… in probably the most expensive hotel in which I’ve ever stayed in all my life, even when someone else was paying the bill. But that’s what everything is like around here. To give you an example, the petrol in Baie-Comeau is 108.4 cents per litre – at Manic 5 (the intermediate stop on Highway 389) just 213kms north, it was all of 132.4 cents. And a small mug of coffee cost me $1:50 instead ot the usual 50 cents.

So what I decided to do was that instead of spending three or four nights on the trail I’m going to do it in just two.

So today, I’ve driven 604 kms over some of the worst roads I’ve ever driven in the mud, rain and snow (it’s snowing outside) and a 12-hour day with 68 photos included, and here I am halfway round. And I’m exhausted too.

But the road is an adventure. The first 213 kms up to the immense barrage at the hydro-electric dam at Manic 5 (short for the Manicouagan River Dam no5) is a surfaced road and to drive this far was quite easy.

And the dam is certainly impressive too – it’s enormous and the photo can’t possibly do it any kind of justice.

As for the rest of the road, it is as you find it.

Generally speaking it’s compacted dirt but in the weather we are having just now it’s mostly mud and there are places along the trail where lorries have sunk in. It’s slippery too in the wet and I’ve had Casey across the road a couple of times when I’ve not been concentrating.

For a distance of several kilomtres through where the ghost town of Gagnon and its iron ore mine used to be, not only is the road surfaced but we even have a stretch of dual carriageway.

However, it’s not been maintained for probably 30 years since the mine closed and as a result it’s worse than parts of the dirt trail. And then once you cross the Cartier Railway line further along there just isn’t anything really – rail traffic has put paid to any pretext at keeping up the road and you have to pick your way between the potholes

But once you climb onto the Labrador Plateau you find yourself in the sub-arctic tundra. It’s totally wild up here, but beautiful and spell-binding

There are no grasses, just mosses and lichens and stunted fir trees.

And I’ve spent so much time up here admiring the view that I’ve lost the light and it’s snowing heavily again up there. I grope my way down in the dark and snow to the valley and Labrador City, and here, it’s teeming down with rain and there’s a biting wind.

Tomorrow I’m going to catch up on a couple of things I missed and then I’m going to do the second half – to Goose Bay.

A mere 520 kms.

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