Thursday, July 21, 2011

To the tip of the Northern Peninsula and back



This iceberg we saw on the 2 hour boat tour

















A picture of part of the recreated Vicking village













The first iceberg I saw just off St Anthony (note the chunks in the water just off shore)

















Arches Provincial Park










Well, it won't surprise most of you that there's not much wifi connectivity at the B&Bs in St Anthony, which explains why you haven't heard much since I left Deer Lake on Tuesday morning. The weather for the ride up to the very tip of the Northern Peninsula wasn't all that great, no rain but rather cool. The hottest it got was around 18, but that didn't spoil the trip. The first part of the drive through Gros Mourne National Park is very scenic as the road rises several hundred metres above sea level along a coastal range of mountains. At times the views of the mountains on the rright and the Gulf of St Lawrence on the left are staggeringly beeautiful; there are some audible "WOW" moments in my helmet. Further along on 430 after a short stop at Arches provincial Park, named for a formation of stone with a series of arches on the shoreline one hugs the coast of the Strait of Belle Isle from where you can easily spot the coast of Labrador on the far shore.





The 430 takes you right into St Anthony, where there's premium gas, a Tim Hortons and a bay, litterally at the end of the road, with an iceberg waiting too be photographed from shore. I subsequently learn that the bergs are late this year, as no less then 2 weeks ago there were none, anywhere along this stretch of shore. I can report that that is certainly not the case now. As a matter of fact I could see some from my L'Anse of Meadows B&B bedroom window, from the restaurant where I had lunch and during the boat tour from Griquet I took yesterday, along with the three anglophone sisters (Toronto, Victoria and Brisbane) and the french couple from Westmount (he in shorts -freezing). The L'Anse aux Meadows Parcs Canada site is well worth the visit. The recreated viking village is well done and the guides are prepared and more than happy to answer all questions. The Vickings who settled in this area around 1000 were ccertainly a hearty lot. Notwithstanding the efforts to recreate the setting, it's still quite difficult to imagine how life would have been at that time in that place. There ceratinly would not have been a four star Frommer restaurant where I had an excellent dinner, with live local entertainment on Tuesday, nor a charming and hospitable hostess at Marilyn's B&B who not only fed us (the three sisters were also guests there as were two gay guys from Dubai - well one, a Serbian-Canadian, originally from St Catherine's and his partner from South Africa) bountiful breakfasts but also a wonderful dinner of pan fried cod, that her husband Lou had just caught off Labrador, and all the fixin's including "still melt the butter" hot homemade bread. Mother would have loved that meal.




So, this morning as I left Cherryl's house - oh, I forgot to mention that when I arrived at Marilyn's Hospitality B&B, she informed me that there had been a mixup and that, if I didn't mind I would be sleeping (in my own room) over at her friend's, Cherryl's place next door for the next two nights. Well, you see, Cherryl, a Toronto bookstore owner had visited L'Anse aux Meadows this past April, had fallen in love with the place, and, for $50K had bought Marilyn's brother's house that had been on the market for two years after he died in a snowmobile accident. Cherryl, a maritimer born and raised in a small village in Nova Scotia, had arrived last week and was settling into her $180-a-month-mortgage piece of paradise, was already a member of the small community, and a close friend of Marilyn - I retraced my route back to Deer Lake. Except for the pair of big moose just next to the highway a few kilometers west of the intersection of 436 and 430, the rest of the trip under cloudy skies was uneventful.




Tomorrow, it's down to Stephenville, where I've been told I must tour the Port au Port Peninsula.









No comments:

Post a Comment