I was out like a light last night, long before it went dark even. I must have been tired last night.

And I was awake long before it was light too. This was an excellent place to choose for the night and I was impressed with this. I shall add this to my list of potential specs.

I was rather hoping that the weather would change today, and indeed it has. It’s changed for the worse. The fog is still here but the rain is now coming down like rain that I have never seen. It started at about 02:00 this morning.

Not only that, we have our howling gale back, and that is that.

This makes me decide that I don’t have much future in Labrador right now. If it’s raining like this here, what’s it doing in the interior up on the plateau? I know that snow has been forecast for today and tomorrow up there and if it’s coming down anything like this, we’ll all know about it.

I decide to make my way to the ferry and see about retracing my steps, but after a very long wait, I’m given more bad news. All ferries are cancelled until this hurricane blows itself out. Out there in the Strait it’s gusting at 120mph. Even the ferries to the mainland at Cape Breton Island have stopped running.

Braving the dreadful rain I pushed on up the road and across the border into Labrador.

The Labrador Tourist Information Board is a little more hopeful though. Snow is forecast for today and tomorrow in the mountains over to Goose Bay but there will be a dramatic improvement in the weather starting on Wednesday with temperatures reaching 16°C.

Giving the matter some considerable thought, I decide to head north this afternoon. I can travel part of the way up the road and stop for the night. If I have a reasonable start I should catch the road over the mountains on Tuesday afternoon when it’s been cleared but if there’s snow still lying about, I’ll just hole up and wait for the thaw.

I can’t think of another solution, but I do have a great amount of faith in the Labrador Highways Department.

But amongst the improvements along the highway since 2010, more of which anon, travellers on the Trans Labrador can now avail themselves, free of charge, of a satellite telephone to keep in touch with someone in case of emergency. Definitely a sign of the times and of progress. So armed with a satellite telephone, I head north.

First thing that I notice are signs telling me “rough road next 7kms”. Obviously the person who thought of this one has never ever been further north than the gate across the highway at Red Bay. This is nothing compared to what I’m going to encounter further along the road.

This is the harbour at L’Anse Au Loups, a photo of which I didn’t take in 2010 when I was on my mega-voyage around the Trans-Labrador Highway
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At least there’s one good thing about coming round here taking photos in this kind of weather is that you don’t have to worry about where the sun is. You can stand anywhere and you aren’t bothered about the sun streaming into the lens at all.

I saw some kind of monument at the side of the road in 2010 and I didn’t have time to go to check it as I was rushing for my ferry.

Today though, I did have time for a look around.

It is in fact a war memorial and the plaque on there says something along the lines of “at the going down of the sun etc etc we will remember them” – the old Kipling line. However it seems that they haven’t been remembered because this is an overgrown, neglected and forgotten war memorial that hasn’t seen an ounce of attention since I don’t know when.

And on my way to see the memorial I was thoroughly drenched and soaked to the skin just walking the 50 yards there and back, even wearing a proper heavy-duty rain jacket. The weather here is grotesque.

This was what they must have been building in 2010 when I came here to the County Cat Pond and noticed them carrying out all of these road works.

I’m not quite sure why as there was nothing that appeared to be wrong to me about the picturesque little road around the shores of the Pinware River that I can see about 200 feet below me. It wasn’t a difficult stretch of road by any means and I enjoyed driving it.

I really don’t see the point of this construction at all. It really makes me wonder what on earth is going on because, beautiful and well-maintained though the surface of the road might be, it’s all up and down and watching a lorry struggle up here with an enormous amount of difficulty can’t have impressed the driver.

I arrived at the Whaling Centre at Red Bay just after 17:00. It has two days when it closes at 17:00 and you can guess what one of them is can’t you? And there’s no UNESCO delegation here today to help me out.

And outside here now the wind is howling. This is a wicked wind that I’m in. That forecasted 120mph wind might not have been an underestimation. What I find totally astonishing is that with this howling wind here blowing like dervishes, we still have all of this fog. It hasn’t moved an inch. Normally, the fog is the first to be blown away in the wind

The road however is completely different from how I remember it. Parts of the road are much wider and the surface vastly improved. They seem to be digging up the old road that we know and love and replacing it with the one along which I’m driving.

Talking to one of the road workers here while I was waiting at a stop sign, he tells me that they have been widening this road this summer ready to tarmac the surface. That’s good news for the locals and the tourists although it won’t do much for the environment, bringing so many people here

However, the road isn’t so good in certain places at the moment, is it? It’ll be interesting to see what it will be like this time next year.

Fuel at Lodge Bay is just 152.9 per litre. That’s not unreasonable for round here and while I’m not exactly desperate for fuel, fuel stations are few and far apart on the Trans Labrador Highway and you should never miss out on an opportunity to fill up the tank.

Now, night is falling and I’ll need to find somewhere to park up ready for the morning.