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LABRADOR COASTAL DRIVE - THE 2nd 100 KMs

I'm continuing with the measurements based on my calculations (because the measurements of the Newfoundland and Labrador Highways Department are making no sense at all right now).

At 102.7 kilometres I come to an armco barrier at the side of the track - or rather, some of an armco barrier because someone has taken a huge whack down the side of it and dislodged quite a large portion. I wouldn't have liked to have seen their vehicle afterwards - or perhaps maybe I would. But I wonder what they were trying to do when they hit that.

Of course, what immediately springs to mind is "trying to avoid a moose" but I don't know. One thing I do know though is that you need to treat moose with a great deal of caution around here. They are big and heavy and with their centre of gravity being so high, a car hitting one at speed will just wipe out the legs and the big heavy body will fall on the passenger compartment, to the detriment of the passengers inside. This kind of thing is happening all the time.


Almost immediately I start to climb up and up into another range of mountains, going steadily up and up. And at this stage I'm joined, by of all things, the sun. What a pleasant surprise. Mind you, it has been threatening for the last half hour or so.

And exactly as I foretold, I haven't seen any mileposts since that one solitary post ages ago. They aren't making things easy for anyone down this road.

lake and boulders scenery labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

We still keep rolling along heading due south east. By now we are on top of the plateau and at 111.8 kilometres we encounter yet another huge lake. I saw some statistics to suggest that between 25 and 50% (now that's what I call Scientific precision!) of the Eagle Plateau is made up of water and they might be right too.

They also say that the region is covered in a " hummocky, bouldery, sandy morainal veneer" (how about that for pretentious prose?) and in this photo you can see many of the boulders poking up out of the surface of the shallow lake.


depot road mender construction camp labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

We've noticed the odd bit of roadworks along the highway every so often and so it goes without saying that there must be a home for everything around here. At kilometre 114.7 I stumble across some kind of construction camp, so this is clearly where it all happens.

But what on earth has happened to the old school bus? Its been knocked around quite a bit, hasn't it? It looks like it's even been on its roof at some point in the proceedings.


Several kilometres ago or whenever it was, I started talking about how I was coming up onto yet another plateau. But that wasn't all as at approximately kilometre 121 we reach the top of yet another rise. And then, just for a change, there'a another one after that. We are continually climbing and climbing and climbing around here and if I had thought on, I would have checked the altitude on the sat-nav. We must have been quite high here.


But then, equally dramatically, at kilometre 122 we reach the top and plunge downhill. This really must be the interior as the weather has dramatically changed too and it is absolutely teeming down with rain on this side of the mountains.

rough road icy rain labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

This photograph was taken at kilometre point 124.8 and that's the road that I have just travelled along. The temperature has now dropped to a mere 1° and we are experiencing that icy rain that might easily turn to snow. You can see in this pic just how much of it is coming down.

You will also remember me talking about how they built the roads up here too - just dropping huge tubes into the streams and banking the earth over the top. There are a couple of good examples in this photograph. It's a far cheaper way than building bridge after bridge after bridge but I am not convinced about the lifespan of these tubes.


bad weather snowing rough road labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

Well, it didn't take long. we are now at kilometre 126.4 and it is snowing in spades. And up in the distance I can see some orange flashing lights. Not likely to be a breakdown here of course, and so my money is on roadworks of some kind - maybe a grader, judging by the mound of gravel in the centre of the road..

And although that looks like fog or mist in the distance, it isn't. It's buckets and buckets of snow falling down.


grader heavy snow labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

So with a mega-magnification of a part of the above photo to produce this image, you can see that I was right. It is a grader busily grading away down there.

One thing that I have noticed about some of the graders that I have seen is that they have inclined front wheels. And a close inspection of this photo reveals that this one is one such like. I've no idea why they have their wheels like that. It's a most peculiar arrangement.

Something else you will notice is the amount of snow that is falling. It's quite impressive.


road sign happy valley churchill falls labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

Just as dramatically as it started to snow, then equally dramatically the sun put in a welcome appearance - just as I found myself by another pair of road signs. We are at kilometre 134 and Happy Valley (spelt ... err ... differently this time) is 143 kilometres away.

The previous road sign was at about kilometre 85, and that announced that Happy Valley was at ... err ... 85 kilometres away and so in travelling 49 kilometres per Casey the distance to Happy Valley diminished by ... err ... 58 kilometres. Clearly something isn't right.


road sign cartwright port hope simpson l'anse au loup labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

On the other side of the road, Cartwright is a mere 237 kilometres away. 49 kilometres ago per Casey, Cartwright was at 296 kilometres away, a difference of ... err ... 59 kilometres.

Either Casey's tripmeter is up the chute, some of these roadsigns are in the wrong place, or someone is moving these cities around. There is of course the techtonic plate theory, that suggests that the continents are not fixed in their places but move around, but not even I will believe that Gondwanaland has shifted from Mu by 10 kilometres in just 9 months.

And to add fuel to the fire, I told you ages ago that the next right turning was at 5.2 kilometres. It's still 5.2 kilometres away and we must have driven more than 100 kilometres since I made that observation. Maybe the lady who lives in there has gone back to sleep. I have to say that there hasn't been a great deal of excitement up to present and I'm not far off dozing off.

Mind you, you can see exactly what the road has been like simply by taking a look at Casey. He's thoroughly filthy.


Just a matter of a couple of hundred metres after those signs, we drive over a causeway through the middle of a peat bog. How thrilling!


huge dump truck labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

The next object or objects to attract my attention were a couple of huge dumper trucks parked at the side of the road at kilometre 139.5 next to a plant-moving trailer and there's a few of them just here. These aren't anything as huge as the ones I saw the other day out at Fermont but they are big nevertheless.

I reckon that they are round about the same size as the ones I encountered on the highway handling a load of quarried stone as I drove from Churchill Falls to Goose Bay.


huge dump truck komatsu labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

What is intriguing me about these machines is that they are made by Komatsu - a Japanese company - as is most of the machinery used on the Trans-labrador Highway. Komatsu is said to be the second-biggest manufacturer of earthmoving machinery, behind Caterpillar, an American company. And so as long as people and even Governments are prepared to export their jobs, their tax receipts, their profits and their dividends, then unemployment throughout North America will continue to rise and the industrial base will continue to collapse.

Komatsu is Japanese for Small Pine Tree and we've seen plenty of them on our journey. Maybe that's the connection.


construction depot road mender labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

A quick glance across the road and I see some cabins and offices and plenty of parking space. So what's going on then? Is it a Highways depot or a quarry?. And there's also a few caravans parked at the end of the parking space too. I'm beginning to understand the significance of these, I reckon.

But no matter what it is, it's in a quite beautiful setting as there's a beautiful lake right behind it.


road contruction depot triple bay workshop labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

And a quick glance further round across the road and there's a transport depot of sorts - a nice big triple-bayed plant workshop with a modern bungalow presumably used as offices, a fuel tanker, and a heavy lorry presumably delivering stuff to the site.

And we talked about the big tubes that are used for drainage and for bridge culverts around here. Here's a prime example. They are laid at the bottom of the gully or into the stream and the soil is banked up over them to make a road.


long straight road good surface labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

At kilometre 146.2 (and I made a careful note of it) I hit a long straight road that just went on and on and on like an arrow. I stopped at kilometre 152.6 and took a photograph of the route behind me and you can see exactly what I mean by this.

Another thing that you will note is the surface of the highway. This section from where the straight begins is certainly the best section on any part of all of the highways that I have travelled on since leaving Baie Comeau. These roads are signposted at 70 kilometres per hour but down this straight, well, let's just say that I am making up for lost time, blowing the cobwebs out of Casey, and increasing my average speed. It's no exaggeration to say that a good car could do double the 70 kilometres speed limit down here, if it were permitted to do so, of course.

The straight comes to an end at kilometre 154.5 as there is a very slight right-hand curve, and then we have another bit of straight. That was impressive, that bit of road.


abandoned quarry labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

Another thing I've been noticing every so often along the Labrador Coastal Highway is the quantity of abandoned or worked-out quarries. This one, at kilometre 166.8, is probably the best one so far.

I don't know whether they have been worked for the stone to build the highway or whether they were exploited prior to the highway's arrival. It's hard to think what major construction project has been up here that would have needed the stone.


Something else I noticed, and which has given me quite a fright, is that I'm down to half a tank of fuel - and that's at 198 kilometres, or 174.3 kilometres around the highway. This is bewildering - I've had Casey for three weeks and I've been keeping an eye on the fuel consumption and half a tank on the gauge is usually at about 300 kilometres.

The fuel consumption meter is showing about 11.5 litres per 100 kilometres which is excessive but no so much so that I need to worry. On a really good highway it's hovering around the 9-9.5 mark and I would expect a higher consumption around here. I hope that I haven't sprung a leak in the tank or damaged the fuel line by throwing up a stone underneath the car - I've heard a few hit the floor underneath.

I'm going to be up the creek if I start having fuel issues along here. This is the longest stretch on the whole circuit without a fuel stop.


impressive abandoned quarry labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

And talking of impressive quarries, there are some more impressive than others and just after one takes a photo of the best so far, one that is even better looms onto the horizon.

This one, a huge gash right out of the side of the mountain, is at kilometre 181.2. You can see it from miles away and it looked impressive even at a distance. In fact, when I first saw it, I thought that the highway was going right on up there.

Stopping here gave me an opportunity to have a look at Casey. There are no damp patches underneath the car and there is no smell of petrol. And so, as the fuel consumption isn't all that excessive, where has the petrol gone?


road sign happy valley goose bay churchill falls labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

We encounter more road signs at kilometre 186.4. The last ones that we encountered were at kilometre 134 and so we have travelled 52.4 kilometres per Casey's tripmeter.

Happy Valley (spelt correctly this time) is 195 kilometres away, and so on the previous sign you would be expecting to see it at about 142 or 143 kilometres. And it is indeed at 143 kilometres and so they may well have positioned this sign in the right place, and that would be a first.


road sign cartwright port hope simpson l'anse au loup labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

Here's the sign for the direction in which I am travelling, and you can see that Casey is becoming filthier and filthier the further I travel down here. And you will also note that while the names on the sign across the road are spelt correctly, the phantom signwriter has struck over here this time. Clearly someone with a sense of humour and with nothing better to do has been engaged to make the road signs.

Cartwright is 185 kilometres away from here according to the sign and so you would expect it to have been at 237 or 238 kilometres away on the previous sign - and just like across the road, that is correct too. I've no idea what is happening here.


Just a little further on - at kilometre 188.3 to be precise - I note that I seem to be in some kind of bowl. As far as I can see around the perimeter of my vision I can see the summits of various ridges and the peaks of various mountains. Mind you, there isn't a really good view of the horizon through the trees.

There are also several graders to keep me company but why anyone needs to grade the highway around here I really do not know. I've travelled much worse roads than this.

wide expanse peat string bog labrador coastal drive highway 510 happy valley goose bay l'anse au loup forteau canada october octobre 2010

What the prime item of landscape around here is of course the forest but every so often there is nothing but huge expanses of open ... err ... nothingness, like a kind of marshy boggy weird grass type of landscape just like that one there. I wonder if this is the "string bog" that the Eagle Plateau Management Centre people are so proud of.

Of course these expanses of nothingness may be combined with weird shallow lakes such as the one here at kilometre 194.9.


There's a long gradual downhill slope just after here and the view is for miles. And away in the far distance I notice another vehicle moving in the same direction as yours truly. A truck, I think.

And do you know - this is the first moving vehicle that I have seen since I've been on the Labrador Coastal Highway.

Slowly I overhaul the vehicle and note that it is in fact a car towing a large trailer. And as I close up I see that the car is in fact a large pickup. It's exciting meeting someone else up here.


But nothing anywhere near as exciting as what was about to happen next.



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