TLH Trip Chapter Three

[blackgpz at rochester.rr.com]

We were going to spend 2 days in Newfoundland and catch the midnight ferry to Nova Scotia. The first day, Jim headed South to do some visiting, the rest of us headed North to see an historical Norse settlement from about 1000 AD. We were running along the coast and the weather blowing in off the ocean wasn't the best, 50 degrees F and drizzle. The settlement was quite interesting. There were several artifacts in the sod huts that were OK to handle. There was a Viking helmet that Mike put on. It looked so funny on him that some random woman took his picture. Then his phone rang and it was Rochester calling, they wanted their village idiot back! When I get the pics up, you'll see what I mean. We left the exhibit and decided to head inland rather than fight the weather along the coast again. Saw a few more moose and another black bear. If the plural of goose is geese, how come the plural of moose isn't meese? But I digress. We had almost made a complete loop to where we had started that morning. We were getting close on gas. I was on reserve and I saw Bruce in front of me reach for his petcock before I did. Suddenly, Bruce puts on his signal and pulls over to the side of the road, out of gas. I just get past him, pull in the clutch to stop and my engine dies, out of gas. Bill was leading (and getting the best mileage of the KLR's) and kept going. Mike was behind us thankfully because he had a 1 1/4 gallon gas can on his Beemer. He was pretty close on gas too so we split the gas 3 ways, fired 'em up and made it to the gas station. WHEW! The weather began to clear a bit and we headed South again along the Viking Trail that follows the Newfoundland coastline. There were some pretty spectacular views of unique rock formations, cliffs and the ocean. The Viking Trail had the best scenery of the whole trip IMO. We thought about camping but it didn't look like the weather was going to cooperate so we grabbed a motel. For $40, we weren't going to set-up/break camp in the rain.
The second day dawns without any rain and we continue our way down the Viking Trail. We ride for a couple hours before stopping for breakfast in a cafe/gift shop. They had Moose Soup on the menu but none of us tried it as it was a little too early in the day! Around noon it started raining again and it was still raining when we stopped for dinner at another small cafe recommended by someone at the gas station. Our meal of fresh, pan-fried cod and homemade pie for dessert was by far the best meal of the trip. It stops raining by the time we leave the cafe and we make our way to Port-Aux Basques to check in for the ferry. We get our tickets and pull into the loading area and Jim's bike is already there. We park and go into the terminal only to find out the ferry is going to be delayed 2-4 hours later than the scheduled midnight departure. Crap. There's a large waiting area with a TV. We try and catch 40 winks while we're waiting. The ferry ends up being only about an hour late. We weren't able to get any berths so we'll all be sleeping in recliners. We get loaded on the ferry and stake out our "beds". My stomach has been doing sommersaults for the last couple hours and the smell of diesel fumes in the cabin isn't helping any. Nobody slept well and I didn't sleep at all because I was in the bathroom all night. The others had breakfast on the boat, I passed. At 7:00 AM, we ride off the ferry into North Sydney, Nova Scotia.

More later.

Steve