Thursday, October 12, 2017

There has been a slight change of plans.

Last night I checked my voice-mail and the car rental company want the car back! It has “been withdrawn from our fleet”. Was it something I said? I just spent $100+ getting the oil changed, new filter, grease job etc. It looks as if I will be heading in to St John’s tomorrow instead of in a few days time.

Sigh.

There are motels, hotels, bed and breakfast, and efficiency units.

Efficiency Units appear to be the cheapest and FWIW I can prepare my own meals and am fully self-contained.

Bed and Breakfast are usually nicer (owner’s pride) and involve me in conversation with the owner/manager, which means I can pose questions of any sort.

By 6 pm Wednesday, I had done the five “legs” and all the peninsular areas except Avalon. The Google Maps results above do not include short excursions, for example, my trip to Stephenville last Thursday to buy gas, or cruising around towns like Harbour Breton, but the maps figure of 4,450 Km is close to my real total to date of 5,404 Km.

That’s roughly a direct drive from Toronto to St John’s, back to Toronto, then half-way back to St John’s.

This is a Good Time to settle into an efficiency unit just outside St John’s and use that as a multi-day base for exploration of the Avalon peninsula AND St John’s. I want to visit Cape Spear, Signal Hill and a few other locations before I abandon the car and take to St John’s Public Transit.

This is all that’s left to explore. I arrived from Bonavista this morning, trekked down to Placentia and then up highway 80

I can cover the peninsula to Grates Cove and then back down the eastern shore and be in St Johns around noon. That should give me time to get the paperwork done and be in Witless Bay well before suppertime.

Witless Bay sounds like a good choice.

(later) Of course, I have long suspected that all rental cars are now fitted with GPS devices so that the rental companies can check on the car’s location and critical data. It is possible that the company has read the odometer values and determined that it is “time that the car come in for an oil change”, which I pre-empted in Bonavista two days ago.

Here is a view with my last morning coffee, looking across the bay to the rocks that are outside Brown’s restaurant.

A zoom shot of the rocks.

This hardy plastic plant survives the brutally cold winters rather well, I guess.

The view across the street. I am growing accustomed to the tidy houses. I am in for a shock when I return to Toronto.

Efficiency units are often compact, but when I’m asleep in bed I don’t care that the room is small.

Bath and shower. I love a hot soak at the end of the day.

The kitchen is well equipped for an overnight stay or up to a week, I suppose.

Lounging space is limited. For two people it should work.

The moon has been sending me off to bed for the first few days, then greeting me in the morning.

I was off to not too late a start. I think I’ll have a room at Bay Bulls tonight, or somewhere just outside St John’s. I found a gas station open just fifteen minutes into my drive, so that is as good as having gassed up last night.

I wound up the coastal road, facing into the sun (visor down) and away from the sun into a hill (visor up), then back into the sun (visor down). At Grates Cove I chatted with two locals, then parked the car.

The sky is clear. This promises to be another beautiful day.

That’s The Atlantic Ocean up ahead, naturally.

I spotted a boat that appeared to have been washed ashore.

A zoom shot shows the boat well above sea level. On some sort of a cradle.

Closing in on Grates Cove. The ground is treeless. I think often of the word ‘barren”.

I think especially of bracken and Scottish moors. Ponds are everywhere.

Here I am at the end of the road, facing back the way I came at Grates Cove.

As I walk up the hillside I spot some water seepage, the start of what will have to be a very short stream.

I think that that is a small automated lighthouse on the cape.

I can understand Newfoundlanders longing to be home alongside the sea. I’ve been her only a week and think I would miss it when I am back in Gritty City.

A view back across the community. I drove in at a point near the top-left of this photo.

And what would a day be without the sunlight sparkling off the water?

Or the waves crashing against the coastal rocks.

I spotted what I think is a partridgeberry.

Two!

Larger piles of pots than this are everywhere. I think that they are crab pots, but was too ashamed to show my ignorance by asking. You can look it up in a book if you want to know.

A modern weather station reporting wind speed and direction. Probably temperature too.

I am sacrificing my body to show you which way the sun is shining.

Some lovely schistose rock. Remember that Newfoundland is associated with great pressure and temperature on account of the spreading of the Atlantic floor.

Then a big ugly bank of clouds comes in. We might get showers.

I phoned the car rental company and said I’d be in between one and two, stopped in Bay Roberts for an excellent breakfast at Powell’s supermarket café (overdosed on bacon, sausages, eggs, toast, home fries on account of the over-the-top friendly service from all the married women) and returned much topsoil to the province by using a car-wash to get rid of the construction mud.

Swapped the car. They were anxious to get me on my way, but I was in no hurry.

I am feeling sad that this driving holiday is drawing to a close.

The new car is a silver Kia. I was just getting used to the red Trax.

I headed out of town along highway 10, and was in Bay Bulls in a little over half an hour, driving through intermittent showers.

In Bay Bulls I stopped for milk and fruit, met my hostess, paid the rent, and am now ready to explore for a couple of hours.

First off, my rooms overlook the staging wharf for ships that supply the oil rigs.

The ship in the foreground has rumbling engines and men are doing something with a hawser near the bow. I think I will be able to watch it sail away.

And what would a day be without another photo of the sunlight sparkling off the water?

Another view across my bay.

This is the name.

If you take this link ...

... you’ll see the pulse of the ships tripping!

There is no library in town. There used to be, but lack of funding ...

There is no museum in town. There used to be, but lack of funding ...

In the municipal chambers I learned that the museum artifacts are “stored downstairs”. An election was under way, so people were coming and going as I studied texts in the foyer.

Bugger!

While I was spending time inside the Municipal Chambers, the boat sailed off without me.

I found a highland brook busily babbling as it rushed down in a futile attempt to desalinate the ocean.

The Municipal Chambers has a pentagonal Garbage bin. Beat that!

From the far side of the bay I took a shot of my miscreant.

One lady told me that this red vessel was “the widest in the world”, but I think she means “the widest oil-rig supply vessel in the world”.

That’s my bed for the night, circled. You can’t see the parked car, because it is here with me!

The staging area has great piles of rusting chains, and drums of pipe. Or as they say here “poyp”.

That’s the staging area on the right; my unit is off the image to the right. In the far distance a new area of development. I suspect that this area is touted as “only thirty minutes from downtown St John’s” in the sales brochures.

All the Visitor Information centres are closed until May. Fair enough. How many of me are there?

Still and all I think it a pity that they don’t rent space in the entrance to the nearby supermarket for a stand with a few maps and brochures. They could pay someone an honorarium to keep an eye on it.

Hey Look!

My ship has come back in!

The ship is rotating about is centre so that it can reverse in to the wharf.

I took a blurry shot as she presented her open and empty deck to me.

The red ship is lit up like the proverbial Christmas Tree. The working deck lamps mask the brilliant crystal-blue lights across the top of the bridge.

My unit has a small outdoor deck. A good place to sip the first coffee of the day.

With Bay Bulls, the number of towns I have visited has risen to twenty one, so I have met and exceeded my goal.

Another way of stating that is to say that I set my sights too low.

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