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Friday 7th September 2018 – AND THERE I WAS …

*************** THE IMAGES ***************

There are over 3,000 of them and due to the deficiencies of the equipment they all need a greater or lesser amount of post-work. And so you won’t get to see them for a while.

You’ll need to wait til I return home and get into my studio and start to go through them. And it will be a long wait. But I’ll keep you informed after I return.
***************

… lying on my palliasse wondering whether I ought to heave myself out of my stinking pit.

I’d had a really bad night. For some reason I was very sensitive to the engine noise. It was constantly changing pitch and consequently constantly keeping me awake all through the night and I can’t recall if I ever managed to drop off to sleep.

And as the 06:00 alarm suddenly started to sound, a voice shouted down the loudspeaker system “Polar Bears at 3 o’clock”.

In my half-awakened state I thought to myself that he’s a good few hours late with this announcement, but then it clicked and I grabbed the camera, dashed out of my room, bumped into a lady, she screamed so I dashed back into my room and put on my clothes and then dashed back onto the starboard beam.

At first I thought that it was two polar bears on the ice floe but as events unfolded, I noticed that there were three. A mother and two cubs.

Mum was in position by a seal hole awaiting breakfast, and the two cubs were in their snow-bank den waiting for mum to come back with the grub.

She was totally unperturbed by the passing of the vessel even though it would keep away the seals, but the thing about living in the Arctic is patience. Never mind the “Ohh God, give me patience. And hurry!” – I once heard a delightful story about a group of Inuit who went to the Arctic meadows on Ungava for some hay, found that the grass hadn’t grown enough, so they pitched their tents there and waited.

And this was exactly what mummy was doing, perched by the seal hole. Not pitching her tent waiting for the hay to grow of course, but you know what I mean.

The photos are unfortunately rubbish but then it’s with the Nikon 1’s light-hungry zoom lens in the half-light from a moving ship when I’m not even half-awake. What did you expect? David Bailey?

After taking a score or so of photos, I went back to my room for my medication and other stuff.

And while I was sorting out my laptop, it reminded me of last night’s later events. The bearing on the binnacle was 121°, so we are going in the opposite direction. 0° is North, 90° is East, and so we are heading more-or-less south-east right now, back down Lancaster Sound.

Breakfast was in company of a couple of travellers who seem to have taken a shine to me, and I’ve no idea why because I’m not usually the kind of person whom others like, and we had a really good chat about this and that.

Not about the other though. That’s a rather sore point right now the way that things are. I think that Strawberry Moose is having more luck than me in that respect.

Later I was up on the bridge admiring the pack ice away in the distance to the south, and looking at the beautiful scenery of this corner of Devon Island. I’ve no idea where we are going next, and I’m not convinced that the crew and the captain know either.

Mind you I did manage to speak to a member of the crew about the ship that I keep on seeing. Apparently there’s another ship – the Fram – that’s loitering around the ice edge waiting for a gap to miraculously appear;

We’ve seen several icebergs go drifting past, some of them extremely impressive but none more so than this one with a hole in the middle, like a floating polo mint.It’s apparently called a keyhole iceberg. The hole is caused by some kind of subterranean river in the glacier

And while I was photographing that iceberg I noticed out of the corner of my eye a ship away in the distance. This time, it was no problem in the light to photograph it at distance and to crop it down to see what it was.

It’s indeed a Canadian icebreaker of the kind that would be on stand-by duty around here to watch out for icebergs and also for ships that might risk running headlong into the pack-ice. There are several ships in the channel and also several communities that have not yet received their winter provisions, so with the seas icing up so quickly already, they will be in for a tough time if the icebreakers can’t open up a channel.

We had a couple of discussion session, several of which didn’t interest me very much so I didn’t take part in them, and the one on the story of Franklin’s expeditions and the Erebus and Terror stories, but I didn’t really learn all that much that I didn’t already know.

I did however manage to buttonhole the camera guy and we discussed the camera, the images and my technique.

He had a good look at everything and had a few things to say about it.

Firstly, there’s nothing wrong with my technique except that with it being a lightweight camera, I’m pressing too hard on the switch and making the camera shake at the crucial moment.

Secondly, the images come out the same on his laptop so it’s not a fault of my laptop,

As for the quality of the images, that’s as good it can be. So the fault lies in the camera itself. Not that it’s a bad camera, but simply that it’s not designed to do what I want to do with it and I’m pushing it to the limit of its technical capabilities and even beyond.

It was then lunchtime so I nipped off and had a salad. And to be quite honest I spent more time talking than eating. The yoga assistant is a big fan of 70s rock music so I’ve invited her to come and listen to some of the stuff that I have on my laptop.

It sure beats etchings, doesn’t it?

On a totally different tack, does anyone still remember our trip to Red Bay in Labrador
and the Bernier?

There’s a girl on board ship – one of the staff – called Bernier so I asked her what she knew about the ship. Nothing whatever, she told me, but she did know that there was a very famous Canadian sea captain called Bernier and one of the pages on the Canadian passport depicts him.

Another member of staff told me that Bernier (the captain, not the ship) worked in the High Arctic and it was he who actually claimed Bylot Island – which we will be passing – for Canada in 1906 and he had his crew carve something emblematic on a cliff face.

I’m writing this now because everyone else is outside looking at a bird colony. But as regular readers of this rubbish will recall, the only birds in which I have any interest won’t be found clinging to a rock in the High Arctic.

And this is a fine time for the battery in the camera to start to go flat, and we’re off out in an hour or so. I’ve had to bung it on charge and of course, it’s now that we’re starting to sail through the ice. Good job that I have the phone handy, although what the quality might be like is anyone’s guess.

But it actually worked out, because the sea was so rough at this point that the water in the heated pool was going everywhere except where it was supposed to go, and I was able to take a few videos of it.

The phone didn’t last too long though. There was a huge iceberg away in the distance – more like a large sheet of float actually – and the phone camera will never do justice to that, so I’ve had to go down and fetch the Nikon.

They are still trying to do their best to entertain us seeing as everything that is planned is falling apart. And so we had afternoon tea while we played a kind of game where we had to find out bits and pieces about each other. I sort-of took part in it in a half-hearted way because I’m not really in to being sociable as regular readers of this rubbish will recall.

There’s a National Park at Tay Bay on Bylot Island which is on our route and it’s been decided that we will go for an evening ramble around there.

We needed a briefing from Parks Canada (done vitually) before we could go and, much to my surprise, we were first to leave the boat. I had to get a wiggle on to get changed into my winter gear, and then there was an almighty panic as I couldn’t find my badge.

Nevertheless I did manage to find it and we struggled ashore onto our beach where the perimeter of our walk was guarded by Polar Bear watchers.

Strawberry Moose enjoyed his ride in a zodiac and he made many new friends. Plenty of photo opportunities for him too.

Introducing new species onto an island here is definitely not allowed and there are no moose here. But I shall be wondering what scientists will be thinking when in 1000 years time they are analysing polar bears with antlers or moose in white coats with claws and teeth.

And for me. I had a good walk around to kill the time, which the cynic inside me tells me is the reason for this stop. There were some exciting views of all kinds of things – nothing that I found really interesting though.

There’s a tent ring on the shore but that’s believed to be contemporary and not historical.

As an aside, anything over 50 years old is classed as historical and so that includes a great many of the passengers on board the ship. Me especially. I’m feeling like 150 years old right now with the weight of the world resting on my shoulders.

And there were several icebergs of some beauty. I even saw the sun, such as it was, disappear down behind the mountains and that was fairly spectacular too.

But I do have to say that, much as I enjoyed the pleasant walk, I’ve come here to do much more than this and it’s leaving me somewhat disappointed.

One thing though really stuck in my mind. There’s a young Inuit boy – probably aged about 20 but then again what would I know – on board the ship and I’ve had many a chat with him. He comes from the area and he was pointing out some of the glaciers to me. he was saying that even in his short life the glaciers have receded dramatically and how he was fearing for his grandchildren.

He told me a story about how, even today, he will come over for a large lump of glacier to take home to melt down as water. This ice fell as rain thousands of years ago when there was no pollution in the air and so is as fresh and pure as anything that you might find. It makes the tea taste magnificent, so he said.

It was a wet ride back to the ship, with His Nibs safely inside his plastic bag. And then there was an enormous queue at the boot-washing station as someone apparently decided to do a week’s washing.

A hot shower and a wash of the undies was called for, and then I came down to tea. In a change to my usual habits, I have decided to mingle with different people at mealtimes and chat about different themes seeing as I seem to be stuck in a big rut right now.

And a good chat I had too. We talked about exchanges as students, Switzerland, the Northern Lights and primitive aircraft. All in all, quite an agreeable time and I shall have to do more of this.

It’s quite late now. We didn’t return to the ship from the shore until late and tea was thus even later. I’ll loiter around for a while and then wander off. I doubt that I’ll be around until midnight or later this evening. I need to bring at least some kind of semblance of order into my life.

One thing that has tired me out though is that I had a very emotional, disagreeable and stressful task to do, one which needs to be done and done quickly too before things take a turn in escalating out of hand.

Rather like MacBeth and his “If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly”.

This afternoon the opportunity presented itself so I bit the bullet and did it. The sooner I do it, the sooner it’s over.

It didn’t work out how I hoped that it would, but that would have really been clutching at straws. And in any case, it’s all my own fault for not listening to myself and all of my best counsels in the first place. Proverbs 19:21 is what I should have kept in my mind, isn’t it?

It’s not the first time that I’ve ended up in a mess like this. Far from it. Anyone would think that I would be used to it, but not at all. I fall into the trap on every occasion and it never turns out well. I always start off with the best of intentions, it all somehow goes wrong, I always end up saying or doing the wrong thing at the wrong moment and it never ever comes out as I intend it to. In fact, usually exactly the opposite.

I am reminded of Sidney Greenstreet in The Maltese Falcon and “In the heat of the action men are apt to forget where their best interests lie and let their emotions carry them away” and it happens to me all too often.

I really shouldn’t be let out without a keeper. But then, who would want to be responsible for keeping me?

Friday 31st August 2018 – THIS EVENING JOSEE ASKED ME …

… what I had done during the course of the day and, do you know what? I was hard-pressed to remember.

I’m definitely cracking up, aren’t I?

One thing that I do remember was being awoken by the fridge and the air-conditioning, which seem to be programmed to come on together at about 04:30 or something like that.

However I was quickly back to sleep again until the alarm went off at 05:20.

For some reason or other the morning went really quickly. I had just the usual amount of work to do but there just wasn’t enough time to do it, even with only a short pause for breakfast, and in the end I ran out of time to do it.

Instead, I went off down to the Jean Coutu chemists in rue St Catherine Est. And this is another place where the staff are so unhelpful.

It’s a huge chemist’s with all kinds of stuff on sale – just the kind of place where you need some professional advice – but there was no-one on the floor. In the end I buttonholed a shelf-filler and she told me “aisle 6” – but there was nothing in aisle 6 that I could see that was of any use to me.

As I have said … “and on many occasions too” – ed … I just don’t know what has happened to North American customer service.

Having dropped off my purchases (such as they were) at my hotel room, my next stop was the bus station. I need to book a ticket from Florenceville-Bristol to Montreal.

But even here I didn’t have any luck.

Montreal is serviced by the Orleans Express coach company, and New Brunswick by Coach Atlantic. And as my trip starts in New Brunswick it has to be made with Coach Atlantic and not Orleans Express. So that was rather a waste of time.

Still, you live and learn.

The next stage of my walk took me down to the port.

Having had to go into the Berri-UQAM metro station to renew my transport ticket and being confused about the exit, I found myself a-wandering down through the CHUM (Centre Hospitalier de L’Université de Montreal) campus, where I had never been before…

Bursting out into the sunlight at the back of the hospital it took me a second or two to get my bearings.

And then I realised that I had come out at the back of the Champ de Mars.

I walked along the Avenue Viger for a moment to admire the buildings across the Boulevard Ville-Marie. These are some of the Government and the City’s administration buildings

From there I wandered down to the harbour for a good stroll. MSC Alyssa had gone, but Oakglen and Gullwing were still there.

We also had a new arrival.

Moored up at one of the inner berths near the entrance to the Lachine Canal was a ship called the Chestnut. There was a good view of her from up on one of the upper piers

Although she might not look it, she was built as recently as 2010 and has a gross tonnage of about 20,000 tonnes. She had called in on her way from Bayuquan in China to Hamilton, Ontario.

There were quite a few good views from up here too.

One of them was of the promenade and the park down on the quayside. I’d not seen it from this perspective before.

I also saw in the distance two railway locomotives heading down towards the port. So I waited for them to arrive. But just before they got into range they stopped, reversed and never came back.

We’ve seen one of these before, haven’t we?

Back in Halifax when we were there in 2010 of course, wandering around the town with fare-paying passengers on a sightseeing tour.

And so there’s another one here in Montreal doing a similar job. And if I’m not mistaken, I might have seen if before.

I’m not sure if I’ve seen this building before though.

It’s not the building that interests me – nice though it is – but it’s the fact that on the spot where it’s situated is said to have been the site of the first school run by Marguerite Bourgeoys

We are told that her school was created in 1658 and was in an old stone stable given to her for the purpose

This is even more exciting.

Of course, 2CV citroens are two-a-penny (figuratively speaking) back home in France and so hardly noteworthy. But here in Canada, this one is only the second that I have ever seen

and if the registration number on it is correct, it comes from the Ile-de-France – Paris-Banlieux district of Val-de-Marne.

By now it was long-after lunchtime so I stopped off at a Subway for a sandwich and a drink. And something of a rest because it seemed as if I’d been on my feet for quite a while.

Another thing was that I needed a few bits and pieces to make my sandwiches for the flight. Not that I might need them because, after all, we were only going to be a couple of hours in the air, but I’ve been caught out like this before, as regular readers of this rubbish will remember.

One thing that I’ve been doing while I’ve been on my perambulations around Montreal is to go to the terminus of each of the metro lines to see what happens there.

I didn’t recall having been to Saint-Michel before so now seemed to be as good a time as any.

But I was in a sense disappointed because I recognised it from some time ago. Once when I’d been out to the Galeries d’Anjou and I had walked back.

But never mind that now. I took a photo of it and walked back in the oppressive heat to the metro Jean Talon, making a few stops in the shade on the way back for a rest.

Josée was awaiting me at the Metro Place d’Arts. Apparently she had been able to leave work early.

Hearing some kind of noise from within the Centre Desjardins, we went in for a look around to see what was going on.

It turned out to be a group of no fewer than four drummers giving a free concert.

Not the kind of thing that you might have expected, but it was certainly interesting. I actually enjoyed it.

We went to watch the pavement chess for a while and then headed off for food and drink.

First stop was Josée’s favourite bar – the one that we visited on a previous occasion where they have the rather artistic toilets.

Next stop was the food, and having had a late lunch, I wasn’t all that hungry so settled for a bag of chips. Josee had a hamburger

Now here’s a thing.

Anyone who has ever known anything at all about will know that due to certain events in my childhood I have a horror of musicals. I shan’t dwell on it here, except to say that when Josée invited me to the Opera I was perturbed.

But as I have said before, it’s not where you are or what you are doing, but who you are with that counts so I tagged along.

Whether or not I like opera, I can always recognise good music and good singing when I hear it and there’s no doubt that even given the weaknesses of the story in Madame Butterfly, the performance was excellent. Josée wasn’t a big fan of the direction but I thought that it was particularly good.

All in all, it was a far better night that I was expecting it to be.

Josée wandered off home again and I went to my hotel. First job is to make my butties.

Second job was to make sure that everything was packed.

Third job was to do my best to crash out. I’ve an early start in the morning.

Thursday 12th July 2018 – WHAT A HORRIBLE …

… afternoon!

Sat down on the sofa at about 15:00 with a nice cold glass of lemonade. Next thing that I remember was that it was 18:45 and all my ice had melted.

And I’d been on my travels too. Out in Canada. In another setting that I have visited in the past too. This time I was doing a circular tour of some area, and I had some kind of deadline to meet too, so I couldn’t afford to hang about and I was relying on the dashcam for photography, thinking that I’ll take some stills of my voyage from the videos. But I arrived at an area with a huge girder bridge going over some water, with a big main road like a motorway. But for some reason the motorway came to a dead stop before the bridge and there was a ferry announced. For some reason or other it reminded me of the set-up at the Confederation Bridge from Nova Scotia to Prince Edward Isle in the old days. The ferry was leaving in 10 minutes and I had 8 miles to travel (we’ve had a couple of real circumstances like this on our travels) so I didn’t even have time to check the map to see if this was the correct ferry. I just had to put my foot down and get going, and look pretty silly if it turned out to be the wrong ferry.

Yes, the exertions of the last couple of weeks have really got me down, haven’t they?

A late night last night didn’t help much, but then again that was balanced out by the fact that although the alarms went off as you might expect at 06:20 and 06:30, I just turned over and went back to sleep again. 09:00 is a much more reasonable time to be out and about.

After the usual medicine performance I had breakfast and a shower and general clean-up, and then off out. Just outside, I bumped into one of the neighbours who told me that the remote controls for the new barrier are ready, so I added that to my list of things to do.

First stop though was LIDL where I stocked up with a few things – nothing special. Next stop was the remote control, and then across the road to LeClerc, where I wasn’t quick enough with the phone camera to catch an old Renault 4CV that was driving around the car park.

Nothing exciting in LeClerc so I came home and, picking up the coolbox out of Caliburn, packed everything away and put the coolbox soaking with bleach to clean it out.

My lizard was there waiting for me on my wall when I went for a rather late lunch, and then back here, well, you know the rest of the story.

Once I’d come round, I had a think about tea – for the first time in a week or more – and made myself some pasta and vegetables tossed in garlic powder, pepper and olive oil.

While that was doing, I assembled a couple of little things that I had bought in IKEA and tidied up the first part of the European Cardboard Box Mountain.

Once I’d washed up, the rubbish went into the bin across the road and I went for a walk around the headland. I need to restart my good habits.

While I was walking around, I was miles away with my head in the clouds, as is my usual situation.

But my reverie was interrupted by a rather loud reversing siren coming from down one of the boats down in the harbour.

It turned out that one of the ferries, Granville that go over to Jersey was in the process of reversing out of its berth at the Gare Maritime.

It seemed to me that it was rather a weird time to be going out on a ferry crossing, so I watched it for a while.

However it wasn’t setting off out, but moving into the inner harbour to be tied up next to its older brother, Victor Hugo.

We must be having a very low tide tonight for them to want to move it inside. There will probably be crowds of people out on the sands tomorrow at low tide.

Back here now, exhausted and ready for bed despite all of the sleep that I had had. I dunno where this is all going but I can’t say that I’m enjoying any of it.

Saturday 7th July 2018 – ONE OF THESE DAYS …

… I’ll have a decent night.

But it wasn’t last night, that’s for sure. With all of the excitement following Belgium’s unexpected victory over Brazil there was chaos in the streets and enough noise to awaken the dead.

And so despite everything and all of my best intentions, it was hours before I managed to go off to sleep.

It was another morning too where I was awake long before the alarm went off. When I finally glanced at the time it was 05:47 and I was hoping for something rather better than that.

There had still been time to go on my travels though. Back driving a taxi and I’d been given a list of the regular clients which I was sure that I had memorised, and so I tore it up. And immediately there was a call over the radio “go to Nantwich and pick up so-and-so”. And I couldn’t remember where he or she lived. My notes were too badly torn to be able to be pieced together so I asked on the radio, but I couldn’t understand the reply which was rather garbled.
A little later I was in Eritrea (don’t ask me why) – an Eritrea that looked like nothing that I had ever seen of it. There was a military patrol walking down a road floating up observation balloons, many of which had fallen to earth and were littering the side of the road. Suddenly the patrol withdrew, leaving me isolated right out in front, a rather nervous place to be. Eventually I found a tourist guide who was selling tickets on a steam train ride. he was negotiating with someone and they agreed on a price of $50:00. The only thing that I could see in the brochure for a steam ride was at $130:00 so I asked about it. He replied that I needed to go to the railway station and book it there. He mentioned 13:30 but I didn’t understand if that was the time of departure or the time of return, and it was all so confusing.

So crawling out of bed I had my medication (now that I have some) but I still didn’t feel like any breakfast so I had a shower instead and cracked on with my paperwork.

The cleaner wanted to come in here at 11:00 but I told her to wait for a while as I was expecting a visitor.

And sure enough, just when I reckoned that I ought to go outside, I opened my door to see Alison pulling into the car park. Bang on cue.

Our first port of call was about 30 kms down the road in Welkenraedt.

Despite only having a population on 9,000 or so, it’s probably one of the most famous small towns in Belgium and it’s one that I’ve been dying to visit ever since I first came to Oostende over 45years ago

And for one of the strangest reasons too, because it’s not your usual run-of-the-mill tourist venue.

Back in the 1970s at the railway station in Oostende there would alwas be a train waiting to meet the ferries, and they would always be going to Welkenraedt.

It aroused my curiosity so I did a little research and found that it was a small town in the north of the Ardennes that didn’t look as if it had any significance at all, so I was puzzled as to why all of these trains would want to come here.

And when you look at the station, it’s a big, modern station that has plenty of facilities and it is all out of proportion to the size of the town

A little bit of research back in those days soon cleared up the question.

Welkenraedt is the closest railway station to the border between Germany and Belgium – in Germany until 1919 and in Belgium afterwards.

And when the railways were electrified, the German voltage system was different from that in Belgium until comparatively modern times. And until the Schengen agreement, there was a frontier post at the station.

So while the passengers were having their passports controlled, the train would be changing engines and then going on to Aachen or Cologne or maybe further still.

Welkenraedt is officially a German-speaking town but when it was transferred to Belgium by the Treaty of Versailles, the SNCB, the Belgian railway company, opened a locomotive depot here and transferred in a large number of French-speaking railway workers.

They flooded the town to such an extent that you will struggle to find German spoken here today. We saw a couple of signs in German but that was about that.

We went off to find something to eat as Alison was hungry, and I forced down a helping of overcooked chips. I’m clearly feeling better after my crisis of Thursday and Friday.

But you can’t cometo this region without going down the road to Moresnet.

For several reasons really, not the first of which is this absolutely gorgeous railway viaduct.

It’s not quite on a par with the Tracel de Cap Rouge of course, that’s rather exceptional, but it’s by far the best that you are likely to find around this part of Europe.

According to the information that I have found, it was built during the period 1915-1916. The pillars are fine examples of reinforced concrete of that period.

It’s just over 1100 metres long and at its highest, it’s about 60 metres above the velley of the River Gueule

That tells us a couple of things

There may well have been something here prior to that period that was demolished at the start of World War I
It escaped demolition during the fighting of World War II

Knowing my usual luck, we would ordinarily have had to wait for about three weeks to see a train pass over the viaduct, and then we would have missed it because we had gone for a coffee.

But that’s not the case here. This is the main railway line that runs between Aachen and Antwerpen, one of Europe’s busiest ports.

We’d hardly pulled into the village before a freight train went rattling by just above our heads.

So while you admire the village of Moresnet and Alison and I have gone for a coffee with the friendly young girl who runs the village café, let me tell you a little story.

At the end of the Napoleonic Wars the Treaty of the Limits in 1816 redefined the border between the Low Countries (because Belgium didn’t exist at that time) and the Kingdom of Prussia.

For various reasons, they couldn’t agree with what to do with the commune of Moresnet and so they planned to divide it between them.

Unfortunately, any logical dividing line ran right through a very important and valuable quarry and they couldn’t agree where the line should go so that each country would have half the value.

Eventually, they agreed that the quarry and a surrounding piece of land would be a neutral zone administered jointly by one official from the Low Countries (Belgium after 1830) and the Kingdom of Prussia (the German Empire after 1871).

And so you had Moresnet, Neu-Moresenet (the German bit) and Moresnet Neutre.

In 1914 Germany took all of it, so at the Treaty of Versailles Belgium was awarded all of it, so in 1940 Germany took it all back and in 1945 Belgium regained all of it.

There has been quite a lot of excitement in such a sleepy little Belgian village

But our conversation with the serving wench was quite exciting. being practically right on one of Belgium’s linguistic borders, our conversation drifted between French and German with hardly a pause.

Belgium is a fascinating country.

And if that’s not enough to be going on with, just up the road some time round about 1750 a miracle involving Mary the Mother of Jesus is said to have taken place

Pilgrims came to visit the site so a small chapel was built, followed by all of the usual facilities for the visitors, and the village of Moresnet-Chapelle developed.

A group of Franciscan Friars (and seeing as this is Belgium, they were probably chip monks) were sent from Aachen in 1875 to provide spiritual comfort to the visitors.

As a result, some substantial development took place.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we’ve talked on several occasions about the Chemin de la Croix – 14 stages of Jesus on his way to his crucifixion, death and subsequent resurrection.

We’ve also been to see a a magnificent example of this at Cap de la Madeleine in Quebec.

In 1895 they decided that they would emulate it (the filthy beasts) right here.

In 1895 German benefactor provided some cash to purchase the land around the chapel and they set to work.

The work was completed in 1904 and today there are 14 grottoes made of puzzolane, each featuring one of the stages of the Chemin de la Croix.

The aim is to visit each one, purchase a candle to light in each (which must bring in a fortune) and say a prayer at each one, in order to be absolved of your sins.

Of course, I don’t need to, for regular readers of this rubbish in one of its previous guises will recall that I was granted absolution by the Pope, having passed through all of the Holy Doors in Rome during the Period of Grace in 2000.

I choose my friends carefully as you know.

The twelfth station, the Calvaire or Calvary, featuring the crucifiction, is always a good ‘un and there’s no exception here.

In fact, it was so popular at one time that they have installed benches here and occasionally hold open-air church services here.

But clearly not masses, because the place is pretty-much deserted today.

And I shan’t bore you all by repeating the story that a Frenchman delightfully told me, that they asked for a famous sculptor from each country to send in their impressions of how the Calvary should look, and the Belgian sculptor sent in a drawing of John Wayne on his horse.

Final stop (for now, anyway) on our day out was just a couple of miles up the road.

Here we have the Driehoek – or “Three Corners” – where the countries of the Netherlands, Belgium and Germany meet.

And when we had Moresnet-Neutre, it was a Vierhoek because that area had a bit of it too.

The girl in red is sitting half in the Netherlands and half in Germany, and the girl on the floor is half in the Netherlands and half in Belgium.

Not only that, the highest point in the Netherlands – the Vaalserberg – is only 100 metres or so from the border and so we had to pay that a visit too.

It’s all of 322.4 metres above sea level, or 1,058 feet for those of you still dealing in real money.

And in the background you can see an observation platform. Apart from the fact that it cost real money to go up there to the top, the number of steps that I saw was enough to put me off the idea.

So having been driven up the Vaal(serberg) our next stop was across in our third country of the day – Germany. And those silly Brits who voted to leave the EU just don’t understand the advantages of having Breakfast in Brussels, Lunch in Luxembourg, Tea in Turin, Supper in Sampdoria and Bed in Bari.

Aachen in fact was where we went, where Alison wanted to take me to a café that she had found. And even though we arrived 12 minutes before the advertised closing time of 18:00, they refused to serve us.

Consequently we nipped to Mullers for some of my white coconut chocolate, and then to the cat café that we had visited a while ago.

The cooking smelt delicious so Alison had some thick soup and I had hummus with raw vegetables and bread.

It’s not far back to Liège from Aachen, even though you pass through three countries to get there. and I was in time to see Russia defeated by Croatia. And I could tell by the way that the first Russian limped up to take his penalty, head bowed to the ground, that he was going to miss it.

Tomorrow I am on the move, and so an early night – if my neighbours let me. They are being just a little rowdy, but then you can’t win a coconut every time, can you?

-1

Monday 2nd October 2017 – THAT WAS A NIGHTMARE!

Yes – I’ll tell you what was (and where it was too in due course).

But starting off, I had a really good night’s sleep in the hotel last night. Didn’t feel a thing at all.

and I was up reasonably early, did a pile of paperwork, had breakfast and a good shower too. Fit for absolutely anything.

And I needed to be, too. Because today is going to be the most difficult day of the journey. I knew that, and so I cannot say that I was unprepared for the events that were to unfold.

Having picked up some fuel, because by now Strider was running on fumes, we drove north up the island.

As I said yesterday, the Outer Banks (because I suppose that these are really still the Outer Banks around here) are in a perpetual state of flux and continually moving about.

A lot of work is needed to stabilise them, and here are three bulldozers hard at work moving the sand around

Back on the mainland I took a little diversion so that I could send you all Greetings From Asbury Park NJ.

It’s a little-known fact that when Brute Stringbean left the E-Street Band, they signed up one of the singers from ABBA to replace him.

He came over to the USA specifically to take up the role, and their first single was entitled “Bjorn in the USA”. You can’t say that you aren’t learning a lot by reading this rubbish.

As for Asbury Park itself, you need to have a good imagination of how this place must have been during the boom years of the 1920s and 1950s.

In those heady days the whole New Jersey Coast was the playground of New York City, but unfortunately they are long-gone and the town is just sitting here slowly decaying.

Today, it’s just really a shadow of its former self.

That is of course not to say that there aren’t any signs of opulence around the place these days.

The north side of the town seems to be very popular with the Upper Crust and there’s still plenty of evidence of wealth about.

And I for one would live in a house like this in a heartbeat. But I reckon that the entire readership of this rubbish couldn’t afford it even if we pooled all of our resources.

My journey up the New Jersey coast took me as far as the Highlands – and you can see why it is so named.

I mentioned the moving sand dunes of the Outer Banks – they are continually moving north and over the passage of time have isolated the cliffs of the former coastline from the shore.

The view from up there is quite impressive too, but we’ve seen it all before.

And so we hit the New Jersey Turnpike at Perth-Amboy, and we pay our … gulp … $15:00.

It’s 11:00 exactly, and you’ll need to make a note of the time because it’s quite an important feature in our story.

And you’ll also need to make a note of the traffic too. I’ve been keeping away from the heavy traffic as I travel north, as you know if you have been following this rubbish. But around New Jersey and New York there is no realistic option.

The best views of New York City that it is possible to have are from the Upper Deck of the Verrazano Bridge across the mouth of the Hudson River.

Unfortunately there’s no scenic turn-off (or scenic turn-on) to stop and admire the view and so the only way to appreciate it is to take an oblique photograph from Strider’s side window in the heavy traffic.

Unfortunately Strawberry Moose is not the best at photography. He needs to work on his technique.

It’s impossible to get onto the Belt Parkway. The queue was so long that I had gone way past the end of the queue before I saw the sign for the turn-off.

That meant hat I had to come off at Hamilton Parkway and fight my way through Brooklyn, which was not part of the plan, and rejoin the Belt Parkway at Queen’s.

This part of Brooklyn is “Chinatown” as you can tell by the signs on the walls and the people in the street.

Nose-to-tail all the way through Brooklyn and Queen’s. At least I console myself in that the Belt Parkway is exactly the same and it wouldn’t have been any quicker.

It gives me plenty of opportunity to admire the scenery as we pass through the city anyway. I’ve never been here before, and I’m probably never ever going to be here again.

And pressing on, I resist the temptation to pay a visit to Coney island just down the road. I’ll be stuck for ever

Having conquered Europe a good 45 years ago, it’s good to see the Ford Transit going on to conquer North America/

Both models are available here now – the “mini” and the normal Caliburn-sized one, and you can see just how much they are infiltrating the North American market.

They are even conquering the lucrative “school bus” market, and if that’s not a sign of official acceptance I don’t know what is.

I finally burst out of New York City onto the Belt Parkway at 13:30 – and that was the longest two and a half hours of my life, I’ll tell you that (or so I thought to myself at the time).

One of the suburban State parks looms up on the right and so that’s a convenient place to stop for lunch. Not only have there been difficulties with the traffic, it’s been piping hot too under the hot sun and i’m ready for a break.

Back on the road, first thing that happens is that we hit a “fender-bender”. And then the road works. And more road works.

I have to stop for fuel by now – (that means that I’ve travelled just 210 kilometres since I set off this morning). And then back in a long, depressing traffic jam that never ends.

I finally pull into Port Jefferson at 17:20.

At my lunch stop, The Lady Who Lives In The Sat-Nav told me that we were just 46 minutes away from here. And so Ihad timed it.

It had taken us almost three hours to drive this final leg of the distance, what with all of the difficulties that we had encountered. And I was thoroughly, completely and absolutely fed up.

I had even begun to wonder whether or not it might have been quicker to have stayed on Interstate 95 and fought my way through New York City after all.

No prizes for guessing why I’ve come to Port Jefferson, is there?

By pure coincidence and totally by accident … “of course” – ed … there’s a ferry that goes from here across Long Island Sound to Bridgeport in Connecticut.

This is going to be my lest ferry crossing of my voyage (Bar Harbor to Yarmouth is pushing the boat out a little too far, I reckon) and so I need to make the most of it.

And at about 18:15 we set off on the P T Barnum for Bridgeport in Connecticut.

And the name of the ship is certainly appropriate, considering the circus that we have been through in order to arrive here.

I was hoping to have been on the other side and halfway up the road to Boston by now instead of being on the ferry in the doom and gloom.

But doom and gloom is completely inappropriate considering the glorious sunset.

I mentioned earlier that it had been a hot day, and you probably noticed from the earlier photos just how clear and blue the skies had been

We were now being treated to one of the most beautiful sunsets that I reckon that I have ever seen. It was totally magnificent out here on Long Island Sound

There are two ships that ply this particular route across Long Island Sound.

The P T Barnum has a sister ship, whose name I had forgotten to note, and we encountered her in the middle of Long Island Sound doing the trip in the reverse direction.

Silhouetted in the splendid sunset like this, she looks quite spellbinding too. We were having our money’s worth out here.

And so we battened down the hatches for silent running and sailed off into the sunset.

Red Sky At Night might mean Shepherd’s Delight in the UK, but here on Long Island Sound, Red Sky At Night means that there are riots in New York City and they are burning the place down to the ground.

But tat’s not to say that we can’t admire the view as the sun disappears down below the horizon, can we?

And so Bridgeport, our destination, looms up out of the gloom. I’ve never set foot in Connecticut before now, and so that’s about to be put right.

The crossing itself was like a millpond. I’ve never been over such a tranquil sea in my whole life. There wasn’t a single wave to talk about.

But it was an expensive crossing, make no mistake. 90 or so minutes, and 19 miles, I believe. Just like the English Channel. And it cost me (and Strider) a walk-on fare of a massive and astonishing … errr … $57:00.

The P T Barnum is obliged to do a U-turn in her own length here in the river so that we can dock and drive off forwards,

And much to my surprise, I’m the second vehicle off the ferry. I’m not used to that!

Just at the back of the harbour is a big bridge over which Interstate 95 passes. And that’s the road that will take me all the way home as far as the USA border and it’s a drive of about seven and a half hours.

But I’m not doing that tonight – I’ll tell you. I’m thoroughly exhausted and thoroughly fed up (but then I was expecting this today. There was no other solution).

A sign looms up at the side of the Interstate – “Motel 6 next exit”. They’ve gone upmarket and expensive this last few years but I’m tired and fed up and want to stop.

They have a room too – for just $90:00 including taxes which is not too unreasonable either. I’ve had worse. But what is unreasonable is that their computer is down, everything is being done by hand and I have to pay cash.

I now have $5:00 to last me to the US border and Canada but I’m beyond caring. It’s 20:00 and well past my bedtime.

And so I bite the bullet, pay up, find my room and crash out.

ZZZZZZZZ.

Sunday 1st October 2017 – I WAS RIGHT …

… about last night’s sleep.

Still wide awake at 02:00 not being able to sleep

But I must have gone off to sleep at some point because the alarms did go off to awaken me at 05:00 – and again at 05:15.

Nevertheless I did manage to bring the paperwork up to date (well, sort of) and do a few other things before leaving the motel. But there was no coffee, which was rather disappointing, to say the least.

It was a cloudy day when I sat off, but I didn’t go far because there was a Food Lion just down the road. That called for some bread and some orange juice (although I forgot the orange juice).

And once more, when I said that I didn’t have a fidelity card, the girl at the checkout said that she loved my accent and gave me the discount anyway, which was nice.

After about half an hour of life on the road I came to to the Virginia – Maryland State Line.

I’d blinked and missed it on the way down as you might remember, and so I made sure that I stopped here on the way back up just to take a photograph.

And they had no coffee in the welcome centre either, which was even more of a disappointment. They are missing out on loads of commercial opportunities here in the Capitalist USA.

I must have missed the Delaware State Line somewhere, and I’m not sure how. But when I hit this enormous traffic queue somewhere near Laurel I noticed that all of the number plates were Delaware plates.

But never mind the licence plates, just look at the queue. And I’ve no idea why there would be a queue here either because there’s nothing particular to hold up the traffic.

A sudden downpour of rain didn’t help matters much either.

But there were a few cars here that caught my attention.

It looks as if there had been some kind of hotrod contention and there were dozens of cars in the queue that looked as if they had been heavily modified.

This VW on the trailer was one example – and looking at how the suspension has been arranged, it’s no surprise that they had to trailer it away.

All of the others that I saw were however running on the road (although I’m not sure how, given how they were all set up).

But had I not been in a hurry, I could have stayed around here for a while. I saw a kids football match – only the second one that I would have seen in North America, and on several occasions there were old vehicles at the side of the road that I would ordinarily stopped to photograph.

Nevertheless, I did stop for two minutes at the local bank to withdraw some cash. My supply of American cash has started to dwindle down almost to nothing.

But having missed the entry sign for Delaware, I take the opportunity to photograph a suitable convenient sign just to prove that I did make it here.

It’s the second-smallest State in the USA, with only Rhode Island being smaller. Quite easy to blink and miss in fact, at about 2,500 square miles.

But I bet that you are wondering why I’m actually in Lewes, and what this sign is all about.

The answer to that is quite simple. They have long-distance thru-way ferries in Delaware too.

And so I turned up at the ferry terminal, which was pretty crowded. No room on the 13:45 ferry but there was a place on the 14:45 so I took that.

It saves a long, winding trip through all of the traffic around Wilmington, Philadelphia and Camden

There were clearly a few people who didn’t turn up for their booking on the 13:45 because a few of us early arrivals were passed forward. And that’s good news.

An 18-mile crossing, taking 95 minutes, and all for $37:00 too. And in the Capitalist USA too.

Does anyone get the feeling that someone is taking the Mickey out of the British Cross-Channel ferry passengers? How much would you you have to pay for a crossing like this across the English Channel?

The mouth of the Delaware River is an absolute Paradise for ship-spotters too. Well worth the price of admission just for that alone.

I counted about a dozen out here either heading upriver or downriver and while I couldn’t read their names, I could still photograph them with the telephoto lens.

Here’s a couple of them to be going on with

I didn’t have time to take a photograph of my ferry – the “New Jersey” – but instead I can show you a photo of her sister travelling the other way.

There are three of them apparently and run every hour during the day at this time of year.

It’s a comparatively modern service too. Despite having been first proposed a long, long, time ago, it was only set up about 50 years ago, which is a surprise, seeing how many miles and how much time it saves.

While you admire the New Jersey Shore and Cape May in particular, I can tell yuo somethign exciting about the ferry.

Having missed out on my coffee so far this morning, it seems that on board, you pay $1:95 and you can have as many mugs of coffee as you like.

And as I’m sure that you might have guessed, I took full advantage of this opportunity – even taking one with me in Strider.

So here we are, just pulling in to the ferry terminal at Cape May, New Jersey. From here, it involves heading north-eastward sup the New Jersey coast.

I was planning to stop for the night at Atlantic City with the casinos and the glitter, but with me running an hour early, I was quite well ahead of myself;

It’s my policy not to stop until 18:00 hours unless an irresistible opportunity presents itself or I’m feeling ths strain, so I pushed on.

One thing that I did want to do was to visit Long Beach Island – scene of my triumphs back in 1999.

I was looking for the motel where I stayed back then and although I found the site, it’s not there now – the ground’s all flat.

That’s a shame, for I had had a really good time there. And there are many other motels that merit” removal” well before this one did.

I ended up at Seaside Heights as 18:00 ticked over. Full of motels but for some unknown reason, no-one was about at all.

In the end, I managed to persuade the proprietor of the Sea Palace Inn to open his doors, having agreed on a very reasonable $68:00.

No complaints with that – seeing as there’s a fridge and a microwave. A few potatoes and a tin of chili beans went down well for tea.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that I’VE BEEN HERE BEFORE – and back in 1999 too – on one of my very early forays into North America.

However I didn’t remember all that much about it. I wasn’t as sophisticated and prepared in those days, with a dictaphone and a digital camera, and so I was keen to have a look around, even though it was dark.

That was one of the reasons why I had come here this evening. Another reason being, of course, that my motel from 1999 had been demolished.

My notes in those days were non-existent and relying on my memory is a pretty pointless exercise these days, so I have to say that I didn’t recognise anywhere at all

The dark didn’t help very much in stimulating a visual trigger, but it had its compensations because everywhere always looks so much nicer in the dark when the lighting can bring out some spectacular effects

And the big ferris wheel in the background – that was one of the things that I’d noticed on a photograph that I’d taken back in those days

But anyway, I continued on with my stroll along the boardwalk.

One thing about the Atlantic coast of the USA (I’ve never visited the Pacific) is the beaches. The sand is really nice and looks so good, even in the pitch-black.

Anyway, after a good while and a good wander, I ended up back at my motel. In the words of Maréchal Macmahon, j’y suis, j’y reste – at least until tomorrow morning when I shall be hitting the road.

There’s still a long way to go.

Saturday 30th September 2017 – AS I MIGHT HAVE SAID …

… the other day, North Carolina is a ferry-spotter’s paradise.

We haven’t finished with them yet by any means, because now that we are on Ocracoke Island, we still have to get off.

There is more than one way to skin a cat, and one of the ways is to take the ferry over to Cape Hatteras. We’ve done that before, but so what?

While you admire the photo of my little home-from-home, let me tell you about my night.

I was dead to the world, that’s for sure, and our first nocturnal visitor was Michel from the football club – telling me everything that had gone wrong at the football club – just like he had done once in te Auchan in Montlucon.

As for our next visitor, it was either Nerina, Laurence or Cécile.And we were in my house, or whatever house that it was where I was living. It was up forsale although you would never have thought so with the mess – and someone came to see it. It was Christiane (what is she doing here?). My partner showed her round the ground floor and abandoned me to leave me to show her around the cluttered upstairs, even though I didn’t have a clue what I was doing. I took her outside and showed her the jungle that was the grounds. She said that the car parking didn’t correspond to what she needed, so I showed her my idea which would have suited her – except that I kept on getting it wrong when I was trying to explain. After she had left I was sitting in the garden when my Inuit guide from Mulligan came in. He had a chain saw and began to cut up logs lengthways ready to sut them “across”. I was thinking to myself that I could do that, and there were plenty of other things that he would have been more profitably employed in doing.

My porridge didn’t take long to cook in the slow cooker, and I was away pretty smartish by 09:15, complete with free coffee from the motel.

A leisurely drive took me down to the far end of the island where I didn’t have to wait too long for a ferry.

You don’t here, by the way. There’s a regular shuttle service and there’s quite a rapid service, especially at this time of the year.

Had I come by here tomorrow, it would have been a different matter because they are going over to the winter timetable.

One thing that takes some getting used to is the route that the ferry takes.

This distance between Hatteras and Ocracoke island doesn’t look very much, but it takes 40 minutes to do the route, because you have to go in a rather exaggerated “S” route between the islands.

The channels across Pamlico Sound are quite shallow and despite the low draught of these boats, they can still easily run aground if they get it wrong.

The channel is marked for the entire length with marker buoys and signs, like these just here.

You can’t see for the sun unfortunately, but the buoys are marked red and green, for “port” and “starboard” just like a ship’s lights, but I was convinced that on occasion the ferry was passing to the wrong side.

But the channel and the sandbanks change after each storm so that’s not a surprise.

A wonderful bird is the pelican,
His bill will hold more than his belican,
He can take in his beak
Enough food for a week
But I’m damned if I see how the helican.

and what does a pelican have in common with an Income-Tax Collector?
Well, they can bot shove their bills up their @r$e$

Only seven or so cars on the ferry so it didn’t take long to unload. And we were soon belting off northwards up Hatteras Island.

The village of Hatteras itself is quite pretty and probably well-worth a poke around on another occasion, but i don’t have that much time.

I want to be north of Chesapeake Bay by tonight and it’s a long way to go.

We do have to stop at some point because even though we’ve seen it before, we have to go to look at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

It’s the most famous construction on the whole of the Outer Banks.

Mind you, the Outer Banks just here are quite famous if you are a mariner. Not for nothing is Cape Hatteras known as “The Graveyard Of The Atlantic” with the amount of ships that have come to grief here.

The lighthouse didn’t used to be back there. Until 1999 it was just in front of where this sign is.

You can see from the sign how the sea level has risen over the last 140 years, which prompted the romoval of the lighthouse to a safer spot.

But even though it’s so graphically laid out here, the USA Government still denies the existence of global warming and rising sea levels.

Yes, the official position of the US President is to deny clmate change, global warming and rising sea levels. Yet here on Hatteras Island the evidence is impossible to ignore.

Everywhere are signs “water on highway” and despite the absence of rain and strong winds, you can see that the sea is slowly encroaching onto the roadway.

This will all be under water in 10 years or so.

We’ve been here before of course, and I reckoned that I would show you a photo once more of Rodanthe.

It’s significant because a couple of years after I had been here in 2005, they made a film set in Rodanthe.

And much to my surprise it really was filmed here too.

And the film seems to have brought unlimited tourists to visit the area, and with it the tourist attractions.

My memory of Rodanthe was that it was a quiet, sleepy place with a few tumbledown cabins and houses.

Not any more though. The tourists are out in force and have brought wads of cash with them. So the developers have cashed in.

Here’s something else that is changing so dramatically too.

The Herbert C Bonner bridge was a quiet, sleepy bridge when we came by here in 2005.

Today, as the sea levels are rising, the bridge approaches are slowly being submerged and so they are constructing this huge mega-bridge right across Oregon Sound with its several miles of raised causeway approaches.

Not that it will do them much good because the rest of the Outer Banks will shortly be under water as we have seen.

From here, I don’t hang about. We miss out the Wright Brothers site at Kill Devil Hills (not Kittyhawk) just up the road because we have been there before, and eventually come off onto the mainland where I stop for lunch and fuel at, coincidentally,the same petrol station where I stopped in 2005.

But out haste doesn’t prevent us from yet another photo opportunity, does it?

This area is well-known for its pirate and privateer activity, and so Strawberry Moose decides to get in on the action.

Finding a suitable boat, he now tries to find a suitable crew, or else he will be all at sea.

We cross into Virginia just after here, and enter the city of Norfolk. And Norfolk is a nightmare to navigate.

There are two ways to go north – one is the I-95 and sit in traffic queues in Washington DC and Baltimore all day, or else cross Chesapeake Bay and cross the Delaware River and follow the New Jersey Coast.

But the Bay crossing in Norfolk, despite being one of the most famous in the whole of North America, is so badly signposted it’s unbelievable.

You drive around for hours down a succession of small street and eventually you see a small one-foot square blue-and-white sign.

Blink and you miss it.

Unfortunately, you can’t see it very well because there is nowhere to stop and photograph it.

For a start, it’s 23 miles long, 17 miles of which is across water, and if that’s not something of a record I’m not sure what is.

And not only that, it shortens my route by 153 kms, so the toll fee of $13:00 is a bargain when you take the cost of Strider’s fuel into consideration.

It’s not just a bridge either.

It crosses a busy shipping lane up to Baltimore and so in a couple of places it dives into tunnels. And these are quite long enough on their own.

And that was quite a shame because there were three or four mammoth container ships sailing up the Hampton Roads and I missed them.

On the other side of the river I put my foot down and move north towards the Maryland border.

But 18:00 looms up, I’m tired and I’m still in Virgnia. And at 18:10 the Shore Lodge Motel in Olney looms up out of the gloom.

The room is clean and comfortable and after much negotiating we agree on $70:00, incuding taxes, which is not unreasonable.

I do without tea yet again and crash out more-or-less straight away, but I’m awoken by a group of people chatting by the ice machine just outside the door.

After about a couple of hours of this, I’m beyond fed up, so I ask them if they wouldn’t mind going somewhere else to chat. Well, that wasn’t actually what I said, but it meant that.

But my sleep has gone now, and this is going to be a bad night.

Friday 29th September 2017 – AFTER A REALLY …

… good night last night, I was ready for anything.

Well, almost, anyway.

And when I think about it, I don’t suppose that it was a really good night either. My neighbours woke me up at about 01:30.

It’s not really fair to call them “rowdy” because they weren’t particularly – at least, any more than you might expect from a bargain-basement motel. It’s just that, as you know, I’m a light sleeper.

So having organised myself, which takes longer than it might do these days, I nipped outside to find the porridge oats for breakfast, and to take a photo of my room, and Strider.

There’s a microwave in the room, which is good news. There’s also a coffee machine with free coffee and a fridge that is reeeeeeeeeaaaaaaallllllllyyyyy cold – so much so that it froze my orange juice.

You can’t say that I’m not having my money’s worth for my $60:74

Once I’d showered and packed up Strider, I went for a little walk.

There’s a boardwalk from the motel upand over the dunes and back down again onto the beach. It’s true to say that this end of the island is the more “economy” side – by the time you reach Atlantic Beach you are going quite up-market.

There weren’t too many people around this morning – that’s because the weather has turned during the night and it’s probably 20°F colder than yesterday.

There is a Food Lion just down the road and so that seemed to be a good-enough place to stop up and pick up some groceries.

And as for this photograph, you can make up your own caption.

But returning to the supermarket, I didn’t have a discount card seeing as I’m not from around here, but the lady on the checkout told me how much she liked my accent and gave me the discount anyway.

Back on the mainland at Morehead City, I was diverted from my travels.

How long is it since we have had a “Ship of the Day”? It must be a positive Age. But here in the docks is the tanker Bow Fagus out of Bergen in Norway.

She’s a tanker with a deadweight of 37500 tonnes, and has come here from Antwerp, via Rotterdam, New York and down the road at Wilmington

I follow the road all the way along the coast.

Remember that I told you that the Outer Banks were sometimes linked by bridges? Cedar Island used to be isolated from the mainland.

These days though there’s this whacking great bridge – the Monroe Gaskill Bridge – across the Sound.

This is typical of the bridges that they are building to do away with the ferries that used to ply across between the islands, although the Monroe Gaskill Bridge here actually replaced an older, smaller bridge.

But there’s one ferry that they won’t ever do away with, and that’s the ferry between Cedar Island and Ocracoke Island.

It’s a crossing of two and a quarter hours, probably the longest ferry crossing in North Carolina, if not the USA, and they won’t be able to bridge that gap cost-eFFectively.

And while I’ve been on almost all of the North Carolina “throughway ferries” at one time or another, the Cedar Island – Ocracoke is one that I have yet to take.

And surprise, surprise. There’s a sailing going out in a couple of hours time. What a coincidence!

So I stick some fuel into Strider to keep me going, pay my … errr … $15:00 (yes, a two-and-a-quarter-hour sailing for Strider and myself for just fifteen dollars!), take my place in the queue and make my butties.

I was going to sit outside but it’s overcast, cloudy, threatening rain and there’s a howling wind blowing. Not very pleasant at all.

Much to my surprise, because this is after all the USA, we are late setting sail. A good 20 or so minutes by my calculations too.

And while 12 years ago I was complaining about the lack of coffee on board, today we have a coffee facility, with the most unusual payment system.

It’s a dollar a mug, you help yourself, and you put your dollar in the cash box screwed to the deck. What are the chances of a system like that working in the UK?

So now that we have on-board coffee, after 12 years of moaning by Yours Truly, what next?

How about a moan about the lack of internet at the North Carolina Department of Transport way-stations?

About 20 minutes late, we arrive in Ocracoke Island and the town of Ocracoke.

It’s been 12 years since I’ve been here of course, and i’m intrigued to see what it’s going to be like these days.

Mind you, the light has gone and it’s going dark. I’m not going to be able to see very much this evening, that’s for sure. I’ll have to wait until the morning.

So we tie ourselves up to the quayside – or rather, the crew did that – and we can begin to move off.

And what’s sad about this is that despite being the first on the ferry, I’m almost the last off. That fills me full of dismay.

But there’s hope yet. There’s a motel that I had my eye on – one of the cheapest on the island when I was here last.

And while the price has … errr … significantly increased, just like everything else, it’s still one of the cheapest (this is not a cheap place to be by any means as I well remember) and it does have a room free. And so I bite the bullet …

Mind you, I had to wait half an hour for the landlady to come back from running an errand.

There’s a fridge in the room, but that’s your lot, but it is quite nice and comfortable.

An early night is called for and so I’m off to bed. I’ll see you in the morning.

Thursday 28th September 2017 – WHAT WITH …

… having crashed out so completely and for so long yesterday afternoon, it was well into the small hours this morning and I was still awake.

But I heard the alarms go off at 05:00 and 05:15 respectively but somehow it was gone 08:00 when I was up and about.

My first thought was that I can’t go anywhere in the state that I was in, so I staggered off down to the office to see about staying for an extra day. But we couldn’t thrash out a suitable deal and so I took that as my cue to be moving on.

After breakfast we hit the road, and back through familiar territory from 2005.

When we were up here back then, I pointed out to you that most of the houses along the seafront are up on stilts.

We’re smack in the hurricane belt here and while they might not be as devastating as elsewhere, the fact that it’s so low-lying around here means that there can be some impressive tidal surges.

Just inland from the coast is what they call the “Atlantic Coastal Waterway”.

It’s like a canal that’s made up of rivers, lagoons behind the sandbanks and canalised sections to join everything up, and its purpose is to allow the “snowbirds” to sail their yachts and cabin cruisers down to Florida from Washington DC and Manhattan without having to do anything dangerous like going out into the open sea.

They aren’t really “salt-water mariners” here.

I mentioned yesterday that North Myrtle Beach is probably one of the most exclusive places in the USA.

Here, the “second homes” of the rich and famous are built around little marinas branching off the Atlantic Coastal Waterway so that they can sail down here and drop anchor in their own back gardens

You can’t do that at Rhyl or New Brighton.

I’m never in a very good mood when I see a car ferry. As you know, it always makes me cross.

And so being in the vicinity of the ferry across Cape Fear River, I decide to head that way instead of taking Highway 17 North-Eastwards.

And just by way of a change, I don’t have to wait too long as they don’t go on to winter hours until Saturday. That’s not something that happens to me every day.

There’s another ferry from here that goes out to Bald Head Island.

Bald Head Island is really nothing more than an endless succession of sandbanks, a couple of which have been stabilised by a healthy plant growth, and is the home to a mainly-seasonal population.

Its chief claim to fame, if it was one, is that it’s an important turtle-breeding and nesting area. And that I’ve yet to find the time to visit it.

Don’t let anyone ever tell you that it was the Union Army that won the Civil War. When things were on an even basis, the South could hold its own quite comfortably.

What did for the South was the naval blockade that stopped supplies of arms and munitions reaching the fighting armies and preventing the South from exporting its produce to gain foreign exchange.

Wilmington was just about the last open port remaining, protected by Fort Fisher which was just over there to the left of the crane and which we visited in 2005.

When Fort Fisher fell to the Union forces in January 1865, the Union Army controlled the entrance to the port.

They took Wilmington a couple of weeks later and in the absence of any supplies at all, the Confederacy collapsed in a matter of days.

By now though, the heat was ridiculous. 98°F, whatever that is in real money.

Luckily a Home Depot loomed up so I could take refuge in there and see if they had Terry’s batteries, but no joy – although the aircon was welcome.

Back on the road again, I stopped for some fuel and some of that iced slush as the heat really was oppressive, and then round about Jacksonville, found the first of the “Outer Banks Islands” – the sandbanks that protect the North Carolina Shore.

Some of them are inhabited, some connected by bridges, and some of them even have roads.

Emerald Isle is one such, and that’s my destination for tonight. There’s bound to be a motel or two along here and I eventually come across the Oak Grove Motel in Salter Path.

I’ve stayed in better places than this, but not many for $60 with kitchen and air conditioning.

First thing is to sit on my bed and … errr … relax.

Second thing is to notice the time – 21:00. Was I that relaxed?

So no tea again tonight. I just curl up down the bed and make the most of it.

And quite right too.

Friday 15th September 2017 – I’M BACK …

… on the road again today. My stay around the Coasts of Labrador has come to an end.

But I still remember a huge, mixed-up kind of ramble during the night where I was going around all of these little settlements and cabins out on the coast.

And that’s surprising because I had yet another bad night’s sleep. Like I say, they come in cycles … “ON cycles, you mean” – ed … and we’re in one right now.

So after breakfast and sorting myself out, I took my leave of my landlord and went to find the offices of “Them Days”. That’s a magazine that publishes traditional stories about the Labrador coast.

As you know, I’m still looking for the grave of the most famous man in Labrador. It’s here in the Happy Valley Cemetery, but that’s huge and I couldn’t find it the other day.

Much to my surprise they didn’t know where it was either. But a few ‘phone calls later and I was told “he’s in the United Church Cemetery” part”, which of course is the biggest part of the cemetery.

So after an hour, and with the help of a very vocal local yokel, we came up unsuccessful. But there was a phone number there so I called it. And much to my surprise, the woman there didn’t know where he was either.

But it did lead to an interesting conversation. She asked my name – which I duly gave.
“Eric Hall? Let me see – you were in church on Sunday weren’t you?”
Our Hero – “did you see a thunderbolt then?”.
Anyway she promised to phone me back (and Josée’s phone is a godsend on this trip).

While she was making “further enquiries” I continued to search, and all of a sudden I came across it.

I missed it because I was probably expecting something much grander, seeing how his name was on everyone’s lips as the most famous man in Labrador 100 years ago.

Here then lies Gilbert Blake, the man who rescued the remains of the disastrous Leonidas Hubbard party and who accompanied Mina Hubbard on her trip into the interior to complete her husband’s work.

Ha also led countless subsequent exploring parties into the interior of Labrador and was never given credit for much of what was “discovered”.

The lady from the Church phoned me back to say where it was, and to my dismay, I had to turn down the opportunity of a lifetime.
“I spoke to Gilbert Blake’s daughter. If you would like to see her to chat, she’s available”.

But it’s 550 kms to Labrador City and it has to be done before dark. I was obliged to turn down the opportunityand I doubt that I will ever have the possibility again.

Usually, this rubbish is littered with photos of old cars in people’s gardens. But we’ve never had a photo of a garden with an old aeroplane in it.

I’ve no idea what it is, but it’s small, an early jet-fighter type of plane, and it won’t ever fly again this side of a miracle.

Labrador is certainly a different place from that respect. Nothing ordinary here.

Having fuelled up, I hit the road. About an hour later than I was intending.

About 20 miles outside the town there’s a cleft in the hills where you can see down to the works that are taking place at Muskrat Falls.

As I’ve said before, I’m not going into the rights and wrongs of the project – enough has already been said – but anyone who saw the photos of my first trip to Labrador will seethings differently now.

So off we go down the Trans-Labrador Highway into the interior.

And you’ll notice that it’s not quite autumn yet. The leaves on the deciduous trees haven’t “turned”

And you’ll notice a few changes to the highway too since we first came here. You’ll remember what a struggle it was over some of the worst roads in the world.

Today, it’s an asphalted, paved highway all the way to Labrador City.

With all of the work going on for the Muskrat falls project, a lot of trees have been removed and rock blasted away.

This opens up a whole new vista – views like this one of the Churchill River would never have been possible 10 years ago had they not blasted away some rock to put in a pylon to carry the cables.

You can see where the evergreen trees have been pulled out, and the first growth of deciduous arctic willow that is growing back in its place.

It’s that time of year, isn’t it?

In a week or so’s time it will be the annual tribal meeting of the Innu people, and they are preparing the site ready for the gathering.

I would ordinarily tell you what it’s called, but the problem with Innu names that it’s quite something to read them, never mind remember them.

I talked about the road just now. The one that we are actually on is the third attempt.

It dates from about 2011 – 2012 and it follows pretty closely in most places the line of the second road that we took in 2010.

The earlier road is what they called the “Tote Road” and dates from the period after the occupation of the Goose Bay air base by the Canadian Air Force.

If you thought that we had a struggle in places back in 2010, you can barely imagine what it must have been like in the 1970s.

The road was 10 times worse, single track, and following the contours rather than being graded across the valleys and though cuttings.

But regardless of your opinions, you’ll have to admit that they have done an excellent job of the new highway.

You can see it (and the power transmission cables) disappearing away over the hill in the distance, and it goes on for ever in just this kind of condition.

On the old dirt road, with the 70kph speed limit, in some places it was more like 70 kilometres per week. Here today, it’s a mere 80 kph but with no obstructions to slow you down.

But you slow down every now and again to take a few photos.

You’ve seen the scenery before but I bet that you’ve seen nothing like this.

There are miles and miles of forest where it seems that we have had a major forest fire fairly recently. You cans ee that some of the trees are scorched and blackened, and others have been completely destroyed

The whole of the place is littered with miles and miles of scenery just like this.

About 80 or so kms (I can’t remember now) from Labrador City I pull into Emeril Station to see what’s happening.

This is on the line from Sept Iles to Schefferville and serves the iron mines and the Innu community out there.

We have a line of wagons waiting for a locomotive, and also this dismantled dumper lorry – one of the huge 50-tonne ones- waiting to make their way north.

But I don’t see any locomotives, although I can hear a whistle away in the distance on the line to Wabush and Labrador City.

50 kilometres or so outside Labrador City, we can see that autumn has finally arrived here.

We’re deep in the interior now, and on the north-facign slopes exposed to the arctic conditions, they will be the first to catch the cold air.

Not quite the brilliant colours we are used to, but we are a couple of weeks earlier than usual this year.

Before I had left Happy Valley, my landlord had given me an address for B&B in Labrador City. I phoned her (thanks again, Josée) and she did indeed have a room free.

It took some finding with the roadworks but it was worth the effort. Not only was it the best place where I’ve stayed, it was also, believe it or not, the cheapest. I’ll be coming back here again, that’s for sure.

And hats off to Strider. He struggles on fuel as you know, but since he’s had his overdrive fixed, he seems to be a little better.

So much so that instead of the maximum 420-km distance that he seemed in the past to be able to travel, we’ve just come a mammoth 542.7 kilometres and although he’s below a quarter of a tank, the orange light hasn’t come on.

It is a good road these days – 80kph with the cruise control on all the way – and it’s still not what I would like, but it’s a vast improvement all the same and Strider can be proud of himself.

Friday 8th September 2017 – I HAD A …

…disturbed night last night – hardly surprising seeing as I knew that I needed to be up early.

But that didn’t stop me from going on my travels during the night, such as they were.

I was playing in a rock group and to be honest we weren’t much good – but what worked for us was that we were backing a Bruce Forsyth-kind of character who knew how to entertain the crowds and keep them in suspense as long as possible – hiding in the wings until the climax of the musical accompaniment and then sending on the cleaner or someone like that.

But by 05:30 I had made a conscious decision to rouse myself, pack, and eat my breakfast. Especially the last bit, seeing as it was included. Toast, cornflakes (with my own soya milk) orange juice and, eventually, once I had figured out the machine, coffee.

And much to my surprise I had a phone call. WhatsApp clearly works because Ingrid phoned me for a brief chat and it was nice to hear her voice.

It was only 15 minutes to the ferry terminal and I was second in the queue. So I was soon paid up and down on the quayside.

Apollo came in and, poor thing, she’s looking even sadder an older than she did last time that I was aboard.

47 years old she is now. Surely she can’t go on much longer. But there are no plans to replace her and with the Sir Robert Bond having been sold for scrap, she has to keep going regardless now.

There is, apparently, a type of fish called an “Arctic Char” but I’m imagining a kind of fish dressed in a fur coat that comes round to clean your cabin.

You can still see the signs on the ship written in Finnish and Estonian in the passenger compartment.

This shows you how long it is since Apollo has had a full refit. Even the power sockets are old European 230-volt.

The high winds meant that it was quite a rough crossing – the roughest that I have ever experienced on the Straits of Belle Isle – with the odd crash and bang as we collided with an iceberg or a walrus.

But that doesn’t bother me in the slightest. But there was one guy who was leaning over the rail.
“The trouble with you” I said “is that you have a weak stomach”.
“Rubbish” he retorted. “I’m throwing it as far as everyone else”.

And there’s a young girl on board who is the spitting image of an 11 year old Ginny Weasley starting Hogwarts. I had to look twice to make sure. She and her family were off to “Labby”, which is Labrador City apparently.

I was actually second off the boast when we arrived, which is something of a record.

I made a prominent note of that

But the weather was foul when we arrived. High gusting winds, a typical Labrador mist and it was doing its best to rain down upon us but somehow holding off for the moment.

Not as bad as 2014 but not far off.

As you know, I’ve been to Blanc Sablon on many occasions, but for some reason I’ve never taken any photos of the town.

Last year I’d made out a list of things to do next time I was here, and photographing the place was high on the list.

And so I parked up Strider and went for a little stroll around the town

The area was given its name by Jacques Cartier when he came here on one of his voyages of discovery in the 1530s.

No-one is certain though as to whether it refers to the “Blanc Sablon” which is near his home port of St Malo (just across the bay from where I live) or whether it really dos refer to the white sands that are found here.

And the bay here is another possible site for the elusive “Vinland” of the Norse voyagers.

Regular readersof this rubbis will recall that the area is quite controversial too.

It’s actually in the Province of Quebec but an isoltaed part that is cut off from the rest of the Province, and is known by locals as “the Forgotten Coast”.

They claim that because it’s English-speaking here and so isolated, they are (deliberately) starved of resources, and there is a movement afoot to secede from Quebec and join up with Labrador.

We have to have the obligatory photograph to say that we have arrived, don’t we?

I joined the queue, because it seems to be an obligatory thing these days to take your photograph here, rather like the place that we visited in Monument Valley in 2002.

Strider is of course very photogenic as you might expect. Strawberry Moose would have gone out too but the weather was atrocious and you wouldn’t put a dog out in this, never mind a moose.

Another thing on my “to do” list was to sort out the confusion over the churches in Forteau. And so I went in search of the aforementioned.

There were two that I discovered, and this is the Forteau United Church. I did not, however, discover the Forteau City Church. That must be somewhere else completely.

I must make further enquiries.

Before they started to build the coastal road network in the 1950s, access between the villages was by coastal path.

Nothing had changed here for 200 years since the early settlers and merchants had arrived in the 1740s.

This is the coastal path between Forteau and l’Anse au Clair – the next town to the south. It’s closed these days though because of erosion and landslips.

Way over there in the distance across Forteau Bay (thanks to the telephoto lens and a little digital enhancement) is the lighthouse at Point Amour.

We were there, as you may remember, on our travels in October 2010 when we went to inspect the shipwrecks.

There are the remains of two Royal Navy ships out there – the HMS Lily which ran aground in the 1870s and the HMS Raleigh which ran aground in the early 1920s.

Quite a lot of other ships have come to grief there two, including two in one day in 1941.

Forteau actualy consists today of two separate villages in the past.

Here is the site of Buckle’s Point. It’s on the South Side of the river and it’s where the Channel Islanders under de Quetteville settled.

Today though, the modern village has settled a little further round the bay to the south.

The English settled on the north side of the river andtheir settlement was rather imaginatively called “English Point”.

Today, though, it’s more like the suburbs of Forteau because all of the commercial activity takes place on the south side of the river

Very few people actually stop here and the area is quite often overlooked, just as I am doing right now.

We’ve talked … “at great length” – ed … about the Muskrat Falls and the distribution system that takes the generated current under the Strait of Belle Isle.

When I was looking into it, I noticed that Valard – the company that is doing all of the work – had applied for planning permission to build a quay at the site of their subterranean cable in order to offload their own materials.

And so I went in search of the aforementioned – and although I was locked out of the site, with a little judicious manipulation I was able tohave a butcher’s.

But it doesn’t look big enough to be an alternative landing stage for Apollo if Quebec bans the company from the port at Blanc Sablon.

The Province of Newfoundland and Labrador has a history of grand projects that somehow never seem to come to fruition even though a great deal of money is thrown at them

.Here at Capstan Island a great deal of noise was made about a farm and greenhouses that had been installed on the edge of townand it was even listed as a tourism site where people could come to visit.

Today though, it would be a waste of time to visit because it’s all closed down and abandoned. Part of it has collapsed and all of the roofs have gone.

And as a visitor venue – it’s “closed to visits”.

So much for that then;

When I came here in 2010 I told you that a section of the road that followed the Pinware River was one of the most beautiful that I had driven.

In 2014 however, I noticed that they had by-passed the road with a modern highway over the mountains and that this section had been abandoned.

And so I decided that I would do my best to follow the road round today and see how it was doing and to show you what you have missed.

“This Highway is no longer maintained by the Department of Transport. You drive this road at your own risk” said a notice.

And they were right too. Part of the road has been washed out and it was something of a struggle to findmy way around the obstructions.

But this is why I bought Strider, and quite right too. He made short work of this stretch of highway as long as we took it easy.

And it was well-worth it too.

After the recent rainstorms the Pinware River was in spate and the famous rapids were really impressive today.

The noise was deafening and so I took a little video of it from closer in. When I find a decent internet connection I’ll upload it.

I mentioned the new road just now.

Once I rejoined the main road I took a photo of the new route up over the top of the hills.

I remember watching a large artic struggle up there in first gear back in 2014 and remember wondering what was going through the minds of the planners when they re-routed heavy vehicles up there.

This mountain pass isquite significant because once we pass through it and out the other side, we are at the coast.

Red Bay and its famous 16th-Century Basque whaling station is just the other side.

But for some reason this path always reminds me of somewhere in Scotland and I can’t remember where it is.

First thing to do at Red Bay is of course to go and check to see how the MV Bernieris getting on.

She was delivering coal here one November in the 1930s when she broke free from her moorings during a storm and was driven across the bay onto the rocks of Saddle Island.

And here she sits today, looking sadder and sadder as more and more weather takes its toll.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that Red Bay has an exciting claim to fame.

A student was researching the history of Basque whaling in North America when she came across a whole pile of legal documents from the 16th Century relating to a dispute between a whaling captain and his financial backer over the loss of a couple of whaling ships.

The losses were described in such detail that she reckoned that it would be possible to identify the site of the whaling station from aerial photography.

Accordingly, she pored over thousands of photographs and maps, until she came across one covering Red Bay – and then the light went on.

She came over here to do fieldwork and found, in the spot where she reckoned one of the buildings to be, some red roofing tiles of a type unknown in North America but quite common in 16th Century Northern Spain.

She even rediscovered the cemetery where several sailors and other workers had been buried.

But the best was yet to come;

The story told how one of the ships had been gripped by a sudden storm in November, driven across the bay and wrecked on Saddle Island;

This sounded so much like the story of the Bernier that she went and looked where the Bernierhad come to rest. And sure enough – the Bernier was sitting on top of a 16th Century Basque whaling vessel.

All in all, several Basque ships were lost in the Bay and most have been identified.

Furthermore, they even discovered a Basque rowing boat that had sunk at the shore and because of the cold peaty water that was still in a surprisingly good condition.

That has been recovered and is on display in the museum here.

The road north from Red Bay is in my opinion one of the worst sections of the Trans-Labrador Highway – and that’s saying something.

It wasn’t opened until 1992 – prior to that, access was only by ship – and it looked at one time as if the road had never ever been maintained since the day that it was built.

But it won’t be like that for much longer because they are making headway with the road improvements that they had started in 2014 are well advanced.

And so our drive north is punctuated by sights such as these.

Diggers and graders, and lorry-loads of gravel being brought to the site.

And compactors too. We mustn’t forget tham. When I was on the Trans-Labrador Highway in 2010 I saw a grand total of two. There were two compactors working on this little stretch of highway.

But it’s not all like that. There are sections of the Labrador Coastal Drive that bring back many happy memories. So much so that on two occasions I had Strider going sideways.

He’s rear-wheel drive and relatively lightly-loaded and so the rear end hops around everywhere. So hit a bump or a pothole at the wrong angle and off you go, and you have to struggle to regain control.

I bet that the driver of the car coming towards me on one occasion had to stop and change his underwear;

But just look at this!

This is why they are carrying out all of the groundwork here. The aim is to asphalt all of the highway from Red Bay to Goose Bay. Such are the “benefits” that the Muskrat Falls and the power of Valard Construction have brought to the Coasts of Labrador.

And before anyone says anything, I do realise that i’m a tourist looking at things from my own perspective. I don’t have to live here in the depths of winter.

After acouple of mileswe have the double-tracked asphalt and I can set the cruise control accordingly.

But we can also see that they are realigning the road. Where the road runs through a cutting, it’s often impassible in winter because the snow drifts in and packs tight. It becomes a real engineering job to move it.

Going over the top means that the snow will be loose and blowy, and thus easier to move with a snowplough.

We don’t stay on the asphalt for long though. We’re soon back in the gravel.

And I’m soon driving over Lodge Bay too. I’ve been past here several times as you know but for some reason or other i’ve never ever stopped to take a photograph of the place.

Not that there’s too much to see of course, because it’s only a small place. In fact, had it not been on the direct route of the Labrador Coastal Drive, it’s likely that it too would have fallen victim to the Province’s resettlement programme.

But this is what you are faced with around here. In severe weather they simply close the road and that’s that.

If you are a traveller and are confronted with the closed gate, you simply park up, build yourself an igloo and go off hunting seal until the Spring.

After all, if you are the kind of person who is in a hurry, you shouldn’t be out around here in Labrador anyway. It’s not for the type of person who has a timetable or an agenda.

Another place that was high on my list of places to visit was Mary’s Harbour.

I’d been here before in 2010 but had been sidetracked by the fact that I had forgotten the change of time zone just up the road so I had lost half an hour.

Not a good plan when you have a ferry to catch and plenty of other things to do, so I couldn’t hang around too much.

Mary’s Harbour is another one of these “resettlement points” but its history goes back much farther than Joey Smallwood.

Outside just off the coast is the island of Battle Harbour and at one time this was the most important place on the whole of the Labrador coast.

However, almost 90 years ago, like most places in Canada, Battle Harbour was the victim of fire, and almost everything on the island was destroyed.

Seeing which way the wind was likely to blow in the future (which comes as quite a surprise to most people) it was decided to abandon the island and settle somewhere else, but on the mainland close by.

Mary’s Harbour seemed like the ideal place to be, seeing as it was close by, had a deep natural harbour that stretched a good way inland and was thus sheltered from the bad weather.

And over the course of time, the inhabitants of many other coastal communities have been resettled here, often quite controversially.

But then, this is not the place to discuss the Resettlement Policy. We’ll be doing enough of that when we arrive in North West River.

Abandoning a good rant before we even start, I make tracks northwards. I’m heading for Port Hope Simpson where I hope to be able to find a bed for the night.

And sure enough, I do. Campbell’s Place is home to home-made bread, home made jams from local ingredients and,like everywhere else in the town, home to the slowest internet connection on the planet.

But there’s a single room at what passes these days for a resonable price, and the bed seems quite comfortable too. First thing is to plug in the slow cooker while I have a shower and wash my undies.

Tea is pasta, mushrooms and vegetable soup, and aren’t I glad that I spent this $14:00 on the slow cooker? Yes, i’ve just seen the prices of the takeaway food.

No internet worth talking about of course, and so I can crack on with the … good grief! … 127 photographs that I took today.

And then a lie down while I listen to the Navy Lark on the radio – and promptly fall asleep. It’s been a long day today.

and I’ve just written a new record of 3027 words too – so there!

Tuesday 5th September 2017 – TIRED?

I’ll say!

I gave up at about 22:00 last night and fell straight asleep. And that was that until the alarm went off at 06:00 (or 06:30 in fact as Newfoundland is 30 minutes in advance). I remember nothing at all.

It’s not as if I had been doing anything either – there’s nothing that I can think of that had particularly worn me out.

Mind you, when I say that I remember nothing, that’s not entirely true. I do remember a couple of young girls who needed taking somewhere so I hd to organise them onto their bikes and make sure that they followed me closely. And anyone who knows anything about young girls will know that that is a pretty difficult task.
And later there I was on the top deck of a bus with a friend going up Middlewich Road past “the Rising Sun” and seeing an end-of-terrace house that I’d been hoping to buy but hadn’t, and thinking that it would make an ideal place from which to operate a taxi business. There were two other people on board the bus and we ended up talking about taxis. And as the bus took us down Coppice Road the guy I was with was explaining that there aren’t many taxis in the centre of town but each suburb and little village seemed to have its own little taxi business. One of the guys came over to us and in an intimate fashion started to speak to us about his friend who was rather simple and needed a great deal of guidance.

So having missed a good bit of the morning already, I started the porridge and had a shower. Put things in their proper order.

And when I came out of the shower the internet was down so that made me rather miserable.

Not only that, the place was deserted. No-one about, no-one in the car park, no-one in the restaurant etc. Just like the Marie Celeste in fact.

So I breakfasted off my own stocks of porridge (which as usual took ages to cook) and some coffee that I “liberated” from the public area (they had only given me one serving).

And pushed on with the blog entry anyway – that’ll teach me to have an early night.

By 10:30, all done and dusted, I hit the trail west.

First stop was on the Trans-Canada Highway on a stretch of road overlooking Clarenville.

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that we stayed there in 2010 where I arrived in the dark and then had a flat tyre to deal with, so we didn’t take much in the way of photos.

But you can see just how beautiful the place is, and there’s even a ship in port, although my fleet database insists that the port is empty.

I’ve been down this road before, as regular readers of this rubbish will recall and even wrote two pages about it – this one and this one – so I shan’t bore you with too many photos.

But there’s one here where I turned off the Trans-Canada Highway.

That’s Gander Lake down there and it is for the lake that the town of Gander is so named.

This was where I planned to have my lunch stop (it was that time already) but before I could stop and eat, I had important things to do.

You’ll notice up there on the crest the flags of Newfoundland and Labrador, Canada, the USA and the fourth one, representing the town of Gander.

Up there is the site of the worst ever air disaster to take place on Canadian soil, and dates from 12th December 1985.

A DC8 flying from Cairo to Kentucky stalled just after takeoff from the airport at Gander just across the main road and crashed to earth, killing all 256 people on board.

The 248 passengers were almost all members of the American 101st Airborne Division and were returning to base after having undergone a six-month tour of duty as part of the multi-national peacekeepers in Sinai.

They had stopped for fuel in Cologne and again in Gander, but despite the miserable weather and the time of year, the aeroplane was not de-iced on take-off.

Furthermore, its reported laden weight had been considerably under-declared.

Even today, the scar where the aeroplane came down is clearly visible and the intense heat of the fire (the plane was carrying a full load of fuel) means that little will grow in the area today.

And although the generally-accepted cause of the accident is the icing and overloading issue, there are as many controversial conspiracy theories as you like about the accident.

As for me, I left the site of the accident and went down to the lake in the gorgeous sunshine to read my book and eat my butties.

And to fight off a dog that had taken a fancy to my food – there was quite a crowd of people down here today.

But then again, why not? It really was pleasant and I found it difficult to heave myself out of my seat and hit the road.

And here’s a thing!

Regular readers of this rubbish will recall that when I came by here 2010 I had a fierce argument with the people here about their Lockheed Hudson.

Their labelling stated quite clearly that Donald Bennett flew it from Gander to Aldergrove in Northern ireland – the first aeroplane to complete the “Atlantic Ferry”.

In his autobiography Pathfinder Bennett makes it perfectly clear that he didn’t fly the aeroplane but was in fact the navigator.

And also that his aeroplane wasn’t the first to arrive either.

And while the Museum is still vacillating over the “first” bit – they have in fact amended the plaque to show that he “captained” the plane.

So some progress is being made.

But as for the Karrier Bantam that was here, that has, unfortunately, bitten the dust. “Too bad to keep”, so I was told.

And they had even been offered another one – in even worse condition apparently – and turned that down!

I despair.

Having seen what has been “preserved” in Canada, and just how they preserve it, the Bantam should have been child’s play.

Next stop was Lewisporte up on the coast, and I came to yet another shuddering halt as I arrived on the edge of town.

The Lewisporte branch of the Newfoundland Railway was probably the most profitable, with the town being on of the island’s most major ports, and here is a collection of artefacts too remind us of its history.

At least locomotive 902 – one of the GM NF110 locomotives, is in marginally better condition here

I mentioned that Lewisporte was one of the busiest coastal ports on the island. In the old days, almost every ship destined for Labrador sailed from here.

That slowed down as the road network improved and came to a shuddering halt when the Sir Robert Bond was laid up once the road over the Mealy Mountains was opened in 2010

Today, only the Astron, a small freighter, leaves Lewisporte for the north, calling at Black Tickle and ports north of the Hamilton Inlet, and she won’t take passengers.

But in something of a forlorn hope I presented myself at the port offices to enquire about anything that might be going out, but as I suspected, I was disappointed.

But I was asked if I wanted to buy a car ferry of my own.

She was the Capt Earl W Winsor, built in 1972 and sailed for over 20 years as Prince Edward from Pictou to Prince Edward Island until the Confederation Bridge was built.

Then she came here, acquired her current name from a local politician, and sailed for nearly 20 years on the service to Fogo Island.

And when you think that she cost a mere $300,000 when the Newfoundland and Labrador Government had budgeted $12,000,000, that has to be the deal of the Century.

We discussed Apollo too. Everyone agrees that she is well past her sell-by date, but they reckoned that the Government has no money to replace her.

“There’s plenty of money when it comes to St John’s or Muskrat Falls” I interjected, to which they all concurred wholeheartedly.

On my way out of the port, I was distracted by these.

It’s 30 years or so since the railway on Newfoundland was abandoned but here on the docks you can still see rails embedded in the surface of the tarmac.

You can tell that it’s a narrow-gauge line too – just 3″6″. And that was one of the reasons for the downfall of the railway.

While it’s cheaper to construct and better in tight curves that you find on the mountain sections, it means that everything has to be trans-shipped at North Sydney or Channel-Port-aux-Basques, and that was just too much.

So now I’m off to my motel for tonight, the Westwood Inn at Grand falls. And it took some finding too.

“Come off at Exit 17 and it’s there” they said. And so I did. And after driving around for about 20 minutes and getting back onto the Trans-Canada Highway, I saw it way across the other side and had to do a naughty “U” turn to arrive.

It’s the most expensive place where I’ve stayed, although you wouldn’t think so. Holes in the bath carpet, internet that only works when it feels like it and a kettle that took three hours and still hadn’t boiled

And if I ever have a child I shall call it “Happy” after the receptionist, because I have never yet met anyone who couldn’t care less about her job, her establishment and her customers.

If I had been in charge, she would have been long down the road because her bad attitude is the kind that discourages anyone from coming to stay here again once they’ve had the pleasure of her company.

Thursday 31st August 2017 – AND IF YOU THOUGHT …

… that Tuesday night’s sleep was bad, you ain’t seen nuffink yet.

Because last night’s sleep beat just about everything. Wide awake at 01:30, tossing and turning and all of that. I really was having it all.

Nevertheless I did still manage to go off on my travels, but you won’t be interested in them, because such was the nature of my bad night that it will put you off your supper.

The torrential rainstorm that we had didn’t help matters much either. And it was so humid that the washing that I had hung up under the verandah seemed to be wetter than when I hung it out.

I wasn’t in the mood for breakfast, having had a good meal before going to bed (and don’t large packets of crisps go off with an enormous bang when you kneel on them by mistake in the dark?) and so I did some stuff on the internet;

Despite the pouring rain, I emptied out Strider and tried to sort out everything – but that was quite a maul and wasn’t the work of 5 minutes either, so I was quite exhausted afterwards.

Pausing only to take a shot of my cabin and the lake (which, due to the weather I was not able to enjoy) I went up to the office to hand in the key.

Free coffee was on offer there and seeing the expense that I had had to incur, I took full advantage. And quite rightly so.

And then I headed off into the doom and gloom.

The drive to North Sydney, beautiful though it is, is one that we have taken on many previous occasions so I didn’t stop to take any photographs.

And at the ferry terminal, my luck was in. There were still spaces free on Friday’s overnight long-distance sailing to Argentia. And so we are now booked aboard.

It might sound expensive to some (and it certainly did to me) but you need to look at it in perspective.

I would have to pay a ferry fee for the short (ie 9 hour) crossing anyway, and that’s not cheap
I would then have a drive 900 kms instead of 130 kms – and imagine how much extra fuel I would have to buy for a rather thirsty Strider.
I’d be looking for at least one, if not two nights in motels and you’ve seen what motel rates are right now.
I’d be whittling into the victuals along the way
I’d be quite worn out at the end of it all
And not least – this is a ferry crossing that i’ve been wanting to make for quite a while

All in all, it makes good financial and personal sense to travel this way.

Next thing to do was to organise accommodation for tonight.

I like the privacy of motels, but not at the price that they want to charge right now. So I phoned up the cheapest B&B in the book that I had picked up yesterday.
“Sorry, we’re full”
“That’s a shame. Do you know anyone else with a spare room?”
“No I don’t … ohh – wait a minute – if you just want a basic room with just a bed in it I can fix you up. Is $55 for cash with breakfast okay?”
Do bears have picnics in the woods?

Off I went to the shops.

As you all may remember from previous excursions, food in northern Newfoundland and Labrador is shockingly expensive, and if I’m going to be spending a week or two out there, I need to stock up.

The Atlantic Superstore, the Dollar Store and Walmart all did the business and for about $100 Strider is now full of tinned and packet goods to last a couple of weeks.

Bread will be an issue of course, but we have packets of crisps if we can’t find anything on the road.

But I made a startling discovery at the Atlantic Superstore. Their “own brand” od wine gums don’t have gelatine in them. There’s a few packets missing from their stocks right now.

I had a very late lunch on the car park by the ferry terminal, and then went for a coffee at Tim Hortons where, shame as it is to admit it, I fell asleep.

Rousing myself from a dangerous slumber I decided to head out for my digs. The address wasn’t on the SatNav but Josee’s mobile phone picked it up (that was a good move on her part to lend me that).

The street signs were confusing though and I ended up going three times round a roundabout before I fathomed it out.

The cheapest digs so far, and seem to be the nicest too. It seems that I have the room of a student who isn’t due back until tomorrow. So I’m not complaining.

I settled myself in and promptly crashed out again, only to be awoken by the aforementioned student who has returned unannounced a day early.

I would gladly have shared half my bed with her, but the landlady rather unfortunately rose to the situation by ushering her off to a spare bed put up hastily in the office, which rather disappointed me – but you can’t win a coconut every time.

So I’m going to have an early night and try to sleep the Sleep Of The Dead.

Heaven knows I need it.

Thursday 27th July 2017 – AFTER YESTERDAY’S …

… exertions, I slept like a log. And woke up in the fireplace too – but you’ve heard that one before.

I’d been on my travels too – but I’ll spare you all the gory details as you are probably eating your tea just now.

I’m still aching in the shoulders, although it’s eased off a little. The pain will all go away probably the night before Terry rings me up to sand down the plasterboard in the second bedroom. That’s what usually happens.

Just the usual things happened today – a walk down for the baguette – a sit up on the wall in the windy sunlight at lunchtime. But for much of the afternoon I’ve been taking it easy.

This morning I finished off uncombining the blog entries for my trip to Brussels over Christmas and New Year of 2011/2012 to see Marianne and sped through until 24th April when I shuddered to a halt.

The period from then until the end of May 2012 is, to put it bluntly, a total mess and this is going to take some untangling.

The pages that I wrote for my voyage are somewhat hit-and-miss. I hadn’t developed a real technique at that time. I spent much of the afternoon having a basic look at them, having a think, and having a distraction or two (and much to my surprise I didn’t actually crash out today).

But the net result of all of that is that I now think that I know how I’m going to do it – and it will be a lesson for subsequent years (although things have improved a great deal since 2012).

So now I’m going for a long walk. I had a letter in the post that needs a reply, and it’s only from the Estate Agents down the hill, so I reckon that it would be a good idea to take it down there tonight.

It will be exhausting, but it will probably do me some good.

Sunday 16th July 2017 – ABSOLUTELY PERFECT!

The best yet!

Now that I have finally worked out how to do it, I shall be doing it again and again.

Quite simplt, take out the bottom tray, move the cooking shelf down one notch, and there I had the most beautiful pizza yet, done to a turn just a couple of minutes longer than recommended.

I’m well-impressed with that!

I had a good night’s sleep too, and was off on a considerable number of travels too during the night. And I’ll tell you all about them once I download them off the dictaphone, because I forgot to do that this morning.

D’ohhhh!

So watch this space.

But 07:30 when my feet touched the floor. Best lie-in for a while that was. And a slow and steady start to the day.

But not for long. I had to dash outside for my baguette quite early today.

It was brocante day today in the old town and I expected it to be heaving.

And I wasn’t wrong either. Crowds in the magasin de presse as well, to such an extent that there was a young boy serving there too.
“Are you the proprietor’s son?” I asked
“Yes I am” he replied
“Tough luck!” I said.

The place was heaving, as I said, and there were dozens, if not hundreds, of stalls there. And the one thing that they had was that their stuff was shockingly overpriced.

Some people had totally taken leave of their senses. A portable radio-CD player that would have done a little job in here – they wanted €30:00.
They can forget that!

But if ever you wanted proof that the Brexit had been long-anticipated by the French, this book will prove it.

It’s all about an island nation that abandons its free ride in its biggest market for exported goods in order to save £350 million per week, and then finds that it has to pay four times as much in customs duties because it hadn’t thought about that.

It’s called l’Ile aux Fous – the Island of the Insane.

Up on my wall at lunchtime it was cloudy, and although I was alone there, the lawn was littered with piles of cars that had been abandoned – I refuse to say “parked” – there.

Apart from that, I’ve been on the blog again and I’ve reached early August 2013. Still 70 unclassified pages to go, but about 70 pages somewhere (and I’m not sure where) that need amending. And then I can start on the conjoined ones.

And I’ve had another plan too.

I’m going to rework the Canada pages so that the travelog is included in here and the web pages shall be for the merged voyages.

What I mean by that is that if you take, for example, my drive up the North Shore of the St Lawrence, that’s a merged page of about six (shortly to become seven) trips.

Keep those as a travel guide and keep the non-travel info on the blog.

But that’s a long way off yet.

And I’ve spent a lot of money today Much more than I’ve spent just recently too. But it’s an expense that needed to be made.

I’ll tell you all about it in a week or so’s time..

EPIC HALL

The Poisoned Pen (or Poisoned Chalice, more like) – or my relentless struggle against reality