BAIE VERTE PENINSULA, DRIVE 2.
Day 114 – It was very foggy this morning when we got up, but at least it had stopped raining and the wind had died down. We left at 10 a.m. to do our final drive on this peninsula.
We got gas in the Honda in La Scie and drove all over the town, stopping at the large productive harbor to look around. There were many fishing boats in dock at the town wharf and they looked great in the dense fog. As usual, the old fishermen who were no longer working the docks were each lined up in their pickup trucks gabbing with each other thru their open truck windows. We traipsed through the puddles and took pictures around the wharf.
The fog was starting to lift as we drove out of La Scie and headed east on Route 414, past all the turn-offs to small villages we took on our drive Wednesday. At the intersection of Routes 414 and 410, instead of going north as we did on Baie Verte Peninsula Drive 1, we turned south to visit the villages off of Routes 413 & 411. The really bad road conditions and all the road construction work & delays that we encountered on our way to La Scie almost a week ago were much improved now. The road crews had been working very hard on Route 414, which will make our drive in the RV so much better on Sunday when we leave the area.
We first drove east on Route 413 to explore the villages of Middle Arm, Burlington, and Smith’s Harbour. Middle Arm was very pretty. There was a small campground at the town municipal park that had 4 campsites with water & electric hook-ups. Also, they had a one-pump gas station and a decent little grocery store at Noble’s Gas Bar & Convenience Store. The people were extremely friendly in the store and at the town dock where we stopped to take pictures. A man wanted to know all about our kayaks that are strapped to the top of the Honda. Burlington was more of a center hub between the two smaller villages. Their claim to fame was shipbuilding. Smith’s Harbour was a small village and it was quite charming. It was at the end of the road with the open ocean of Notre Dame Bay on two sides. Across from Smith’s Harbour, and not very far away, the village of Harry’s Harbour was visible at the end of a different peninsula. Harry’s Harbour was a great place we visited from our stay at King’s Point, earlier in this trip.
We turned around and headed back to Route 410 and drove south a short distance, then turned west on Route 411. A little down the road, we saw a sign with an arrow pointing to a gravel/dirt road to a place called Bear Cove. What was Bear Cove? It was not on the map. The gravel/dirt road seemed to be in fairly good condition, so we made a quick right turn and headed north on that road. The road went on and on. We found it really was more an ATV road, but we doggedly continued driving. The narrow road at times went almost straight uphill, then back downhill again. An adventure for sure. There was no signage telling us what we’d find, but eventually there were some wood piles at the sides of the road (with a snowmobile or two), and in places, piles of fresh gravel for road repairs. The deep potholes had obviously not yet been tackled. We noted that there were no electrical poles along the road. Maybe an abandoned village?
Since there were indications of the existence of something at the end of the road, we continued on. Finally after a long descent, there was a road in worse shape that the one we were on, which headed left while our road veered a little to the right. Staying on the original road, we found ourselves at the end of the road overlooking a tiny village and a small dock at a harbor. The scenery was absolutely beautiful. There were a few old houses in disrepair near the dock, which must’ve been the center of the village originally. And there were some newer little cottages and an older house or two that had been fixed up. A really charming and isolated place. Some of the cottages had solar panels on their roofs; one house had a couple of individual, small wind turbines. A completely self-sufficient, off-the-grid tiny community. A couple of the cottages had pick-up trucks and there were several parked ATV’s. After driving thru in awe, we turned around and attempted to drive down the other road that had branched off. This dirt road went straight downhill and was very rough. Rob was concerned that we might not be able to get back up this road if we went all the way to the bottom. But we could see in the distance, an old house and shed that were occupied and in good shape (as far as we could tell), sitting by the water of a really gorgeous cove that was surrounded by heavily tree’d tall hills. No electrical poles there either. What a setting!
We headed back to Route 411 to continued our visits to the two villages that WERE on the map: Westport and Purbeck’s Cove. While driving back on the rough road to Bear Cove, we encountered several ATV’s and a pick-up truck going towards the tiny Bear Cove village. We wondered if they were staying there at the summer cottages or were actually living there during the winter.
Westport was a fairly large, populated village. It was nice, particularly at the cove overlooking White Bay. There were several streets with newer homes on them. They’d been St. John-dized. We turned around at the end of Route 411 and headed back a short distance, turning down a gravel road to Purbeck’s Cove. This was a smaller village, but really seemed to be an extension of Westport. The gravel road was in good condition, thank goodness, and we drove to the end and turned around, returning to Route 411. At a potty stop in a turnout off the dirt road, we saw lots of what-we-thought were fairly large spiders. Nope, they were tiny frogs, LOTS of them.
We headed back the way we came to Route 410 and drove north until we reached Route 414, where we headed east back to La Scie. It was approaching 5 p.m. and each of us, having eaten only a protein bar for lunch, were hungry. (There were no restaurants open for lunch, no fast food or pizza places, at any of the villages we visited.) When we had a signal, we pulled off the highway and phoned the Outport Museum & Tea Room to either get reservations or order takeout to be picked up when we reached La Scie. We got a phone message that said the Tea Room was closed to celebrate “La Scie Day” and would reopen Saturday. La Scie Day? Hmmm, what was that? We called a different restaurant, in town, Critch’s Snack Bar, and order Fish ‘n Chips to go. The view on a nice day from the top of the hill as you enter La Scie was beautiful.
It was after 6 p.m. when we finally picked up the food and got back to the RV. We gulped down our dinner (which was mediocre). Then we sat down and tried to find information on Bear Cove from the internet. There were 9 Bear Cove’s in Newfoundland! We couldn’t get the history we were looking for, just that a busy village did exist, at least in 1939. We also looked up La Scie Day, trying to find out what was being celebrated. All we could get was a Facebook page from the town. Nothing about why there was a La Scie Day. Then at 9:30 p.m., we were surprised by loud banging, sounding a little like gunfire! I had to think twice – no, we are not in the U.S. and there probably isn’t a mass shooting going on (sad thought, eh?).
We sat in the RV and watched a pretty decent fireworks display overhead. This part of the celebration of La Scie Day was coming from the harbor. Very nice! We both considered going outside to take pictures. But, nah, we were too comfortable the way we were. The high today was 72 degrees further south on Route 411 and 66 degrees in La Scie.