| Location: | St John's, Newfoundland |
Barbara, Nigel and I are in St John’s, Newfoundland. The Trans-Canada mission was completed yesterday when we rode up to Cape Spear, the most easterly point in the American Continent. With England only 3.5 hours ahead of us, we felt quite close to home ….
The phone started ringing and the reception area of the ‘Northern Lights’ Hotel in L’Anse-au-Clair, Labrador, went silent. The receptionist answered the phone and listened for a moment. There was a pregnant pause before she called out ‘The ferry’s comin’ folks!”
There was an eruption of activity, the massed throng in reception poured out the door and the car park was suddenly full of the sound of motorcycles, cars and pick-ups starting their engines. Vehicles poured down the road in the direction of the ferry port at Blanc Sablon.
Over the previous 24 hours, the port and its café had started to feel like a weird kind of home. Our bi-hourly trek from the hotel to the port, filled with anticipation of a much needed ferry ride, only to hear the staff say ‘update in two hours’, was becoming a depressing routine. The storm that had claimed Ann on the piste was still raging with high winds keeping the ferry stuck on the Newfoundland side of the Labrador Straits.
But now we were able to escape and two hours later the old steamer chugged and rolled its way into port, disgorging its cargo of cars and trucks before we thankfully finally parked our bikes in the bowels of the ship.
It was a rough hour and a half as we slowly steamed to St Barbe, Newfoundland, a long ride ahead of us to reach Rocky Harbour before it got dark and the road became a dangerous place due to Moose.
An incredible side wind kept us on our toes as we travelled in the deepening dusk, a low sun casting a pink light through scudding clouds, which illuminated Newfoundland’s ‘Long Range Mountains’ with a deep red light. Moose were starting to appear by the road-side. Daft looking creatures, who passively observed our passage.
We arrived in Rocky Harbour as the last light failed, our mission the following day to strike out for St John’s in one hit and catch up on our itinerary.
The 420 mile ride was excellent. Newfoundland has a very different feel to Labrador. The mountainous areas reminded us of Scotland, the heathlands of Ireland and the large Avalon Peninsular, where St John’s lies, the spitting image of Cornwall. This mix of terrain is reflected in people’s accents, with a mix of Irish and English West Country phraseology and nuances bound together by a local variation of the Canadian burr; a delight to listen to.
At first, our arrival in St John’s felt like an anti climax after so many weeks on the road. We were tired and checked into a ‘chain’ hotel on the outside of town, our plan to get some sleep before finding decent accommodation in town the following morning.
Daybreak brought torrential rain. Hurricane Danny had caught us and despite being downgraded to a ‘depression’ had enough vigour to lash St John’s with rain and high winds for the entire day. We decamped to ‘The Captain’s Quarters’, a hotel downtown that dates back to the 19th century, where we spent the day marooned by rain in our small apartment.
But sun had returned the following morning and rested and refreshed we arrived at Cape Spear, just outside St John’s in triumph to celebrate our Trans-Canada success. A whale surfaced and ‘blew’ just off the coast, as if to say ‘congratulations’.
So 6,700 miles and four weeks from Vancouver and we’ve achieved our goal. I’ll write more about what this means on my final update, but for now, we’re preparing for the final ride to Halifax Nova Scotia. Later today we catch an overnight ferry to our final province and will hopefully be in Halifax by tomorrow lunchtime. But for now, the three of us are still marvelling at the fact that we’ve ridden more than half way back to London.
Craig Carey-Clinch
St John’s, Newfoundland.
