THE RED FOX, THE WATERFALLS, AND THE VILLAGE AT THE END OF THE ROAD.
Day 158 – Cold again last night, the low last night was 43 degrees. This morning, it was cloudy and rain was supposed to start in the afternoon. We took a drive around the Port au Port peninsula to see a couple of areas we didn’t see last time we were here.
Much of this drive we’d done in May of this year after we’d first arrived in Newfoundland. Today we didn’t spend a lot of time stopping to take pictures at the same places again. We’d heard about some great rock formations on a cliff in a town called Picadilly. We went to the Park where access to the beach at the cliff was available, but we were faced with a locked gate; they were closed for the season. Maybe next time……
Our favorite part of today’s drive was the trip on a narrow spit of land to the end of the dirt/gravel road. At the town of Lourdes, Route 463 curved left and followed along the Ocean. Instead we turned right and took a fairly isolated gravel road for 23 kilometers to the end of the road, passing through the small villages of Winterhouse, Black Duck Brook, and ending at the tiny fishing village of Long Point/Blue Beach. Services (electricity, etc.) stopped at Black Duck Brook. The village at the end of the road was entirely self-sufficient with no services. On either side of this spit of land there was Ocean – one side was the Gulf of St. Lawrence, open ocean; and the other side was the Port au Port Bay. It was lovely. The beach was covered in rocks of all sizes that had washed in with the tides. The sun wasn’t shining, but it was still gorgeous.
We turned around and headed back towards Lourdes and the main road around the peninsula. In the distance by the side of the road, we saw a Red Fox sitting there, watching us approach. It was not the least bit worried about us. We slowed down, drove closer, then stopped. It began trotting towards us, approached our car, and politely asked us if we had any food we could share – well almost. But anyway, it obviously had been getting fed by someone. We only had protein bars, and wouldn’t have fed any “wild” animal anyway. After posing for some pictures, and when it saw that we weren’t going to feed him/her, it continued down the road.
We continued on the loop road, stopping at Parc Boutte du Cap where we’d originally planned to camp for these four nights. It’s supposed to be windy there again tomorrow, so we have no regrets about changing our plans, but checking out the Park again did verify that we do want to stay there the next time we visit. The views of the cliffs and the open ocean from the top are amazing.
We drove on, stopping at Hidden Falls. We‘d visited there last May. At that time, we saw that they were just beginning to work on a new town park and campground. We checked the progress of the campground, and decided it was not somewhere we would stay in the future. But the Falls were still pretty, as they have always been when we’ve visited.
Heading back to our campground, we stopped at Stephenville to fill the Honda with gas for tomorrow. We plan, weather permitting, to make the long drive to Burgeo, and there are no gas stations or services of any kind between here and there. It should be a pretty drive and an interesting experience. The high today was 62 degrees; it was mostly cloudy with rain starting a little before 4 p.m.