Tuesday, July 17 - Deer Lake, NF to St. Barbe, NF - 225 miles

We had planned to go for a boat tour of a spectacular fiord-type lake in Gros Morne National Park, but the ceiling was low enough and the rain constant enough that people at a nearby coffee stop advised us not to go.  They had gone on a day like today and couldn't see the tops of the mountainside which made for the spectacular views.

Along the way, we talked to a couple from Quebec riding a Kawasaki KLR650 bike, a good dual-sport bike, but later when they passed us in the rain we were glad to be riding Gold Wings with better rain protection.

We left the Central Region of New Foundland when we left Deer Lake, and started up the Northern Peninsula.  This produced two interesting changes.  First, the island changed from solid rock with no topsoil, to a little bit of topsoil and more dense vegetation.  We even saw Dirt, which we hadn't seen so far on "The Rock"!  Second, we now rode along the New Foundland shore facing the Gulf of St. Lawrence, and this produced a change in both the wind conditions and the vegetation.

For the whole day we rode right next to the sea shore.  Along with the rain, we had an onshore wind of about 20-25 mph for a good share of the day.  This made for some dicey bike handling at times.

We did have quite interesting and varied scenery.  There were places with very dense pines (small ones) and less deciduous trees, and there were places with only very low growing vegetation and no trees at all.  There were many small fishing villages scattered along the little bays along the Gulf of St. Lawrence, so we got another perspective on fishing villages.

An interesting thing we saw was great stacks of lobster traps at intervals along the seashore between the fishing villages.  Lobster fishing season had just closed, and we speculated that at the close of the season they had taken the weights out of the traps and let them float ashore to gather there, in lieu of spending gas money to bring them back in many boatloads.

We did go to a very interesting little museum at Port aux Choix.  (The French influence is very strong here, in names of towns and villages).  This museum was about archeologist's finding of different people inhabiting that very site from about 4,500 years ago.  They traced three groups of people who had lived there at various times during that 4,500 years, along with the tools they used, and types of houses they lived in.  This little museum made our day.

The reason we picked St. Barbie to stay tonight and tomorrow night was to be positioned to take the ferry to Labrador, day after tomorrow.  (Tomorrow we will make a circle tour and wind up back here in St. Barbe.)  Just as we finished checking in, we spotted the ferry that we will be taking. so we took the accompanying photo.

We are now within about 20 miles of our goal of being on Labrador (the ferry ride), but we are going to do one more day of exploring on the Northern Peninsula of New Foundland before we leave.

We've been asked if we are getting some of the good seafood while we are traveling in the coastal areas.  The answer is yes.  For example, tonight we dined on pan-fried Cod and pan-fried Scallops - delicious.  And, tonight we tried something we'd never heard about, but had been seeing on menus since we got to New Foundland.  This dish is "Cod Tongues".  That's right, Tongues of the Cod fish, lightly breaded and deep fried.  It's a regular menu item around here, and we found it delicious!  Not something one would want a lot of, but a few small tongues - Mmm, Mmm.

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