yyt

this little outing has me questioning my dedication on some of my more audacious wanders. leaving bonne bay where i had my oil changed by paul martin - not that paul martin. i still liked the world down the 30 odd kilometres of route 431. bonne bay nestled in between the water and the tablelands. sped down the trout river gulch - 150 k/mh again gobsmacked at the tablelands still with snow on the top and the green of the opposite side. it was more peaceful now it was still winter and all but the essential were still closed.

leaving i am always aware of what is left behind and out on route 430 it is hard to image that the towns exist.

this was the reason for wanting to head to other more remote towns, to travel the now completed trans-labrador.

this curiosity was due to ignorance. while i still use maps instead the of google equivalent - scale changes and while i know that some distances are long i have no tangible reference.

this wander has been all about scale. here i am on the island further away from the avalon than chicago is from new york. i have gone almost from tip to tip - channel port-aux-basques to conche 400 odd miles - i have to deduct the bonne bay diversion. for most of the transcanada i was alone, north of rocky harbour the same but that was nothing. driving roads like this is driving in autopilot - except for the moose. it was when i finally left the 430 for roddickton that my patience was tested. a mere 70km but one that had to be done at the speed limit. this wasn’t due to the three moose grazing near the edge of the road. this part was due to the size and number of potholes. there were parts of the road that looked like someone had just finished having war games. the speed limit went down to 50km/h and that was optimistic. that could only be obtained in a 4x4 or a big rig, a saturn would be swallowed up.


i know that i could make 70 km, i was way ahead of time - time being getting off the road before dark when i would have to worry even more about the moose population. i felt the amount of road kill deer in michigan was some sort of warning - there must have been two dozen. then heading up the transcanada just before the codroy valley a road kill moose. i also knew that the road from roddickton to conche was dirt 24km of dirt. roddickton itself was not only the moose capital of the great northern but also the pothole capital - marked speed limit is 30 clicks and even at speed the road turns into a slalom event, dodging portholes and on coming traffic.

i now wonder while i could possibly do the bay d’espoir and burgeo highways as i am sure that they are fine 100 click roads, i wonder what would have happened if i could have book passage on the ferries last year and thus had crossed over into labrador from québec via that dirt road and then dealt with the trans labrador - 481 km of unpaved driving.

bought supplies in roddickton as while i was told there are two conveniences in conche, i doubted whether they had vegetables. then made my way to conche making mental notes on what to photograph - so many wood piles so little time. unpacking i realised that i had forgot to buy table butter. i’ll do without it.