LABRADOR – PINWARE TO BEYOND PORT HOPE SIMPSON.
Day 131 – Good-bye winds. YAAA! Hello bugs. BOO! We got up this morning and the wind had died down, but the bugs were out in full force. We think we prefer the heavy winds. At one point later in the day, Rob said this: “It seems so quiet and peaceful out. You wouldn’t know it was full of blood-sucking monsters outside.”
We don’t know how the people here can stand it. We had warnings from Newfoundlanders about Labrador’s black flies; they were right. We’ve asked people, “when do the black flies leave?” and we’ve gotten various answers from: “Never” to “They are here for four months every year; you just live with it” to “Hopefully after this next storm blows them away” to “When it gets cold enough”. We have bug spray – the kind from the health store that does no damage to people, cats, and the environment. Unfortunately, the bug spray does no damage to the bugs, either. People in Newfoundland said to get the strongest DEET you can find; the one in the orange plastic container. Not being a fan of DEET, we ignored that suggestion. Recently we’ve gone looking for DEET, out of desperation. They have sold out & won’t have more this black fly season. Therefore, because of this, our Labrador trip will be limited to hot-footing-it from car to building and return. No outdoor excursions for us.
This afternoon, after getting back from our drive, we pulled into Wi-Fi central to check the weather for the next few days. Now we know that it won’t only be the bugs keeping us inside. The remnants of Cyclone Erin will be hitting us tomorrow, as we already knew. But Sunday, Hurricane Dorian will pay a visit. Hopefully after that, we will have some calm weather for more than a day at a time. Dorian, now that is a shocker. Last we’d heard it was a Category 5 Hurricane which destroyed the Bahamas and was going to decimate all of Florida. Then Dorian was downgraded to a Category 1 storm that would not hit Florida. After awhile, you just don’t know what to believe. A couple of days later, Hurricane Dorian is going to be that far north? Heading for Atlantic Canada like a freight train? We’ll see. We are, after all, in Labrador, not the eastern coast of Newfoundland. I will worry about it when I see it.
Anyway…….this morning it was partly cloudy and no wind. The Honda said it was in the 50’s and by the afternoon, it was 66 degrees. Due to the upcoming weather, we are not moving on to a new campground until we know we can stay there without the high winds. We feel safe here. Rob paid for 4 more nights here in Site #19 and we did a load of laundry at the comfort station while doing our daily routines of exercising, showers, coffee drinking, etc. We departed around 10:30 a.m., heading north on Route 510, planning to go to where the road’s pavement ends & it turns to dirt (according to the map). We drove past Red Bay where we stopped briefly on the last non-windy day we had. We will come back to Red Bay for the interpretive centers & right whale museum another day.
There were very few towns, very few dirt roads to explore here – just beautiful scenery. Somewhat like NF in that there’s the rocky cliffs, rolling hills, deep forests (or barren hills), rivers, lakes, and gorgeous ocean views, but it is different. It’s empty. Wild. Untouched. Free. And lonely. A long road. Obviously someone has been here before. It’s not that. But at times you can almost visualize prehistoric times where huge beasts roamed the land. There were no people then. There are very few signs of civilization now.
Up one hill, down that hill, no cars, no towns, up another hill, you are suddenly enveloped in a deep fog and can’t see anything around you. Go down that hill and you’ve driven out of that cloud and below you is the winding, beautiful Pinware River and the bridge that crosses it as it winds down to the Ocean. The bridge is not paved. it has wooden decking, it is old. Another curve, another hill, a bay, a cove. Just awesome.
Finally we reached several small towns: Lodge Bay, Mary’s Harbor, and in another half hour, the last town on Route 510 before the road ended, Port Hope Simpson. We stopped first at Mary’s Harbor and went to the ferry terminal to inquire about the trip to Battle Harbour Historic District. We were bombarded with black flies in the short walk to the terminal from the parking lot. Another couple who were from Virginia & had traveled across Labrador west to east from Quebec City, arrived the same time as us. They, too, were dismayed by the black flies and wanted information on the ferry trip. After hearing the details, Rob & I decided against going to Battle Harbour at this time. The other couple were considering going tomorrow & were going to spend tonight in the parking lot of the ferry terminal in their Van. Battle Harbour was once a bustling fishing town on a island off of Mary’s Harbour, but due to the collapse of the fisheries, the occupants were resettled to the mainland around 1960. Four families live there today, all of them related, and they run the concessions which include a restaurant and B&B out of one of their homes. The remaining families were resettled to Lodge Bay & Mary’s Harbour, but they still like to call Battle Harbour home. Battle Harbour was later restored as it was when it was abandoned and it became a big tourist attraction, which includes walking tours, two nights in the B&B, all meals, museums, the boat ride, etc. The price was too high for Rob & me, but our main reasons for not going was that you go on a passenger ferry, no car, lots of walking which I currently cannot do, and OMG, the bugs. We are not nuts; we only have so much blood to give. Plus, we couldn’t leave the girls home alone in the RV for a night or two. Even the optional Day Use trip (which was also expensive) would be all day outside.
Click on any picture below to see a slideshow.
We drove up to Port Hope Simpson and looked for a place to have lunch. We stopped at a tiny cafe that was in a motel; it appeared to be the only game in town except for maybe pizza to go from a convenience store. Small menu, everything meat, except for the grilled cheese sandwiches we ordered, and amazingly, they were very good. We asked the owner if there was a grocery store anywhere that might carry some veggies. Well, no. There was a grocery store in town but she (the owner) had gotten the last head of lettuce just today. There were no tomatoes. And there probably won’t be anymore veggies the rest of the year. Why is that, we asked. Because the boat can’t get here in the winds, she said. Oh, we said. By the way, we chatted with the cook. He said they got 30 feet of snow last winter. 30 feet!
We saw on the map we had about 40 km to the end of the road. Once it turns to dirt, the road goes west, then north, for about 375 km before reaching Happy Valley-Goose Bay and the official beginning of the Labrador Highway, a paved highway that travels west to the Quebec border a little beyond Labrador City, about 575 km farther. According to the map, there are only two towns between Labrador City & Happy Valley-Goose Bay, and NO towns between Happy Valley-Goose Bay & Port Hope Simpson. We wanted to get a picture of “the end of the paved road”.
We drove and we drove and we drove. Past what was previously the end of the road. It was now new pavement, no yellow lines on the highway yet. Even though our map was dated 2019, it was not up-to-date with this newly paved road. Finally, after getting warning signs that there were no services for many, many miles (i.e., gasoline), we turned around and headed back to the RV without reaching the end of the pavement. We ended up driving more than 300 miles today with the round trip.
Trans Labrador Highway from Port Hope Simpson to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, LB
Definite feel of the tundra around here on the Trans Labrador Highway
Trans Labrador Highway from Port Hope Simpson to Happy Valley-Goose Bay, LB
It was a long day. There had been only two turn-offs to be explored. We didn’t do them. We’d driven enough. Since we were inside most of the day, we were not prepared for the very short walk from the car to the RV. It is a bit shocking to get out of a car and actually be attacked by literally hundreds of bugs. Many followed us into the RV even though we tried our best to avoid that. A big wind storm is coming tomorrow; rain will begin tonight. Hopefully, they all disappear with the weather.