A BEAUTIFUL DRIVE.
Day 106 – 58 degrees and sunny at 7:15 a.m. It was the perfect day for a drive to remote villages. Villages that have been around a long time, formerly outport villages accessible only by water, and when the roads were put in, the villages didn’t change much.
The scenery was amazing! Tall hills covered with trees and the deep blue lakes and ocean. A narrow road that traveled up and down the hills where at the top, you could see for many miles, distant islands and rocky cliffs, sandy beaches and breaking waves, and not a soul in sight. A few small villages, very quiet and idyllic, each with its own port. What a nice day!
We packed a lunch of Lobster Sandwiches and departed the campground at 10:15 a.m. It was breezy and sunny. We drove north from Harbour Breton and turned off on Route 364, one of two roads on the entire peninsula other than Harbour Breton that wind down through the hills to the sea.
We drove north then southwest for a while before reaching the first tiny village, which wasn’t even on the map. We turned down a bumpy, gravel road to Furby’s Cove. The Cove was small and tall rocky cliffs rose from the water. Carved out of the rocks, the gravel road had several cottages lining the hills above the small port and harbor. Just gorgeous. We continued on the 364 to the next villages. We stopped at the Hermitage Town Park and took some pictures, then took more from the town. Hermitage was a larger village. It had a ferry terminal for a boat that carries passengers & freight, (and no vehicles), weekly to outport villages along the southern coast of Newfoundland. There are no roads that lead to these villages. People make this trip as a vacation and outport-hop, visiting each quaint village and staying overnight in the B&B, Inn, or Motel, whatever is offered for this purpose. A week later, they take the ferry back to Hermitage.
The next village was Sandyville. Charming and pretty. There was what was left of the village, Dawson’s Cove, on a sandy peninsula jutting out from Sandyville. It had a very small port, some fishing stages, one small cottage, and a couple of VERY old houses, probably uninhabitable. We ate our lunch at the breakwater there and took in the fantastic views.
Last we visited Seal Cove at the end of the paved road. A very nice small village, it had a tiny grocery/convenience store and a small two-pump gas station, a church, a large port, a park and football/baseball field (overgrown and not used in awhile), and a very small post office which appeared to be hub of community activity. Obviously people on Route 364 grow their own vegetables and catch their own fish to eat. A “real” grocery store is a very far distance to drive and you wouldn’t make that trip very often (into Harbour Breton or farther north). You would stock up on supplies enough that they’d last AT LEAST a month. Alot of storage space is needed in these cottages. By the way, most people in Newfoundland do not have a garage, let alone an ATTACHED garage. Many have several sheds on their properties. But a garage? Quite a luxury. Anyway, Seal Cove was beautiful.
There was one more village, Pass Island, that was located 13 km one way, west of Seal Cove. The road was gravel. We only made it 2 miles before we gave up and turned around. We saw no other vehicles attempting it either. The road was extremely rough, and once we tried to get beyond where water runoff from the hills had destroyed it, we saw the road ahead was even worse. Oh well. No Pass Island for us!
We drove back to Harbour Breton the way we came – there is no other way. We again enjoyed the incredible scenery and encountered very little traffic. When we got back to the RV around 3 or 3:30 p.m., we went out to the screened tent and read our books and took a few pictures of flowers. Tomorrow we’ll take another similar drive, and we’re looking forward to it.
