NEWFOUNDLAND – ANOTHER BEAUTIFUL DAY FOR A DRIVE.
Day 112 – The peace & quiet plus the sound of the waves were interrupted last night by the rowdy ones turning on their generator (they’d done that all day previously when they were here & we couldn’t figure out why – there ARE electric hook-ups). But this time the couple from Switzerland called the campground manager & said it’d awakened them – their site was right next to the rowdy ones. The manager drove over & told them to turn it off; the rowdy ones left this morning, darnit. It was 59 degrees this morning & lovely out again.
After dumping tanks & filling up again with fresh water, we left for another exploratory drive. We started right here in La Scie, driving to the wharf which is across the Bay from the campground. The town dock & wharf were impressive, quite active & large. There’s a big fish processing plant, too. (Almost every port has its own fish processing plant.) There’s a store in town that sells freshly-caught fish. Right now they’re selling mostly crab, some scallops, but I’m sure squid will be next.
La Scie, NF
La Scie, NF
Then we drove to Ming’s Bight, the final cove road left to explore on the La Scie portion of this peninsula. After getting back on the main road, we saw two Moose – a mother and a baby! We slammed on our brakes & quickly turned around, wanting to get pictures, but they fled into the trees. Both mom & baby looked quite healthy.
Click any picture below to see a slideshow.
Then we drove into Baie Verte, got gas in the Honda, and stopped for a leisurely lunch at The Bistro on the Bay. This restaurant was recommended to us by several of the people we met the last time we were in town. Most small towns have no restaurants of any kind. If the town is a little bigger they have a Mary Brown’s (fried chicken chain) or a Tim Horton’s (McDonald’s-like). It was a pleasure to find a restaurant, and to enjoy the food. We each had coffee – I had a real Latte, can you imagine that (unheard of around here). For appetizers, Rob had the Toutons, a Newfie favorite – fried bread with maple butter – and I had the Sweet Potato Fries with Aioli dipping sauce. Both were very good. Lunch was a bowl of Basil Onion Pesto for each of us. The pasta was homemade and the pesto was quite good with carmelized onions mixed in. We both got a piece of Partridgeberrie Pie to go.
As we move west in our journey, we are returning to the area called the French Shore. The French influence is becoming more frequent. We continued north to the top of the Baie Verte Peninsula. We stopped at Coachman’s Cove, then drove on to Fleur de Lys. Both were very nice towns. Fleur de Lys is a town we’d heard about from people during our travels, that and La Scie where we are currently camping. Both towns have been said to be beautiful and they are. One couple we’d met near St. John’s had just been to Fleur de Lys & they raved about the icebergs, the moose, and the fact that a bear had recently been in town. We looked for more Bear, but didn’t see any. And it would be pretty surprising if there were still icebergs in Fleur de Lys. The town was colorful. Yellow flowers were painted on large rocks in many places. Benches & picnic tables were brightly painted, Gardens were full of bright flowers. Pretty nice.
We had no idea, before we came up this way on Baie Verte Peninsula, that mining had been so important here – rather than just fishing, which obviously has played such an important role here in all of Newfoundland. Ore trucks travel back & forth from the still-active mining towns; they are large and heavy and they drive pretty fast on some of these narrow roads to these towns. With all the trucks, you realize that mining is still keeping this place alive, also.
The campground was more full this afternoon than we’d seen it yet. Oh yeah – it’s the weekend! We sat out in the tent before & after dinner. Another gorgeous day. The high today was 74 degrees, partly cloudy & breezy.