so we took 340 back to 1 and then caught 410 to go out on Notre Dame Bay.

If you look at MapSource it appears there is no way to get out there, but you cross New World Island and there is a bridge to Twillingate Island.

Twillingate is said to be the Iceberg Capital of the World, but we found out you need to get there by mid July at the latest. One of the few items on my wish list I didn’t get to see — an iceberg. But in light of how stunning the view was from Twillingate – it is one of the most beautiful vistas I have seen in my life – I’m okay with not seeing an iceberg.

We walked out past the lighthouse to the edge of the cliffs and just sat there looking for quite a while — that’s how beautiful if was. This is definitely in the Top 3 most beautiful places on the trip maybe barely nudged out of first by Forillon.

The town was quaint and very pretty too, just no a whole lot of places to eat.

We camped that night at Dildo Run Provincial Park. Definitely one of my favorite campsites for the trip. If you get there try to grab site 26. You have to haul your stuff down wooden steps, but it’s secluded and a perfect site.

Pictures of Twillingate:
http://motorcycle-journeys.com/past/canada_2009/photos/newfoundland/twillingate/index.html

8/13 Up early to go out to the lighthouse for pictures. There was no one there so Jean-Francois and I went out on the rocks to get pictures of lighthouse with the waves that were crashing in. I tried a lot of different shots with varying success and later learned that when you’re in a high moisture salt water environment your lens gets clouded with salt water. Some of the shots turned out very well anyway. It was a beautiful sunny day without the wind from the night before so it was nice for extended picture taking.

We stopped at the national historic site on the way out and learned about the people who had lived in the area thousands of years ago.

It was a very windy ride on highway 430 to Deer Lake to pick up Trans Canada Highway 1 to go to the Baie Vert peninsula. However, compared to the wind we’d encountered previously it was pretty tolerable. We have heard there may be icebergs at Twillingate, so we’re heading in that direction.

Camped at Flatland Pond south of Baie Vert which  was full of RVs and blasting generators. Not a great campground.

Port au Choix Lighthouse pictures:
http://motorcycle-journeys.com/past/canada_2009/photos/newfoundland/port_au_choix/index.html

8/12 We took the ferry from from St. Barbe to Blanc Sablon, QC. It was kind of fun to be back in Quebec even though it was brief. We took the last little bit of the Route of the Whales to cross into Labrador.

The plan was to ride to Red Bay since Jean-Francois wanted to see the national historic site there and stay the night before taking the ferry back to Newfoundland.

The pavement in Labrador was definitely the worst we saw on the trip which is understandable considering how hard it is for them to get materials. I was envious watching Jean-Francois’s motorcycle — his tires would take the bounce, his shocks would do their job, and the top of his motorcycle would float above. My F650 was taking a beating and so was I.

The road was the Labrador Coastal Highway and was pretty. We arrived at Red Bay where there was no wind and the black flies immediately descended.

The Red Bay Historic Site was very good — artifacts and information about the Basque fisherman who settled the area.

Red Bay is at the end of the pavement so we decided to try to make it back to the evening ferry to Newfoundland. As we rode the coastal highway a tall ship with all sails up was in the strait and we could see the ferry approaching the port. The wind had really picked up, which was good for the black flies but not good for the ride back.

The ferry left on time at 6:00 and we were on it. We arrived in St. Barbe at 7:30 and rode an hour to Port au Choix to camp that night. It was terribly windy riding the road west to Port au Choix and I noticed the trees along the side of the road while we were riding out there — they had all grown seriously bent over due to the prevailing. The campsite was out in the open along the water with absolutely no wind protection so it was difficult setting up camp in the high wind. The wind made dinner an interesting project too.

Pictures of Labrador:
http://motorcycle-journeys.com/past/canada_2009/photos/newfoundland/labrador/index.html