Part Two - New Jersey to Trans-Labrador Highway and return

 

July 25, 2017 Rutland, VT, Rodeway Inn motel from Hell

Back on the road today. From Paramus, NJ (my sister) went straight north and a bit east to Rutland, Vermont. It should have been a pretty ride but it was grey with fog and occasional showers. Some of the trip was on I-87 and at times I thought this could be I-5 in Oregon. Probably there are unsubtle differences. Different tree species, different wild flowers, shale or limestone in the highway cuts instead of whatever it is in Oregon (granite?). And Oregon seemed to have a lot of steel trestle bridges over rivers where every other state just has concrete overpasses. But at interstate speeds subtleties of scenery tend to get lost.

The green mountains live up to their name even in grey, dismal weather. Their form is a lot like the mountains in Pennsylvania but seem more crowded without the broad central PA valleys. Actually, all of New England feels crowded to me after living so long in the west.

Pulled over briefly in Wallingford, VT to let some cars pass me and right across the road was this house looking like it was out of the Adams Family. The signs and power lines, not to mention the satellite saucer on the roof detract only a little from the effect.

Looking forward to tomorrow's ride up to Sherbrooke, QC. Much of the road will follow the Connecticut River on the Vermont - New Hampshire border.
And the weather should be good.

As for the motel, the first room stank of stale cigarette smoke so I asked to move. The second room smelled and looked better. Then I began discovering its problems. Shower hot water wouldn't turn off. No exhaust fan in the bathroom and as far as I could tell AC only recirculated air. Hairs in the shower stall. Frayed and tattered pull down shade. Table top clock didn't work. Bed sheets didn't look fresh. And best of all... when I turned down the bed a flea started jumping around. After that everything looked suspect.  I slept fitfully on my air mattress on the floor.

July 26, 2017  Sherbrooke, QC, Airbnb

Today's ride was as nice as I'd hoped. The terrain in that part of Vermont gives meaning to the phrase "over hill, over dale." US-4 over to White Water Junction and US-5 north from there. I seem to be hitting all the old low digit national highways. They are certainly more picturesque than the interstates. The only problems are a lot of slow local traffic in places and, this being snow country, there's a lot of summer road maintenance.  After crossing the border the landscape flattened out quite a bit. There seems to be a lot of dairy farming in this area (I'm in Sherbrooke, QC tonight).  Tomorrow on to Quebec City. This is a relatively short distance fortunately since rain is predicted. After tomorrow I'm likely to be offline for a week or so.

[[ US-5 follows the Connecticut River and border for a bit and features at least one significant hydroelectric dam. ]]

[[ Next week is from memory mostly as I was offline and not sending emails and didn't take notes. ]]

July 27, 2017  Quebec City, Airbnb, Notre-Dame-de-Foy

[[ Not much memory of the ride to Quebec City.  I do recall some wind crossing the Pont de I'lle d'Orleans over the St. Lawrence River.  I didn't get a good view of this suspension bridge until the next day.

Notre-Dame-de-Foy was a room in a university dorm booked through Airbnb. I have no recollection of where I ate and did not do any exploring in the evening.]]

 

Île d'Orléans Bridge

Same bridge but better view of St. Lawrence Seaway.

July 28, 2017  Manic 2 Campground

[[ This was a full day.  Rode through Quebec City getting lost at least once on its complex highways. Thereafter, followed 138 up along the St. Lawrence to Beau Comeau, then up 389 stopping at a camp ground near the Manic 2 dam. Manic is short for Manicougan River which has a series of hydroelectric dams.  The biggest is Manic 5 which I saw the next day.  It was the circular lake behind that dam which first caught my eye in a satellite view and led to discovering the Trans-Lab Highway as an interesting destination for a trip.]]

The road from Baie-Comeau to Manic 5 has great pavement but is crazy curvy and hilly. And not your usual little ups and downs. These are like a roller coaster climbing steeply to a blind crest and then plunging down often into a downward curve. You sometimes have the sense you are about to drive off a cliff. As the crest approaches you can see the valley floor beyond and way down but can't yet see the actual road that will get you there. Many of the roads in Quebec seem to be like that. Leaving Quebec City there was one amazing moment where the expressway crested as just described revealing the St. Lawrence Seaway stretched out seemingly a mile below.

The traffic north from Manic 5 seems to consist mainly of trucks, tourists like me including a lot of retirees in motor homes and mining related traffic in the northern part before the Quebec - Labrador border. South of Manic 5 I suspect
it gets a lot of thrill drivers and riders like the bunch from Quebec.

One thing that struck me odd about the dam was that there is no spillway. What? Then in the visitor center where there is a large model of the entire operation (see pic) it appeared that there is some kind of structure on the upstream side of the dam that may be used to regulate water level. However, I saw no explanation.

 July 29, 2017  Relais Gabriele

[[ I stopped at Manic 5 to take pictures and go in the visitor center which has some interesting displays.  

 

One thing that struck me odd about the dam was that there is no spillway. What? Then in the visitor center where there is a large model of the entire operation (see pic) it appeared that there is some kind of structure on the upstream side of the dam that may be used to regulate water level. However, I saw no explanation.

I didn't take the tour of the dam which is supposed to be very worthwhile.  Being unfamiliar with the road ahead I didn't want to tarry too long.  

 

The road continues as a steep set of dirt switchbacks at the east end of the dam.

There was a friendly group of bikers from Quebec out on a day ride.

 

The traffic north from Manic 5 seems to consist mainly of trucks and tourists like me, including a lot of retirees in motor homes. Farther north there is some mining related traffic before the Quebec - Labrador border. South of Manic 5 I suspect the road gets a lot of thrill drivers and riders like the bunch from Quebec.

Relais Gabriele is a small outfitter/restaurant/hotel near Lake Manicougan. It sits on the east side of the road. Rooms are upstairs beneath a steeply sloped roof.

I arrived too late for dinner so walked down to an estuary of the lake to cook.. There was nothing charming about the location.  There was a bit of trash and some people standing about waiting for something which turned out to be a single engine plane with pontoons. Evidently it was ferrying people and/or supplies to some location on the lake.  I also encountered the infamous black flies for the first time. I ate and went back up to the hotel to go to bed.

I should mention that Lake Manicougan was the genesis of this trip. I had spotted a circular lake on a google map and thought it looked like an impact crater.  From there it didn't take long to discover the Trans Labrador Highway as an enticing destination.  I imagine Lake Manicougan would be fun to explore by canoe, but not in black fly season.
]]

July 30, 2017  Churchill Falls

[[ Another day entirely from distant memory. I seem to remember a lot of this day.

Somehow when leaving Relais Gabriel I had fixed in my mind that the roadhouse was on the west side of the road.  Consequently, wishing to continue north I turned to the left.  Fortunately, after a minute or two I realized my mistake and headed back in the correct direection.

I have little memory of the scenery heading north other than that it was boggy and uninteresting. The road aternates  pavement and dirt.  The dirt section in the north before the road swings east into Labrador had an horrendous washboard.

North from Manic 5

Start of the unpaved section

Some wildflowers where I stopped to take that last picture above.

There was one heart-in-throat incident that I'll never forget.  It was a paved section and a semi-trailer was approaching in the opposite direction blocking my view of the narrow road. We passed each other and about one second later a large pickup overtook me and again blocked my view of the road ahead. He must have timed his move precisely.  In the one or two seconds the road was visible I noted that there was bridge up ahead. No big deal.  I continued behind the pickup.  When he reached the bridge he sped on across it without even slowing.  At that moment I realized that there was a stop sign which the pickup had ignored, that the bridge was single lane and unpaved, the driving surface consisting of two wooden tracks.

The couple of seconds before I reached the bridge replay in my mind in slow motion.  I got on the brakes hard. For a fateful instant I considered (if that's even what you do when operating at the edge of reaction time) whether to steer between the tracks which probably would have been disastrous (I realized later that the wooden tracks lay on something like railroad ties with just open air between them). Fortunately, I aimed for the track on the right side and got on at a slight angle managing to skitter across the 130 or so feet of the bridge without slipping off the wood.

Upon reaching the other side so much adrenaline had been released that it felt as though my heart was exploding out of my chest.  I suspect it was the closest I've ever come to a fear-induced heart attack.  I'll never understand why I didn't stop and walk back to inspect the bridge but I simply kept going grateful to be alive and waiting for my heart rate to return to normal.

This is that bridge.  This image is a screen grab from a video made by another rider around the same time.

389 eventually bends east at its northern end before running into the Newfoundland Labrador border.  Here the road runs past or through a surface mining operation.  I think this is part of the Mont-Wright mining operation which produces iron ore.  Shortly thereafter you cross into Labrador and the road becomes 500, "The Trans Lab."  Another 15 or 20 miles is Labrador City where I pulled over to look for lunch and, wonder of wonders, found a Subway. Those guys are everywhere.

The goal for the day was Churchill Falls where I had read there were at least a couple of places to get a room.  The black flies were now out in earnest.  Anytime I stopped, they were on me in an instant like a fog.  They get in through any crack in your clothing.  By the time I left Labrador I had rings of bites around my neck, wrists, ankles and waist.

A lot of the Trans-Lab between Labrador City and Goose Bay looks like this.  Arrow straight under a lowering sky through thin black spruce forest.

The road is raised on a bed of gravel.  Stepping off the roadway puts you either on exposed rock or knee deep in a spongy, peaty tangle.  Not an inviting landscape.

The black spruce here seems scraggly and thin.

Pulled into Churchill Falls and stopped at a gas station for fuel and to ask directions. There I encountered another rider. We chatted and he told me there was a group of three I might run into headed the same way.

It turned out one of the places I'd heard of was either closed or only rented by the month. Or both. Anyway, I set out to find the Gordon Center which it seemed is the only place in town with rooms and a restaurant.  (Churchill Falls, I learned later, is a company town run by Nalcor Energy.  It's pretty basic and doesn't cater to tourists although it gained fame on 9/11 when the residents opened their doors to accommodate stranded airline passengers.)  It might be interesting to visit the nearby hydroelectric plant at the falls on the Churchill River.  At the time I didn't know of that facility and wasn't interested in poking around due to the fly situation.

I regret that this is the only picture I took of Churchill Falls.

I got directions from a friendly and very pretty black girl on a bicycle, the only person out and about on the street. I wondered but didn't ask how African Canadians ended up in this little outpost in the wilderness.  She wore just a tank top and shorts and I should have asked how in hell she tolerated the black flies. Could it be that people who live around them for awhile develop a tolerance or even immunity? I think someone told me that once, though it sounds like a legend.

I got lucky and found one room available at the Center.  It was vacant only because someone had canceled.  It was either $150 or $200 Canadian, the most expensive room of the trip.  When I blanched the girl at the desk tilted her head and said you won't find cheaper anywhere in Labrador.  I've since realized a rule of thumb: as you travel north to increasingly remote areas prices go up.  This is not price gouging. It's simple economics.

I was too late for dinner in the restaurant so took my camp food and stove to a wooded area across the street.  In the parking lot I encountered the three riders mentioned earlier.  I proposed sharing my room but they decided to push on. ]]

July 31, 2017  Cartwright Junction roadside

In the morning I continued on toward Goose Bay.  I had checked online for accommodations and it appeared that everything was booked. The listings confirmed what the girl at the Gordon Center said about prices.  So, I decided I would eat lunch in Goose Bay, fuel up and continue to what appeared on maps to be a pullout where I could camp some 60 miles on.

Before heading into Goose Bay I took the requisite photo by the welcome sign, this being the furthest north easterly extent of the trip.

In town I found a small shopping center where I ran into the trio from yesterday.  They were shopping for a sleeping bag as one of them had lost his.  Apparently it shook loose on the horrific washboard section of 389 that I mentioned earlier.  I'm not sure where they were headed next.

After eating a sandwich it occured to me to buy a bug net of the kind that goes over your head.  This was a fateful smart move.

The next stretch of road to Port Hope Simpson is 240 miles without services and largely unpaved.  240 miles is right at the edge of my range on a good day. So I filled my 2 gallon spare fuel canister.

The initial unpaved miles were hard packed dirt and gravel and quite easy going. The surrounding terrain doesn't invite you to stop and wander.

The black smudges and dots are not UFO's.  They are tiny flies close to the camera lens.

 The Trans Lab follows Highway 510 south.  I pulled off at a "rest stop" near the junction with Highway 516 which runs to the village of Cartwright on the coast. As I recall the rest stop consisted of an area of dirt large enough to accommodate semi-trailers and a small kiosk with a map.  Two or three RV's and motor homes were parked but nobody was about.  There was ample evidence of truckers having relieved themselves and the black flies were like a mist.

I donned my new bug net and set about pitching my tent and then preparing something to eat.  Presently a man, also clad in netting, emerged from one of the motor homes to walk his dog.  We chatted a bit.  It seemed all the vehicles were occupied but everybody was staying in to avoid the flies.

Eventually, I dove into my tent accompanied by a few dozen flies.  I discovered that they seemed to be somewhat attracted to light. So, by placing a light at one end of the tent I was able to corral and slaughter most of them there. The remaining ate their fill of my blood over night.  Once zipped up the tent is sealed against insects, fortunately.

BTW, if anyone doubts just how thick in the air these flies can be, I later found several in my fuel tank.  Apparently, they flew in at a fueling stop during the minute or so the cap was off the tank.

August 1, 2017   Red Bay

Continuing south the road surface became increasingly difficult as the gravel topping was more and more recent.  I should mention that this road is dusty and when a semi goes by you are enveloped in a blinding cloud for a few seconds.

In the last miles before Port Hope Simpson and pavement the gravel was very fresh and I slowed to a near crawl.  At some point I noticed that the handlebars felt strange. Sort of loose. Possibly I didn't notice earlier due to the squirming motion of the bike in the deep gravel.  Finally I stopped to take a look and realized that one of the two nuts holding the bars onto the triple clamp had fallen off.  This could have been disastrous.  I rode the last couple miles to town in first gear while holding the right side of the bars in place with my hand.

The problem now was to find an 8mm replacement nut.  The small store attached to the one service station had no metric fasteners. But the mechanic invited me to look through his big drawer of dirty, crusty old fasteners.  Wonder of wonders, after half and hour of scrounging I found what I needed.

I remember nothing of the ride south to Red Bay except a feeling of relief at disaster averted.  I'd been envisaging hunkering down in Port Hope Simpson waiting for a replacement part to arrive.  In retrospect I suspect I would have come up with a workaround that would last long enough to get me to a large town with a well stocked hardware store.  Riding with a jerry rigged handlebar would have made me nervous so I'm happy that wasn't necessary.

The hotel in Red Bay was full as was its restaurant with people off a tour bus. I settled for an Airbnb.  The family, possibly sensing that I was hungry, invited me to have dinner with them.

Google informs me that Red Bay was named for some Red Cliffs which I could not see from my vantage point.  The bay served as a Spanish whaling port in the 16th century.  

This and the next two shots are a panorama looking south across Red Bay.
At this point I hadn't figured out that my phone's camera offered a "panorama" function.

If you zoom in and squint, you might be able to see a couple of icebergs drifting south off the coast.
Late afternoon and a pretty dark day.

August 2-3, 2017  Saint Barbe, NL, campground

August 4, 2017  Gateway to the North RV Park, Deer Lake, NL

August 5, 2017   Jala B&B, Clarenville, NL

August 6, 2017  Campground (Sunset RV Park) near Argentia ferry terminal

August 7, 2017   Ferry, Argentia, NL to N. Sydney, NS

August 8, 2017   Highland Motel, N. Sydney, NS

August 9, 2017   Airbnb, Moncton, NB

August 10, 2017  Airbnb, Bangor, ME

August 11, 2017  Brattleboro, VT, Motel 6

August 12-15, 2017  Paramus, NJ