Thursday, August 16, 2012

The trip so far...

This post is incomplete.  Pictures will be added later on when I can get them uploaded.


Day 1:  Rode from NY to Quebec City.  It was all interstate riding.  Made it to just north of Q City and stopped for the night at what appeared to be a campground.  Turns out, it was part of the Shrine of Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupre.  It was a place for those visiting the Shrine to stay.  It cost $5 for the night.  The Shrine was quite an amazing building.  



Day 2: We got an early start to go to Baie Comeau.  The road followed the coastline and went through many small villages.  



There was a ferry crossing where we waited a few turns before we were able to get on the ferry.  




Rain was off and on all day.  It wasn't too bad though.  Luckily, we're waterproof for now.  




We met a couple from south Florida on the ferry who told us about the whale watching in the area.  This is the time of year for whale watching.  With that information, we decided to get a campsite at a campground just outside of Baie Comeau that was located on the water.  We thought this would be a good way to see some whale while we were here.  Well, the fog was thick and we could barely see anything.  Instead we had dinner of croquettes de poulin (which is chicken nuggets).  When you're a starvin' marvin, it's amazing how good those can be!! 

Day 3: We rode from Baie Comeau to Labrador City.  The road was paved and twisty but in disrepair.  It didn't matter - we were enjoying it.  About halfway up, we came to Manic 5 (Manic Cinq).  It is a MASSIVE hydropower dam.  We stopped there for fuel and food and a few pics.

(insert dam pics)

After Manic 5, the road was a patchwork of unpaved and paved sections.  

(insert pics)

The scenery is fabulous!  Hilly, coniferous trees, lakes...  really beautiful. 

(beach pics)

This road is under construction in places.  They're working on paving it.  There was a lot of truck traffic too.  

(construction pics)

Finally, we reached Labrador.  Yay!!  Back into English speaking territory.  However, you can't understand what they're saying any more than the French.  Crazy accent they have up here.  We were told that the farther east you get, the worse it gets.  Haha!!  

(labrador sign)

In Labrador City, there were no hotel rooms available at all.  One hotel had a sign that said "No vacancy until August 2014".  Insane!!  We went out to the only campground in town and didn't like what we saw so we started searching for a spot along the road.  We found an RC aircraft field that had a perfect spot to pitch tents so that's where we stayed. 

(jeremy's campsite pics)

Day 4:  Labrador City to Churchill Falls.  Yesterday, after the stop at the beach, we noticed that Jeremy's KLR headlight was out.  On the ride to Baie Comeau, we meet a fella who said he lived in Labrador City and had a garage there.  If we needed anything, just stop by.  I said we would stop by to say hi at the very least.  So first order of business was to stop there to fix the light.  I also, lowered the front end of my bike because with all the weight on the back, the front end was really squirrely at low speed and in turns.  It felt like it just wanted to fall into the turns too quickly.  I didn't want to get on sketchy gravel road with it being so twitchy.  Jeremy's headlight issue was a blown fuse, burned out bulb, and a burned out turn signal bulb.  It took more time to unload and reload the bike than it did to fix the problem!  My bike was an easy fix.  I just didn't have a 12mm socket to do it myself.  

Bikes fixed and on the road again.  Another day of off and on rain.  Temps were good - cool enough to not sweat but warm enough not to freeze.  Again, more beautiful scenery.  There were a lot of what appeared to be peat bogs mixed in with the coniferous forest.

(road pics)

There was a lot of heavy construction on the road to Churchill Falls.  About 50 miles was gravel and under construction.  

We arrived at Churchill Falls and decided to try to see if the one hotel in town had a room.  They do!!  Woohoo!!  That gave us a chance to try to dry out our tents and other gear.  

(gear drying pics)

A hot shower was nice as well as a meal of pizza (for me) and pasta dish (for Jeremy).  

(food pics)

Time for a good sleep!

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