What?! Turn around?!?
The innacurate and very subtle starting point of the Trans-Canada Highway Day 13: Port-aux-Basques ~ St. John's (923km)
Well, the picture above says it all. After 13 days, we have arrived at Canada’s easternmost point, St. John’s, Newfoundland. Going any further east would require a prop and some serious waterproofing for Andrew’s car. Amazing, since just 3 years ago we were standing at the mile 0 marker in Victoria, BC.
The ferry ride from North Sydney last night was on board the MV Caribou, Marine Atlantic’s flagship passenger and vehicle ferry. A vessel of monstrous proportions, it held 350 cars one deck above God knows how many transport trucks, and still the passenger decks seemed sparsely populated. Most went straight to bed in cabins, dormitories, lounges, and booths, thus stealing the tables with nearby sockets from battery-dead laptop-toting idiots like me, behind by a day or two on their trip blogs. Geez, what I do for you…
After we hit the hay in our pre-booked bunks, the crossing passed rather quickly (for those that managed to sleep), and we greeted both the sun and the Rock simultaneously as we docked in Port-aux-Basques around 7:15AM. Our first thought was to make a brief stop to see the town, but fortunately, before pulling off, reason got the better of us. We were fairly near the front of the boat as we disembarked, in front of the aforementioned hundreds of cars and transport trucks, and with 900 kilometres of mostly single-lane highway between us and St. John’s, we couldn’t afford to spend a day stuck behind a trail of traffic.
The landscape in and around Port-aux-Basques is stunning: massive, hulking rock mountains sticking up from the ground against the pale blue sky, and as we drove further, we had this sight on one side, with the sun just peeking up over it, and the ocean on the other. It was a crisp 3C at points early on and you could see the frosted evergreen trees glittering in the morning sun.
Let’s fast-forward now. Four hundred and seventy-eight kilometres of forest-filled nothingness later, we stopped for lunch and gas in Newfoundland’s third biggest city (if you can even call it that), Grand Falls-Windsor. We deduced that statistic simply by the size and shape of the letters on the road map – not very scientific but probably accurate. Grand Falls, Newfoundland and Grand Falls, New Brunswick share the same feature of having nothing to recommend them to the passing traveller. The only difference is that at least the New Brunswick counterpart actually has waterfalls – we saw none here in the Newfoundland one.
It was Sunday, and in Grand Falls, Nfld., that means one thing: church and then Tim Horton’s. We arrived in what we determined to be the centre of town (simply by virtue of driving all over the rest of town and finding nothing else) just before the church crowd descended en masse (pardon the pun) on Timmy’s, swamping the staff and carrying the line far out the door, where the drive-thru traffic was already backed up to the street. We were sure at least a quarter of the town’s population was there.
During our very brief stay, we also saw people in shorts and sandals on a 14C day, kids still with rat tails, the intersection of Main St. and Main St., and a grocery store with an identity crisis (see photo). Yes, this is Newfoundland, and things are different here.
After lunch we pressed on for 400 more kilometres of highway cut through wilderness, passing turnoffs for towns such as Goobies, Dildo, Deep Bight and Come by Chance (all of which, I suppose, could have some kind of sexual connotation). Seeing Dildo reminded me of French friends and their town named Condom. Seems like a perfect twinning in the making.
We arrived in St. John’s and drove the Trans-Canada Highway right to the end in search of the kilometre 0 marker. It’s a little known fact that the glorious Trans-Canada Highway does not end at the ocean, nor at a grand square and sign indicating mile 0, but instead at the Robin Hood Bay Landfill Station on the outskirts of St. John’s. Disappointing, but we did find the symbolic yet humble (some might say unnoticeable) plaque in front of city hall, where we took today’s photo of the day.
While St. John’s is larger than I expected, there still doesn’t seem to be a whole to do here, unless you’re heavily into the local fishing industry history. We may check out something mysterious called ‘The Fluvonium’ if we get so bored that we don’t know what else to do. God help us if it rains.
The ferry ride from North Sydney last night was on board the MV Caribou, Marine Atlantic’s flagship passenger and vehicle ferry. A vessel of monstrous proportions, it held 350 cars one deck above God knows how many transport trucks, and still the passenger decks seemed sparsely populated. Most went straight to bed in cabins, dormitories, lounges, and booths, thus stealing the tables with nearby sockets from battery-dead laptop-toting idiots like me, behind by a day or two on their trip blogs. Geez, what I do for you…
After we hit the hay in our pre-booked bunks, the crossing passed rather quickly (for those that managed to sleep), and we greeted both the sun and the Rock simultaneously as we docked in Port-aux-Basques around 7:15AM. Our first thought was to make a brief stop to see the town, but fortunately, before pulling off, reason got the better of us. We were fairly near the front of the boat as we disembarked, in front of the aforementioned hundreds of cars and transport trucks, and with 900 kilometres of mostly single-lane highway between us and St. John’s, we couldn’t afford to spend a day stuck behind a trail of traffic.
The landscape in and around Port-aux-Basques is stunning: massive, hulking rock mountains sticking up from the ground against the pale blue sky, and as we drove further, we had this sight on one side, with the sun just peeking up over it, and the ocean on the other. It was a crisp 3C at points early on and you could see the frosted evergreen trees glittering in the morning sun.
Let’s fast-forward now. Four hundred and seventy-eight kilometres of forest-filled nothingness later, we stopped for lunch and gas in Newfoundland’s third biggest city (if you can even call it that), Grand Falls-Windsor. We deduced that statistic simply by the size and shape of the letters on the road map – not very scientific but probably accurate. Grand Falls, Newfoundland and Grand Falls, New Brunswick share the same feature of having nothing to recommend them to the passing traveller. The only difference is that at least the New Brunswick counterpart actually has waterfalls – we saw none here in the Newfoundland one.
It was Sunday, and in Grand Falls, Nfld., that means one thing: church and then Tim Horton’s. We arrived in what we determined to be the centre of town (simply by virtue of driving all over the rest of town and finding nothing else) just before the church crowd descended en masse (pardon the pun) on Timmy’s, swamping the staff and carrying the line far out the door, where the drive-thru traffic was already backed up to the street. We were sure at least a quarter of the town’s population was there.
During our very brief stay, we also saw people in shorts and sandals on a 14C day, kids still with rat tails, the intersection of Main St. and Main St., and a grocery store with an identity crisis (see photo). Yes, this is Newfoundland, and things are different here.After lunch we pressed on for 400 more kilometres of highway cut through wilderness, passing turnoffs for towns such as Goobies, Dildo, Deep Bight and Come by Chance (all of which, I suppose, could have some kind of sexual connotation). Seeing Dildo reminded me of French friends and their town named Condom. Seems like a perfect twinning in the making.
We arrived in St. John’s and drove the Trans-Canada Highway right to the end in search of the kilometre 0 marker. It’s a little known fact that the glorious Trans-Canada Highway does not end at the ocean, nor at a grand square and sign indicating mile 0, but instead at the Robin Hood Bay Landfill Station on the outskirts of St. John’s. Disappointing, but we did find the symbolic yet humble (some might say unnoticeable) plaque in front of city hall, where we took today’s photo of the day.
While St. John’s is larger than I expected, there still doesn’t seem to be a whole to do here, unless you’re heavily into the local fishing industry history. We may check out something mysterious called ‘The Fluvonium’ if we get so bored that we don’t know what else to do. God help us if it rains.
posted by CHRIS at 10:54 p.m.
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