Tag: canada maritimes

8/10 We left Shallow Bay with the plan to go to Port au Choix but decided to leave that for the trip back since we would have to come back the same way. We considered crossing on the ferry to Labrador but when we stopped to check it was extremely windy and and Jean-Francois preferred to cross on a less windy day.

Now here’s a real case of stupidity on my part. It’s too windy to take the ferry, right? What’s it going to be like on a motorcycle.

One of the things very high on my wish list was L’Anse aux Meadows where the Vikings landed 1000 years ago, but I was aware the west coast of Newfoundland is notorious for very high winds.  I had read there had been a train along that western coast but it was abandoned because the train would get blown off the tracks.

It was frighteningly windy (for me) on the way to St. Anthony. I would have stopped if there indeed was was someplace to stop, but there is nothing on that ride northeast to St. Anthony. It occurred to me I wouldn’t want to stop anyway since I wasn’t sure I could hold the bike up against the wind.

I was pretty fried by the time we got close to St. Anthony and turned north on 436 to go to L’Anse aux Meadows. There was a short stretch of pavement and the road gave way to construction and a bed of deep gravel. I made it about 3 km down the road and had a melt down. I had been terrified of the wind, I was worn out by fear, and this was more than I could handle in one day. I was so scared and I cried. Jean-Francois came back and was very kind. Patiently explained that I couldn’t just stop there. People stopped and asked if we needed help and he told them I was just upset. I stayed put until I wasn’t crying, let JF turn my motorcycle around, and rode back to pavement. Thank god.

We got into St. Anthony and I declared it a rain day (hotels were supposed to be reserved for rain days) even though it was raining and we stayed at Grenfell Heritage House in a room that had a wonderfully comfortable bed. Beds are so awesome after several nights of camping…

That night we went to the Lightkeepers for a nice seafood dinner and watched whales playing in the water off shore. It was a lovely evening.

8/11 Rain kept us at the hotel until 10:00. We stored our stuff before leaving because I was going to ride with Jean-Francois to get out to L’Anse aux Meadows. I cannot tell you how awful the road was and how glad I was that I wan NOT on my motorcycle. They had torn the road up more — you can see pictures at the link below. I know they have to do all their road construction in the summer, but the degree of this destruction with no way around it was ridiculous. Even cars were having a hard time on the road.

The day had turned bright and sunny and L’Anse aux Meadows was worth the trip. They have preserved the mounds from the original buildings and it was amazing to stand there and look out at what they had seen when they arrived so long ago in their small boats. I read that they never traveled unless land was with two days. That’s how they crossed the North Atlantic from Norway – Iceland to Greenland to Newfoundland. Replicas of there homes are reconstructed a short distance away.

We walked the hiking trail along the shore and saw two more moose galloping across the park on the way back.

If you go to L’Anse aux Meadows go to the Norseman for a meal while you’re there — wonderful food.

By the way — 436 was even worse on the trip back. Soooo glad I was riding with JF. We left for St. Barbe (ferry to Labrador) around 6:30 and camped at an abandoned campground that night.

Newfoundland feels so strongly about keeping people off the roads at night because of collisions with moose they encourage what they call “gravel pit” camping. If the sun is going down and you are out in the middle of nowhere, pull over where ever you find a decent spot and no one will question you. There were signs everywhere posting how many people had died in moose accidents that year.

Pictures of L’Anse aux Meadows:
http://motorcycle-journeys.com/past/canada_2009/photos/newfoundland/lanse_aux_meadows/index.html

We’re in St Barbe to cross to Labrador but not going today due to high winds which made the ride up the coast interesting. Fortunately it was mostly from the south and a tail wind, but it was strong enough when angling east or west that it was difficult to hold the bike in the lane.

Our ferry from Nova Scotia ended up not leaving until around midnight and we landed on Newfoundland at dawn. We were able to sleep a little on the ferry so we headed to Blow Me Down Provincial Park to camp and spent two days there because it rained until 4 PM on Saturday. We talked to people yesterday and they said it was a torrential downpour in their cars, so I’m glad we sat it out.

We did the boat tour at Western Brook Pond (fjord) in Gros Morne National Park yesterday, camped at Shallow Bay inthe park. Due to the wind we’re going to L’Anse au Meadow where the Vikings landed 1000 years ago and we’ll try the ferry tomorrow when the wind is better.

What can I say about Newfoundland? It’s not describable – you have to go. I absolutely loved everywhere we went and would go back in a heartbeat.

8/7 – The boat announces when the boat is 30 minutes from port so we were up at 5:00 AM, and while I was so excited to be there, we were more than a little worn out so it proved to be a rough morning. We were tired and cranky.

We got off the motorcycles off the ferry and needed to stop to repack. It had been a wild scramble to get down to the bikes, load up, and ride off. We had breakfast at Tim Horton’s after an aborted attempt at finding a regular restaurant. It was too early in the morning for much to be open anyway.

Don’t forget there is a 30 minute time change when you get to Newfoundland. 30 minute? Don’t ask me…

We followed Trans Canada Highway 1 to Corner Brook where were stopped for groceries. You could tell we were tired because we certainly weren’t holding a consistent speed on the way there. We did a lot of speeding up, slowing down, speeding up. Fortunately there was no traffic.

People were amazingly friendly in the parking lot when they saw our loaded motorcycles and then saw the Texas license plates. I had more than one person ask where we were headed and then apologize for the condition of the road out to Lark Harbor where we would be going to get to Blow Me Down Provincial Park. It took us a long time to get out of the parking lot, which probably wasn’t good as tired as we were.

I was worried that the road would be terrible and it was fine. It still was a long 45 km to get to the park.

While Jean-Francois was sitting at the picnic table after lunch a chipmunk was down by his feet looking for crumbs. I got a couple pictures.

I inflated my sleep mat, put it down by the picnic table and took a nap. Jean-Francois set up the tent and crashed in there.

I woke up when the chipmunk decided to make a run over me and decided to stay up so I would sleep well that night. I walked around the park and down to the shore to take pictures. Jean-Francois slept the entire afternoon. I crashed shortly after dinner.

8/8 Absolutely poured all day. We brought snacks into the tent and spent the entire day reading. We each read a book that day. The storms ended around 4 that afternoon so we rode into Lark Harbor for dinner at Captain Cook’s Galley and the road around the area before going back to camp.

8/9 Up before sunrise to get pictures over the water. It was gorgeous.

Pictures from ferry to Blow Me Down Provincial Park:
http://winding-road.net/motorcycle/trips_2009/canada/newfoundland/blow_me_down/index.html

We stopped at Arches Provincial Park and then went on to Gros Morne National Park stopping at Western Brook Pond to check on boat tours. It was around 1:00 PM and we had to be back at 3:00 so we decided to find a campground and set up camp beforehand.

On the way north on Route 430 we had our first chance to see moose. They were on the left side of the road and then crossed to our side after we had stopped for pictures. It was great.

We set up camp at Shallow Bay and returned to Western Brook Pond which is a fjord that has been closed off from the ocean. It’s supposed to have some of the purest water in the world. The tour on the boat was beautiful, but a bit disappointing as far as information. I guess we’d been spoiled by all the interpretive centers and this was a far more commercial operation. So go for the view, not the education. I would still do the tour again, but there wasn’t any wildlife either. I think I’d do a wildlife thing the next time.

A pond in Canada isn’t what I would consider a pond in US – aren’t they supposed to be small? In Canada the ponds are huge.

Port aux Basques to Blow Me Down Provincial Park:
http://motorcycle-journeys.com/past/canada_2009/photos/newfoundland/blow_me_down/index.html

Pictures of Gros Morne National Park and Western Brook Pond:
http://motorcycle-journeys.com/past/canada_2009/photos/newfoundland/gros_morne/index.html

8/4 – We rode up the west coast of Cape Breton Island to camp at MacCleod’s Campground in Dunvegan. On the front end is an open area for RV’s, but there are campsites along the water in a wooded area that are quite nice with water and toilets nearby.

8/5 – We backed-tracked to Glenville to visit Glenora Distillery – the only single malt distillery in North America. They offered a nice tour of the facility.

After that we did the west coast heading north. Nova Scotia and the Cabot Trail are beautiful.

We stopped in Cheticamp and had a greasy deep-fried fish meal and then continued on to Cape Breton Higlands National Park. Definitely a wonderful motorcycle ride.

The only problem was my greasy lunch was coming back to haunt me. While I was able to enjoy the ride and the views I knew I was in trouble — I had intestinal cramps that were getting worse and worse. I’m frantically checking everything we pass to see if they have bathrooms and of course there were none. Jean-Francois stops at a scenic overlook and wonders why I’m pacing around and in misery so I tell him. To his credit he tried really hard not to laugh — but in the end couldn’t stop himself.

We blasted down the mountain to Pleasant Valley, went screaming into the parking for the first restaurant we saw and I ran for the bathroom barely making it. Jean-Francois thought the polite thing to do was order something and was having ice cream.  I wanted to go back and do the route again so I could enjoy and in all honesty it’s a ride that should be done in both directions, but we didn’t have the time to do that.

We took the road that headed north to Meat Cove — they were supposed to have an incredible campground. The road turned to gravel and I through in the towel on an extremely tight steep turn in deep gravel. There was a place to pull off and Jean-Francois went on to the campground to check it out. As it turned out the campground was full and he said the road got nothing but more difficult so we turned around to find another place to camp.

We stayed at a crowded but okay campground in Dingwall.

I was clearly struggling with my fear of the fully loaded motorcycle on gravel. It didn’t make me very happy to weenie out on gravel roads and it’s something that bothered me the entire trip. I need to work on those skills before taking another trip. But I don’t think it’s so much a matter of skill — I think I just have it in my head that I’m going to go down on gravel. Not really sure how to solve that one…

8/6 It was a beautiful morning and we headed to White Point and Neil’s Harbor and then down the east side of the island. Truly a beautiful area. If you’re there makes stops to check out the view.

It was very hot — we stopped for gas and while I was inside paying I saw a thermometer that read 90 degrees. I asked the man behind the counter if it was correct and he said it was and the thermometer outside was reading 95. Didn’t I leave Texas to get away from this? How could I be that far north and it’s 95???

We crossed the bridge over to Sydney and checked on the ferry. The boarding was delayed until 10:00 and they wanted us there at 8:00. We did a little shopping (cook stove fuel) and had dinner before returning to the ferry.

I was terribly excited to be going to Newfoundland. It’s an experience, almost an event to take the ferry. We returned at 7:30 and were place first in line in the first row. They had all the motorcycles line up behind us since we would board as a group.

Since you can’t return to your vehicle once the ferry leaves the dock we had to be organized before we boarded.  After organizing it was fun talking with all the other motorcyclists who were waiting. It was amazing how many Irish accents there were since a lot of New Brunswick and Nova Scotia was heavily Irish.

I was a little afraid of the boarding. Part of it was not wanting to look like an idiot in the midst of all those motorcyclists. I was also a little concerned with what the ramp would be like, if it would be wet and slippery. It ended up being a lot of fretting for absolutely no reason — the boarding went fine.

The thing to be prepared for is tying down your motorcycle. Everyone else knew what they were doing and the tiedowns disappeared in a flash. Fortunately the crew dug up some more. It’s ideal to lash the motorcycle down with 4 tiedowns but we only had three each and the motorcycles made the crossing fine. But it was calm seas — if it was rough I’d want it tied down with four.

There was a delay in boarding and the ferry didn’t leave the dock until midnight. After walking around to see the boat we found chairs in a fairly quiet spot and tried to get a little sleep.

The ferry arrived in Newfoundland at 5:30 AM. Groan.

Here’s a link to the Cape Breton Island pictures:
http://motorcycle-journeys.com/past/canada_2009/photos/nova_scotia/cape_breton_island/index.html

8/3 – back in New Brunswick after PEI

Somehow we took a wrong turn after crossing the bridge from PEI and went in the wrong direct in high gusting winds and fog. Will someone explain to me how you can have pea soup thick fog and high wind? Shouldn’t the wind dissipate the fog? And this was gusting wind that was throwing me all over the road and about knocked me over when stopped. And all of this was going on after dark. I could barely see in front of me and was worried about being rear-ended by a truck from behind. This was not a fun ride.

We got far enough from the coast that the fog finally cleared, but there was no where to stop for the night. We arrived in Pugwash at 10:00 PM and Jean-Francois stopped at a gas station to ask about a place to stay. The man at the gas station made a phone call. A short time later a man drove up to lead us to his bed and breakfast. After we had unpacked the motorcycles he showed up with dessert and tea. At 11:00 PM at night. A full breakfast was included the next morning.

So the night ended very well.

They were very nice people, originally from Ireland, and I would recommend them if you’re in the area.

Shillelagh Sheila’s B&B
10340 Durham St.
Pugwash, NB B0K 1L0
902-243-2885
http://www.shillelaghsheilasinn.com/

8/4 – Before leaving Sheila’s we called the ferry for Newfoundland and booked tickets from Sydney to Port aux Basques. We couldn’t get on until an 8:00 PM sailing on Thursday (this was on Tuesday) so we had time to fill before then.

We had seen signs for a pewter shop called Basic Spirit and shopped there before leaving Pugwash. Not too far down highway 6 was Jost’s winery so we stopped there too. JF wanted to go to Grohmann’s Knife in Pictou.

We decided to do the Cabot Trail on Cape Breton Island in Nova Scotia since it wasn’t far from Sydney where we’d get the ferry. Before the end of the day we crossed into Nova Scotia.