 | THE TRANS-LABRADOR HIGHWAY 2010 |
| THE TRANS-LABRADOR HIGHWAY 2010 |
THE LABRADOR COASTAL DRIVE PART IV
Here we all are, back on the Labrador Coastal Drive, not the Labrador Coastal Highway as I have been calling it. I was misinformed.
If you think that we are facing the wrong way, you are right. We came over from Goose Bay yesterday but I thought it might be a good idea to take a photo of the road sign back to where we came from so that you have an idea of the distances you have to travel.
This photograph has several symbolic significances in many respects, seeing as Casey and I have driven all of those roads in the last two days. But some might think that the photo is just sym, whereas others might think that it's ... err ... some other things.
And "roads" is something of a loose description too. At one point in the proceedings I described some of them as "sub-arctic farm tracks" and I am not going to change my opinion. Of course, you would never tell the state of the roads just by looking at Casey would you?
Now if you arrived here by chance, you may well have missed the route to Goose Bay, but I've just given you the link for that. You might also have missed Highway 516 - the Metis Trail down to Cartwright, and it's not advisable to miss this trip as it really is a most beautiful road . And then you would also have missed Cartwright itself and that's never a good idea as I really enjoyed my visit to that small town
But right now, I'm off southwards - next stop Port Hope Simpson. A quick check reveals that where I rejoined the highway just here is at 88.6 kilometres on Casey's tripmeter (I zeroed it when I fuelled up at Cartwright this morning) and so what I'll be doing is giving you any measurements along the route, as recorded by Casey but minus 88.6.
The first object of note may be found at 1.1 kilometres along the highway, and it was some kind of highway maintenance depot.
And while I'm thinking about what I need to say about it I am distracted by a milepost. This reads 350 kilometres and corresponds to 91.7 on Casey's tripmeter. I imagine that that is 350 kilometres from the Québec border and it will be decreasing as Casey's tripmeter reading increases, and of course 350 kilometres corresponds with my "true" reading of (91.7-88.6) 3.1 kilometres.
I'll need to bear all of this in mind
And so back to the highways depot and once again I'm further distracted by a bigger highways depot just about 1 kilometre after the milepost. These highways depots are quite confusing. I suppose this means that we will be expecting major roadworks somewhere in the vicinity.
I recall something that suggests that there was no road to Cartwright until 2002. Is that when this road was built? But of course having seen graders and the like working on a road that was only 9 months old and deteriorating rapidly I suppose it's no surprise.
At 12.8 kilometres we cross the South West Feeder Paradise River. Such romantic names that they have around here. Paradise River is the river that flows into the head of Sandwich Bay of course and I suppose that this is simply an arm of that river.
I've been following the river for a while and then the road starts to climb up out of the valley onto a ridge. There's a good place to stop at 17.9 kilometres where I can take a photograph of the valley, the road that I have driven up and the really nice scenery.
The day today is grey and depressing, but not as depressing as the last couple of days, that's for sure. The road surface is in reasonable condition for a mountain road in Labrador, though. I've seen far worse than this. Finally, just in case you need to be reminded, there's a 70 kilometre per hour speed limit along this road.
I've noticed that all along the highway they've been systematically clearing away the vegetation from the side of the road. Now I don't know if I mentioned it before, but I have discovered the reason for that. It is to give motorists a better chance of spotting moose as they (the moose, not the motorists) approach the edge of the highway.
And by spotting moose, I don't mean for photography purposes, and not for chatting to them either - something that will disappoint Strawberry Moose , who is sitting quietly in the passenger seat next to me waiting for an opportunity to meet more members of his extended family. And not for colliding with them either, but actually so that motorists will have a better chance of avoiding them.
The number of people involved in collisions with moose is starting to worry the government. The costs of moose - vehicle collisions are proving to be something of a strain on the local economy and and so there's some kind of campaign going on to encourage an awareness of the consequences of such a collision.
Having myself hit a moose-type animal in a car in New Brunswick in 2003 "and I bet you didn't even know that moose could drive" ...ed and having had a Swedish friend who was imprisoned in her car for 18 hours by the weight of a dead moose on top of the passenger compartment, I can vouch for the dangers.
It seems that the thing to do when you are driving up here is that if you see a moose on the highway up here, you stop the next car that you see coning your way and inform the occupants. Not that that would do much good up here. I seem to recall that I drove for over 100 kilometres yesterday on the new road before I saw a vehicle coming towards me. A moose could travel a long way in that time.
But back to the road again, I've seen some places where they have been building ditches and high banks at the side of the roads. I suppose that they might be for the purpose of slowing up the moose as they try to cross the roads
That little musing about moose brought me quite a long way along the highway and I'm awoken from my reverie at 27.6 kilometres by a sign telling me that Port Hope Simpson is 76 kilometres away. Although I am indeed going on to there, it isn't straight away because I'm making a deviation from the route and going for a look around Charlottetown and the romantically-named Pinsent's Arms.
And then I realise that it wasn't actually the sign that woke me up - it was the state of the road. Just before the sign it suddenly deteriorated dramatically and it's knocking me around quite a lot. Still, it's nowhere near as bad as some of the bad sections on the Trans-Labrador Highway between Labrador City and Goose Bay. They were absolutely awful, as I'm sure you will recall.
The road signs are coming thick and fast round here just now. We find a mile marker for 290 kilometres - that is 60 kilometres from the previous marker and so I would expect Casey's tripmeter to be showing (91.7+60=151.7) kilometres. In fact Casey's reading is 120.2, which is 31.6 kilometres along the highway, and so there's clearly something not right. I bet they are making up these figures as they go along.
On the other hand, I might have misread the previous milepost and I should have reported 320 kilometres. That is because I do recall when I was on The Metis Trail yesterday that I passed milepost 340 at 16.9 kilometres along the highway, and that kind of figure would work out right.
Anyway I'm not going back to look because at kilometre 33.9 the condition of the highway picks up again and I'm making good progress here.
At kilometre 37.7 I stumble upon a whole mountainside that seemed to have been totally cleared of trees a couple of years ago. There are some small ones just a couple of feet high that have grown back.
I couldn't restrain myself at this point and burst out into a chorus of "I'm a lumberjack, I'm okay". Well, there wasn't anyone around for miles to listen to my awful singing and we've been having bucketsful of rain whether I've been singing or not. What's a few more buckets compared to the deluge of the day before yesterday as I left Labrador City ?
And the lady who lives in the sat-nav is confused again. It seems that the highway is not where it is plotted to be on the map, and nothing like it either.
Bearing in mind that the road was only opened in 2002, so I was informed, it's either an arbitrary line drawn on an arbitrary map by someone who didn't really think that it mattered - it's not as if there's any other road up here to cause any confusion, or else it's been one of those Blazing Saddles
Zooming out the display, I find that the mapped road is over half a mile over to the left of where I am right at the moment. Perhaps there's a secret nuclear installation along this road just here and the offsetting of the map is done deliberately to confuse any satellite-guided missiles.
Having stopped where I did to take that photograph of the cleared forest, I started up Casey and drove off, totally unprepared for the view that was to greet me not even 100 metres away at the crest of the ridge.
This is really quite spectacular just here - the best piece of scenery since I rejoined the Labrador Coastal Drive earlier this morning. I'm looking vaguely south-eastish, which is the direction that I'm going. Blanc Sablon and the ferry to Newfoundland is several hundred kilometres in that direction and that's the way that I shall be leaving Labrador.
Having overcome my surprise I set off again and descend into the valley. The vegetation starts to change down there and by the time I reach kilometre 43.4 I'm back amongst all the mosses, lichens and stunted pines of the sub-arctic tundra. I've left the more-temperate maritime climatic zone.
It must have been a fire down here somewhere at some time that inspired Edward Blake to write poetry. Hence his famous
"Taiga taiga burning bright ..."
but while we are on the subect of Edward Blake, what a lousy poet he was. Fancy writing something like
"what immortal hand or eye
could break thy glorious symmetry"
Anyone else, even if they have no pretensions to poetry at all, will know that
"what immortal hand or knee"
makes a much better rhyme.
I'm being constantly surprised along this section of the road, and what is surprising me right now is that there is something weird, round and gold up there in the sky. I vaguely remember something like that being up there once but that was so long ago now that I've forgotten what it was.
There are also some blue bits in the sky too amongst the habitual grey clouds. Fancy that!
And at kilometre 49.9 I encounter a grader - or at least, the traces on the road where the grader has been working. The machine itself is at kilometre 51.8. I was going to take a photo of it if it was one of those with inclined front wheels, but this one had the more regular vertical ones.
Now at 42.7 kilometres there's a sign telling me that I'm 50 kilometres from Port Hope Simpson. Add those two together and you arrive at 92.7 kilometres. At 27.6 kilometres Port Hope Simpson was 76 kilometres away and that makes 103.6 kilometres so there's clearly something wrong either with these signposts or with my addition and subtraction.
I drive over another ridge, this one being at kilometre 54, and there's another quite impressive view of mountains on the skyline. This road has some really wonderful scenery and I'm starting to appreciate this drive very much.
Over there in the distance, right in the centre of the photograph that looks like a road in the foothills of those mountains. That must be where I am headed and if so I'm going to enjoy that. I reckon that the view will be quite spectacular from there.
Have a look at the vegetation. We have the pine trees of course but they have now reverted to a larger size and we are back in the deciduous scrubland. We seem to have left the tundra behind for the moment.
At kilometre 61.6 I reckon that I am somewhere round about halfway up the road that you saw in the distance on the previous photograph, so I stop Casey, alight and take a photograph down to where I was just then when I took that photograph. You can see the road way over there on the left of the image.
I was rather hoping that at the summit there would be an even more spectacular view but I was disappointed on this occasion. But never mind, you can't win a coconut every time.
I was quietly musing to myself as I drove around up here - it's a bad habit of mine and I do it far too often. At the moment while I'm in North America I've been following the gridiron and I was speculating that if they had a gridiron team in here in Labrador, would they play with a wide retriever?
I'll get my coat.
And thinking about Pinsent's Arms, will I be able to buy a pint of Boddy's there? And don't you laugh at that idea either. Back in 2003 when I was wandering around Charlottetown - the one on Prince Edward Island, not the one just here, I hasten to add, I actually did find a bar selling Boddington's beer. I was just as surprised then as you are now.
Here in the deciduous scrub (and yes, it is deciduous scrub too) at kilometre 69.5 is a pick-up bed camper body. It's up on its stilts and there's a large grey box, which might be either painted wood or painted metal underneath it.
It was here that the penny dropped and I began to realise that they might be workmen's huts for the people like the grader drivers and so on who work up here. If they are working up here, it's a long way to commute to and from home and the weather can be absolutely awful in the winter.
There's another milepost too - it's the 250-kilometre mark. 40 kilometres ago at the 290-kilometre mark, Casey's tripmeter was reading 120.2 kilometres. Here, Casey is showing 159.2 kilometres. I have been doubling back on occasion and so I would expect the difference to increase not decrease so something is still not quite right, but at least it's in the same area.
Ah-ha! Here we are at kilometre 84.2 and the turn-off to Charlottetown Islands and Coves is just one kilometre ahead. Pinsent's Arms is also down there too and so that's the way I shall be heading.
The name of Pinsent's Arms does rather remind me of the story about the person wandering around London's Whitehall area in the early days of 1649 looking for a pub. He approached a local citizen and asked him
"Tell me, my good man - where might I find the King's Head?"
"Why, Sir, it be over there in yon basket"
Pinsent's Arms sounds like it might have something to do with a series of amputations after having been hit with a Minié ball during the American Civil War.
OK - I'll get my coat.
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