Monday, July 16 - Gander, NF to Deer Lake, NF - 315 miles

We had been told that at "Long Point", near Twillingate, we might be able to sight an iceberg, and that Long Point also had an interesting lighthouse.

This turned out to be really great!  The ride out there wound around several bays, lakes, ponds, and inlets which were very scenic, and gave us more insight into the continual rocky land and the short vegetation on New Foundland.

The fishing town of Twillingate was quite interesting.  It was more than just a village, as we had visited before, but a little isolated town of maybe 2500 population.  The lady at the visitors center told us that the main economy was based on fishing.  They not only had the boats and docks, it looked like they had a processing plant and other fairly large buildings.  The other thing that impressed us was the size and excellent condition of the homes in this community.  We decided that the plastic-house-siding salesman had recently made a killing in this town, allowing almost all of the houses to look new and tidy.

Then Long Point yielded the most interesting sight.  An ICEBERG was "parked" in the sea just off the point (within a mile).  We say "parked" because the lighthouse tour guide said that it had been there for seven weeks!  Apparently they are "calved" off Greenland, float down around New Foundland, and stay around the area while the Gulf Stream current comes up and melts them.  It was a large iceberg, judging from the part above water, and was "blue" as it should be (because of the compression of the ice over hundreds of years).

The other jewel was the Lighthouse.  It was originally built in 1875, and has been updated periodically so that it is still in use.  We even got a tour of the lighthouse tower, and climbed up the spiral staircase to see the light itself.  The light was now rotated with electricity, of course, but the old hand-wound escapement mechanism was still there and on display.  From the lighthouse, we also watched a Canadian "Buoy Tender" ship set out to sea to do its job.

The view from the high cliff of the lighthouse really showed off the rugged coastline, with a couple of islands thrown in.  Lunch at a Twillingate restaurant with a view of the large bay and harbor of the fishermen put on the finishing touch for this little side trip.

By the time we finished lunch, it started raining.  So we rode the rest of the day, about 200 miles, in a light rain.  That doesn't sound too bad until you know the temperature.  As we have come North, of course, temperatures have been dropping each day.  Today started off at about 50^oF, and the high for the day was 53^oF!  Now that doesn't mean much in a car, but our motorcycling friends know that at a 50^oF temperature, with rain, and with wind chill factor of riding a bike, it can be pretty cold!!  When we reached our motel for the night, we competed to see who could turn up the heater in the room the highest!

All's well that ends well.  We had a very good day, considering the slice of New Foundland scenery and life that we saw on our little side trip!

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