THE TRANS-LABRADOR HIGHWAY 2010

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Ohhh good grief!
Would you believe it!
Here at kilometre 203.8 I HAVE SEEN A BEAR!

I was closing right up on this pickup and trailer, preparing to overtake it (as you can see, I'm halfway across the road already) when suddenly he put on his brakes. I thought at first that he was stopping to let me past but then Rupert here ambled out of the bushes and strolled casually across the road.

Off into the woods on the other side of the road he ambled, and the pickup and I drove slowly away. But one of the advantages of having a decent telephoto lens on the Nikon is that I can wave it around out of the car window and pick up bears doing whatever it is that they do in the woods.

In fact, I was asked by several friends if I knew exactly what Rupert was doing in the woods. I really didn't know, so we had a little poll amongst ourselves about it. We arrived at the conclusion that he was on his way to a picnic.

But you can imagine my excitement on seeing a bear in the wild like that. I wasn't expecting anything like this and it really was the highlight of my voyage around Labrador. What with a porcupine on Day One, a moose on Day Two and the bear today, I'll probably manage to see Godzilla tomorrow.

After all of the commotion I set off again and after a mile or two I catch up with the pickup and trailer. He pulls into the side of the road to let me pass, and off we go on our way towards Cartwright.

I've mentioned that much of the centre of Labrador along the Labrador Coastal Highway can be pretty featureless in many places and it's necessary to put in a good deal of effort to hunt down interesting things to photograph. It isn't like the Trans-Labrador Highway where the scenery leaps off the canvas into the viewfinder of the camera.

And for that reason I was rather surprised to find not one, or even two photographic opportunities presenting themselves together at the same spot, but three at kilometre 233.

This particular lake was on the right-hand side of the road. It's quite a long thin one as you can see and there's something of a steep drop down there into the water - hence the pretty high bank.

There is another lake on the left-hand side of the road. This lake is much more interesting than the one on the other side. It's still quite a way down to the water and so we have another high bank to keep the cars out of the water.

We've mentioned the existence of what are known as "eskers". These are banks of sand and gravel deposited by glaciers when they begin to retreat under a moderation in climatic conditions. I wouldn't recognise an esker if it were to shake my hand, but I would imagine that an esker would be something similar to the bank that is dividing the two parts of this lake.

There's also another one of these - well, I don't know what you would call it. It's not a camp site and not a residence either but maybe it would be a workers' rest area or whatever.

And that might explain the presence of these old caravans, pick-up bed campers and the like dotted all over the highway. I don't imagine that the road workers would actually live here. They would probably have homes and families in the larger towns, but commuting up here every day would be almost impossible given the kind of weather that they have, the presence of snow being usual in 10 months of the year. What I would imagine to be likely is that they work in teams, one week on duty and one week off duty and during the on-duty week they live up here, relax, brew up, cook and so on in these campers.

That's my theory anyway.

And just as I was getting back into Casey, a tiny little red Kia saloon car went past me going the other way. Now he evidently thinks that it is OK to drive down here in that sort of car and so I should expect to have little difficulty in negotiating the rest of this road in Casey.

And to help me out, at 232.4 kilometres I encounter another grader working on the road. But again, they really don't need to be doing this. There's nothing wrong with this road compared to what I've been on yesterday and the day before.

At 234.7 kilometres I encounter another pair of road signs. Cartwright is 135 kilometres away and Goose Bay is 245. We are 48.3 kilometres beyond the previous set of signs, where Goose Bay was 195 kilometres away and Cartwright 185 kilometres away. So there's about a kilometre difference either way from where the road signs ought to be.

But on the subject of signs, all the signs are that I am starting to come out of the wilderness and heading more towards civilisation. The Eagle Plateau Management Zone ends at 250.2 kilometres

And at 253.1 kilometres the road suddenly swoops down, presumably coming out of Eagle Plateau and down to whatever else is below here. Wherever I am heading off to is somewhere over there in the distance

But just look at the view. It's tremendous. You can see for miles from up here. Can you imagine this is bright sunlight in an autumn evening without the mist and haze that we have at the moment?

Down the hill I pelt, round the curve at the bottom and then at kilometre 255 I find myself on another one of these enormous straight lengths of road that there are around here. It goes on for miles and miles, straight as an arrow.

Down here, the weather seems to be brightening up too. Well, at least, the clouds are thinning out. There is also just a hint of deciduous shrubland. Just a hint, mind you. And it's the first sign of a change in climate since climbing up onto the Eagle Plateau all those kilometres ago.

Well, "enormous straight" said I. Here we are at kilometre 265.4 and we are still going straight on. There's just a slight kink in the road to the left up there and that will be the first deviation from our course in over 10 kilometres. ind you, the road looks like it goes zig-zagging a little over the hills in the distance so our straight might soon be coming to an end.

Take a look at the road surface. The last 20 or so kilometres have been for the most part just like this. It's quite encouraging, and I've been making good time along here. If the suspension on Casey had been a little more solid I could have come down here much quicker than I did.

The fuel situation is a little worrying and it's causing me just a little concern. The flow has stabilised and there doesn't seem to be any sign of leakage - the fuel gauge over the last 100 kilometres has been performing like it ususally does. I'm having major doubts about whether that guy in the fuel station back in Goose Bay who fuelled Casey while I was riding the porcelain horse has actually filled Casey's tank and not put half of the fuel "elsewhere".

See the taller pine trees just to the left of centre on this photograph, just above that rocky cutting? You can see where the road has curved round just at that particular point to start to come up here. I'm now climbing up that slope that you saw in the previous photograph and I'm at kilometre 268.8.

That straight went on for just over 12 kilometres and that's the longest length of straight road on the highway.

There's another hill to climb over at kilometre 273.6, and at the side of the road just here is what looks like a recreation area with a large lake in the background and a couple of caravans parked down there. all in all, rather scenic, I thought.

It may well be that these are road-workers' vehicles and this is where they stay when they are on duty, although the wind whistling across the lake can be pretty uncomfortable, I would imagine, for anyone living in a caravan.

And it would be nice if the weather were to brighten up a little. It's gone all overcast again after the little promising spell 30 minutes ago.

From up here on the rock bank at kilometre 274.7 the view across the road looks even more spectacular, and if the sun were to put in an appearance it would be spectacular. I've come from way over there in the mountains and while it was a long way from matching the rugged grandeur of the High Labrador Plateau or Upper Québec, it was quite a nice drive all the same.

If you have a close look at this photograph you will notice that we are slowly creeping back into deciduous trees again. All the shrubbery that is growing back on the edges of this road where they cleared away at the start of construction seems deciduous - or at least it was back down there in the valley a couple of kilometres back when I first noticed it. I can see one or two evergreens pushing their way through just here. We must be quite close to the climatic divide again, although it's nowhere near as dramatic as it was near Goose Bay on the Trans-Labrador Highway coming over from Churchill Falls.

The reason why I climbed up into the rocks just here was to take a look at this cross planted at the side of the road. It's to commemorate someone called Gerald Anthony, whoever he might be.

Information on him is rather scant but it appears that he was someone who had a great appreciation for Labrador, whatever that might mean. And I can certainly understand why he might want to be commemorated up here, given the view across the road.

A little notice on the cross says that we are at "kilometre 10". Unfortunately it doesn't tell us where kilometre 1 is, so you will have to work that out for yourself.

Now - this is quite a significant spot just here. We are at kilometre 283.4 and we are withing spitting distance of the turn-off for Cartwright. In the old days of course before this road was built, like last year for example, the Coastal Drive used to come up from Port Hope Simpson and head straight down to Cartwright, where you needed to board a ship for Goose Bay.

But add on 1 kilometre to this distance and you have 284.4. Take away 274.7 from Gerald Anthony's cross and you are left with 9.7 kilometres. So maybe that's the significance of "kilometre 10" back there - 10 kilometres from the highway as it was in the old days.

And poor Casey!

Right down behind me back there is the mountain range that I crossed at kilometre 277.4 (I made a note of the kilometres but there wasn't anything that you could call a view from the peak) and here I am at kilometre 284.2, just about to turn to go down the side road ( although you wouldn't have heard it called that last year!) to Cartwright.

And I hope that they have fuel there because this fuel situation is rather alarming and there's definitely something not right about it.

Right on cue, summoned up as if by magic, parked up on the corner of the highway just here was a friendly forest ranger. He confirmed that there was petrol to be had in Cartwright. That was fine by me - I was going that way.

And the tought did occur to me as I got back into Casey - where else in the world would anyone know what facilities are on offer in a small town 85 kilometres away?

And so, would you believe, that is the end of the new bit of highway. All 284.2 kilometres of it.

And you might be thinking that my task is finished. But not at all. There's loads more to come. Right now I'm off to Cartwright.

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