2018 Newfoundland & Labrador

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After 6 challenging days we‘re back in Newfoundland. Labrador is amazing, “the Big Land”. Beautiful country, Salmon rivers, big climbs and LOTS of black flies. The first night in the tent we thought it was raining, but no it was all the black flies caught between the tent and the rain fly as they banged against the rain fly. We used a lot of deet, but on the long steep climbs they had their way with us. We did see a whale including a dead one that had grounded on the rocks. We rode up to Red Bay to see the site of a 16th century Basque whaling station. Amazingly we had good weather, no rain, though windy and cold with temps in the 50’s.

Warmer here in Newfoundland and though there are more mosquitoes there are significantly fewer black flies. We had our longest day, 117Km, riding from the ferry terminal at St Barbe to a campground 10Km‘s from St. Anthony. We did stop to see Thrombolites at Flowers Cove. These are the result of biofilms of microorganisms especially cyano bacteria dating back to 2.5 to 3.8 billion years. We also saw several whales near shore. Fun to hear them exhale!

Met some great, (funny),characters at the campground though tourist season is now in full swing here and it’s a bit noisy with all the RV’s and caravans. One interesting touring group was from Germany. They had a large Mercedes bus/RV. The back half had some 20 plus sleeping cubicles with each having a small window. Don’t know for how long the tour has been operating, but they come every year. The weather continues good so we decided to take advantage and with our gear at camp, rode 35Km’s out to L’Anse aux Meadows to see the remains and reconstructed site of the first Viking village in North America, a world UNESCO heritage site. Beautiful site and so interesting to see how they managed to live roughly 1000 years ago. A windy hilly ride back to camp but well worth it!

Now a few days of rest before we catch a shuttle down to Deer Lake and continue our ride south eastward.

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