Kilometres Remaining: 8,526/11,978
Route: St. Anthony, Newfoundland to Goose Bay, Labrador
Yet another day of putting away a wet tent. Gah. We got up super early so that we would make it in time. We left the RV Park near St. Anthony and headed towards St. Barbe. We had a reservation for the first ferry leaving for Labrador. We drove through the pouring rain and at 7 am on the dot we arrived at the ferry terminal. We paid for the ticket and waited in line. By 8 am the ferry was on its way across the strait of St. Lawrence.
Labrador first looked similar to Newfoundland. We came into port at a small village that looked the same as so many we had seen. It did not take long for us to realize that though these two places were close together they were very very different. Labrador has a totally different landscape from Newfoundland, and it is stunningly beautiful. We followed a string of cars down a paved road towards the Trans-Labrador Highway. At seemingly random intervals people would turn off, having reached their final destination. On the ferry we ran into a gentleman that we had run into at L’anse aux Meadows. He too was travelling to Labrador. As the people turned off, I wondered if he was among them. On a side note, but still on the topic of that gentleman, he spoke about the ferry from North Sydney, NS to Port aux Basques, NL. He said that at Christmas time he took that ferry, and was on it for 35 hours. Because of storms they could not bring it into port. I thought about that. I was sick on it for only 7 hours in good weather... I could not imagine 35 hours of storms...
Back to the plot. We were driving on these paved roads and were one of the last left in the string of cars. At once we saw a gravel road veer to the left and we went passed. It did not take long to realize that the gravel road we had seen was in fact the Trans-Labrador Highway. Gravel. Gravel. We had heard horror stories about this highway and now we got to see if they were true. They were. We went down the highway through the tundra very carefully. The posted speed was 70 km/h for most of it, or 90 km/h, but really, a better speed would have been 10 km/h. The rains had decimated the road and left pot holes everywhere. People in trucks were trying to pass people driving everything else, while people driving everything else (including us) were trying hard not to shatter their teeth as they crashed together with each jolt and bump. It was like this for a while and then we hit a small patch of pavement and a small town. Here we filled up with gas, and it was a good thing we did... there would not be another fueling station for 5 hours. Gravel roads... straight through the tundra. We had been told that you could rent satellite phones at the beginning of the road, and return them at the other end. Then, if you had trouble you could call for help. We did not take a phone, instead we headed full of gas into the wilderness. There were very few cars, and there were no settlements. We did stop once or twice to look around and let me tell you, there are some strange things growing on that tundra. It was clear in patches, but for the most part the weather was still overcast with some rain.
It is unnerving when you are that far away from anything. We were standing there in the tundra hundreds of kilometres away from anything. You could stand there looking at the strange vegetation and hear nothing but nature. There were no people. Just the wilderness and a long gravel road going through it.
It is a gravel road, but at least it is not too neglected. We passed crew after crew trying to keep the road in useable condition. There were at least 4 graders and one other crew. I think that they were fighting a losing battle.
We were getting low on gas, and the GPS was very confused as to where we were (it knew where we were, but not where that was...) when we found civilization once again. We hit pavement and saw signs to Happy Valley and Goose Bay. We drove another few minutes, paid an exorbitant $1.18/L for gasoline in Goose Bay and then found the RV Park which was to be our home.
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