We started out on 7-10-2002. Up the coast , spending the first night in Atlantic City, second in CT, next night in Tanglewood area, next at Deer Island, New Brunswick, next in a cabin at Fundy National Park, tonight in Charlottestown, Prince Edward Island. I missed one night, we stayed in Mt. Dessert, Maine on the way up.
We have been spending between $40 and $70 per night for lodging. We have been eating wonderful seafood-halibut, scallops, salmon, haddock. Pretty music at Tanglewood MA. Beautiful sunset on Deer Island. Lots of trees and forest. Saw the FDR home at Campobello. Talk to you next week
Second week: We stayed on Prince Edward Island for five wonderful days. Moved on to Cape Breton, Nova Scotia, a beautiful island with a coastline that reminds us of northern California. We have been enjoying the locally grown "new" potatoes, fresh mussels, scallops and halibut. Also, we have been staying in cabins. Nancy had to chase three raccons away from the porch on PEI as they wanted the garbage. We attended a fiddler's festival at Rollo Bay-such good Irish and Gaelic music here as there are lots of Scots and Irish Canadians. Have attended two Celidho's or songfests along our travels. We are now in Newfoundland. The weather is 60's during the day, 40's at night-so cool and pleasant. We saw two icebergs today in the bay at St. Anthony's where we are staying tonight. Enjoyed a "jigg dinner" which consisted of corned beef, roast beef, potatoes, carrotts, cabbage and turnips-delicious.
We took a 6 hour ferry ride from Sydney, NS yesterday to get here. Will leave in 6 days for Labrador on a 36 hour ferry ride. It is so beautiful here in Northeastern Canada and we are enjoying the trip. Check for more updates next week.Third week:We are in St. John, NFLD today. We are staying about an hour from here in Bellvue in a nice cottage on the water. St. John's is the biggest city we have seen since leaving the States-150,000 population. We have been enjoying such good food as "Lick A Chick" chicken in Sydney, NS, Moose Stew and Moose Burgers in Newfoundland and fried cod everywhere. Also, partridgeberry pie, baked apple berries, and rhubarb strawberry pie. NFLD is gorgeous-mountains, water and ocean everywhere, lots of big rocks, trees and wildflowers. Looks like Ireland or Scotland. Went to where the Vikings landed in North America 1,000 years ago. Stayed at the Tanker Inn near an oil refinery and attended the "Fog Festival" at Arnold's Cove. Also, went to the Shamrock Festival last Sunday in Ferryland-great Irish music. It is still cool. They think they are having a heat wave when it reachs 80 degrees! We wear jackets in the morning and at night. Visited towns called "Heart's Desire and Heart's Content-beautiful fishing villages. We built a fire in our cottage a few nights ago in the pot bellied stove. We saw a caribou with a "rack" right in the road the other day. There are "Watch for Moose" signs everywhere and you have to watch for moose so you don't hit them with your car!
We went to a bookstore in St. John's and bought the only NY Times in the province for $10.00. and it was last weeks paper, but good to see some US news. The news here is about lost dogs, dead fish, and lobster vetenarians! But, the CBC radio station is as good as our PBS stations in the US. It is so breathtakingly beautiful here and we hear Labrador is even prettier. We will see lots of icebergs on our 36 hour ferry ride which we embark on tomorrow. We will land at GooseBay/Happy Valley, Labrador. We are told there are only about 25,000 total people in Labrador. More news next week.
Fourth week: We have endured a 48 hour ferry ride (was supposed to be 36 hours) from Newfoundland to Labrador, sleeping in a 6x6 cabin with bunks. Nancy had to climb up a 5 rung ladder to sleep. It was so cold outside we could see our breath, on August 1st. We saw several icerbergs. We arrived in GooseBay, Labrador and spent the night in a nice cabin. We ate Caribou steak for dinner. Headed out on a gravel road which we drove for two days to get to Quebec. We had 2 flat tires, but survived. The story of our eventful ferry ride and 2 days on gravel will follow when we get home. We spent the night in Labrador City, a mining town where not much is happening, unless you like hunting, fishing and snow! We arrived in Matane, Quebec on Sunday, August 4. We are now driving east on the Gaspe penninsula. Beautiful scenery that tracks the St. Lawrence Seaway. We have stayed in 4 star hotels and a cheap cabin since arriving in Quebec. The best part is the delicious french food, mostly seafood-salmon, lobster, mussels. We are struggling with speaking French to folks, but most folks are friendly and use their best English when conversing with us. Stay tuned for more news next week.
Fifth Week: We are back in Beulaville after exploring the Canadian Maritime Provinces. Last week we completed our travels through the Gaspe Peninsula and headed to New Brunswick and explored a penninsula there. We stayed in a nice cabin on the Gaspe below big mountains and crashing waves on the St. Lawrence. We ate at a wonderful restaurant in a national park lodge which served us a big bowl of salmon, lobster, cavier, scallops, halibut all heated up with a wonderful sauce. Also, it rained very hard the day we drove through the Gaspe to New Brunswick, but the scenery was breathtaking anyway. We attended an Irish Folk Festival in Mishimac and enjoyed the jacuzzi and indoor swimming pool at our hotel in that town. We had the best seafood casserole at lunch which consisted of scallops, lobster, fish smothered in cheese! We visited an aquarium which had fish from the North Atlantic and was very interesting.
We left Friday morning, August 9 from New Brunswick, Canada and drove to the Meadowlands, NJ where we spent the night. Then drove on to NC on Saturday, August 10. The traffic from New York to Virginia on I-95 was not a pretty site, but we made it through by weaving our way down south on and off I-95. We spent 30 days and nights on the road and had a wonderful time.
Following is a story by Doug related to our adventure from Newfoundland to Labrador by ferry:
"The Trek" by Douglas A. Clark. We woke up Wednesday morning, July 31 and headed out at 9:00 a.m. to catch the ferry to labrador from Louisporte, NFLD. The 3 hour road trip to Louisporte was uneventful. Once inside the ferry office, I turned in my reservation for one car, one airplane-style seat for me, and one upper berth for Nancy with 3 other "supposed" women. This ferry ride would last for the next 48 hours. I asked the ticket agent to put me on all sorts of waiting lists for a place to sleep. There were lists for 2-berth cabins, 4-berth cabins and just a bed with three strangers. The agent said any excess rooms would only be passed out after the ship was at sea. Just then, a woman's voice behind me said she was not using one of her two reserved cabins and that I could have one. The ticket agen balked! He said he would have to go by the waiting list. I convinced him that he was not giving me the cabin as the lady had not turned it in. My reasoning prevailed and we got a two-berth cabin for Nancy and I. Our last lunch on shore consisted of cod cheeks and other ordinary stuff! When we got on the boat and checked with the pursor we found out the cabin did not include a bath (all baths down the hall). One of our fellow passengers from Marin County, California had asked for an "upgrade"-all she got was a laugh from the pursor. We then got to our cabin which was approximately 6x6 with the upper and lower berths taking 1/2 the space. Nancy had to climb a 5-rung ladder to sleep in her berth. We did have a porthole and wash basin.
Now, for the weather report, there were several icebergs in the water, there was fog, there was rain, and we could see our breath everytime we stepped out on the deck. It was like December in July! The food on the boat was uneventful. The entertainment consisted of non-stop videos, one of which was "Snow Days" with Chevy Chase! Thankfully, we were the proud owners of the only copy of the Sunday NY Times sold in the province. We had purchased it in St. John's, NFLD at the big bookstore (like our Barnes & Noble). It appeared they only got one copy in a week. The trip with "no cabin" would have been "hell on earth." The first night, at 4:00 a.m., Nancy walked out to the common area and surveyed the scene. The sights, sounds and smells told her she was not in Kansas anymore! She came back in, thanked and kissed me for the cabin. FYI-there appeared to be 3 types of folks on the ferry, the tourists (most with campers), the natives who were visiting friends and loading up with their household consumables for the winter from St. John where stuff is cheaper, and just plain folks. A lot of just-plain folks were making the trip without cabins or cars. We stopped in a seaport town at mid-point called Cartwright-population 600. During the trip, we had met the one man who constituted the phone company for Cartwright-he did it all!
We disembarked at Goosebay, Labrador and found a nice cabin for the night. For supper, Doug had a delicious caribou steak. Labrador only has 4 or 5 roads in the whole place. We drove to the end of one road to a town called Northwest River. They had a small museum explaining the 1903 expedition to survey interior Labrador. The museum was housed in an old Hudson Bay Colony trading post. The population in this town was namely, Inuits, similar to our native Americans, but in Canada they refer to them as "First Nation People."The next morning we gassed up and headed out for the first one of two 200 mile stretches of gravel road that would take us to Labrador City at day's end. Lunch time found us half way in a settlement called Churchill Falls. All the buildings are owned by the hydro-electric company located there. We found the only restaurant located in the company store. We had two Canadian dishes there. One was "poutines" which is basically french fries and gravy. To this can be added other ingredients such as hamburger meat, mushrooms or cheese kurds. Poutines are popular and served throughout Canada-they always ask you if you want "gravy" with your french fries wherever you go. The other dish we had was called a "donair." The ingredients in the donair are similar to a "gyro" in that there is seasoned meat with lettuce and tomato on pita bread. But, in the donair, the pita bread is laid flat, with the ingredients on top with cheese and baked to make a sort of pizza. We came out from lunch ready for our next 200 miles of gravel road. But, a tire was flat! Doug Clark, Mr. Smarty Pants, had prepared for a flat tire by getting a used tire in NFLD and it was sitting in the back seat of the car. We enlisted local help only to discover the spare we had brought would not fit! At the one service station, a tire was found, not the exact size, but close enough to work. To our surprise, it cost about the same as in Beulaville for a tire. Merrily, we started down the gravel road. About 80 miles from our destination, we had another flat tire.
Doug put the "donut" spare tire on the car and drove carefully to Labrador City. We arrived at 6:15 p.m., instead of 4:00 p.m. as we had expected, on Saturday night, August 3. Tire dealers closed, auto parts stores closed-no full service gas stations. All the shops, including the mall, closed at 6:00 p.m. The population in Labrador City is 10,000. We got a motel room at the Two Seasons Inn. We think the only two seasons in Labrador City are winter and fall! Summer and spring probably don't exist as it is very cool there all the time. We thought we would have to stay there until Monday to get the tire fixed, but Doug started scrambling. After talking with 20 people, and considering plugging the tire himself, Doug was able to get a Goodyear tire mechanic to come to his shop for an extra $30 US. We bought two new tires and threw away the $50 tire we had bought 5 hours earlier in Chruchill Falls, filled up the gas tank ready for another gravel road adventure the next day, down to Quebec and the St. Lawrence Seaway. Sunday morning, before leaving, we had a normal breakfast, except for two Canadian twists. One is referred to jokingly as "Newfie Steak." It is thick cut fried bologna. The second item is called "toutons." Toutons are a bread dough similar to donuts, the size of a thick pancake and fried in a skillet. You can add syrup, molassus or jam-it is delicious!
The next day our gravel road journey to Quebec was uneventful-no flat tires-and we made it to Bay Comeau-a beautiful small town on the St. Lawrence. We were back in civilization and we stayed at a beautiful 4-star hotel called Le Manior. We enjoyed a 4-course French meal and life was once again good to us! So we whipped home about 5 days later. The total was 30 nights. 12 in cottages and 18 in motels.
The costs were:
Car repairs $100
Resturants $700
Admissions $200
Groceries $180
Ferries $400
Gas $300
Total $3,400 or $110 per day.
