011020041046 Port au Choix, Newfoundland

Well as you may or may not know, I'm heading up to Labrador! This may be the last time I get internet for a couple of weeks so I thought I'd better do an entry.

The rest of the Newfoundland trip so far has been great, spent three days in the national park doing some hiking and meeting some cool people, and then hitched a ride right to the top of the Northern Peninsula with a drug rep who works this side of the island. Still know I don't want to do pharmaceutical sales, but he seemed like he had a pretty cool life! He was going to be an Olympic swimmer but decided to go to school and get a real job instead. So Ray and I spent two nights in a little B&B in St Anthony. When we first arrived we went out to the lighthouse point and saw a whale off the coast! It was huge and pretty close in, and we watched it breach a few times and then it did a tail dive, amazing! The next day was pretty cloudy and rainy, but we managed to get lifts all the way out to L'Anse aux Meadows where the only authenticated Viking settlement in North America is (also the first European settlement in North America). We spent a little while going round there and learning about bog iron and looking at reproductions of what the buildings might have looked like. They had interpretive guides dressed in Viking clothing, it was pretty funny (in a sort of geeky cool way). We left and started walking down the very long road, and luckily a couple picked us up as it started raining. The wife was the editor of "Where to Eat in Canada", which is a pretty sweet job. Their only problem was that most of the places they wanted to go to were closed for the season. We spent the rest of the rainy night in since walking up 700 steps in the rain and the wind to see a lot of clouds and no whales didn't seem too appealing.

The next day, after retrieving Ray's camera that he managed to leave at the Viking place, we got a ride straight down south towards Corner Brook. I decided to get off here at Port au Choix, a little fishing town, since I'd decided on this trip up north with George and needed to stay somewhere for a couple of nights so he could pick me up. Ray was still heading eastwards so he stayed on with Ed the Insurance guy, and we said our goodbyes at Port au Choix. The Gin Rummy war ended on a draw. I went into the convenience store and asked where the B&Bs were in relation to where I was, and they were so lovely that they made phone calls for me, drove me around, gave me coffee and entertained me while I was waiting to find somewhere. Eventually the owner of the store got in touch with Loretta here at Loretta's B&B and he drove me down here. Loretta and her husband Sid have been amazingly hospitable to me, and it was almost like staying at someone's parents' place rather than someone's business. So if you're ever in Port au Choix, come and stay here! I spent the last couple of days wandering around the walking trails in the cold and wind, looking at the sea, eating a lot and playing a bit of Scrabble. I tried to go up and see the local museum (the Museum of Whales and Stuff - how could I resist?), but unfortunately it was closed.

George came up earlier than expected (he was supposed to be here this morning, but arrived last night), so we'll be off shortly. We're heading up to remote Labrador, then getting a ferry down into Goose Bay (Lucy will be excited about that), and then driving through Labrador City and down through Quebec and Ontario. For the sake of any passersby I hope I won't be having a go at driving the manual pickup truck on the wrong side of the road.

So here I go on my adventure ... will update as soon as I'm back in civilisation!

Also: Happy birthday to Lucy!! Hope you had a wicked party, and everyone bought you way more presents than I did! Just keep in mind I'll be home soon, and that should be enough!