June 22-26, 2019 - Halifax to North Sydney to Port Aux Basques

June 22-26, 2019

June 22

This morning greeted us with overcast skies but it was dry and relatively warm (around 15 degrees) so we ate a quick breakfast with Linda and Ross and they drove to the Privateers Harley Dealership to pick up our bikes. We had dropped them the day before for a service and Lynn needed a new front tire. 

We grabbed our bikes, went back to the house, packed up and said our goodbyes. It was hard to leave but Linda and I promised we wouldn’t wait another 25 years before we see each other again. 

Off we went towards our destination of North Sydney. We had reservations for the 11:45 PM sailing to Port Aux Basques, Newfoundland, but we found out late last night that our sailing had been cancelled due to this storm and high winds. It was rescheduled for tomorrow at 11:45 AM so we still needed to get to North Sydney today as we have to check in two hours early. 

We did OK until Truro. The roads were good, the weather dry and not too much traffic so we made some good headway for the first leg. Alas, it was after leaving Truro that things fell apart. Dark clouds started to gather and by the time we hit New Glasgow, the rain started and the temperature dropped. We pulled into a Tim Horton’s to warm up and regroup. 

After piling on some more layers, we headed out towards Antigonish and ended up stopping there again because we were so cold and wet. At this point, it was about 9 degrees and hammering rain. On a motorbike, for me anything under 10 degrees is just plain miserable and the overall wretchedness factor goes up exponentially if you add rain to the mix. It sky rockets when you also add wind and that’s what awaited us as we hit the Bras d’Or Lake region. 

Mother of God.

What we didn’t know was that we had been skirting the edges of this storm heading north but we really got introduced to it as we headed towards Cape Breton. The rain came down in stair rods, so fast and thick, the drops bounced off the pavement and the wind gusts were so strong, at times, I was riding on an incline into it. It would push you around and we had to be careful about staying in our lanes. All eyes were peeled for stretches of highway that suddenly became exposed out of tree barriers as we knew vicious cross-winds were coming. We found out later, the winds were 80 kms/hour. 

So why didn’t we pull off and stop somewhere? (I know my mother will be asking when she reads this!) - well, partly because there aren’t a whole lot of places to stop, partly because we knew we had a very lovely B&B waiting for us in North Sydney and partly because we’re just stubborn enough that we tend to push through unless things become unsafe. I have to admit, there were a couple of times it did cross my mind. But - I cranked my music to be a friendly voice in the howling wind, kept a steady pace and took satisfaction in watching the kilometers slowly march down on my GPS. Slow and steady and some rocking P!NK wins the race. 

And yes we won because, as we came into North Sydney, after a full day of blustery mess, our Heritage Home B&B stood like a spectre from Heaven and I swear, I could hear a choir of angels singing upon site of it. The Heritage is a gorgeous 200 year old home on the waterfront, owned and operated by Juana Moreland for 40 years. When we arrived, the door was open and there was a note greeting us to head on up to our room. 

When I walked in, I gasped at the beauty of this place. Juana has a knack for decor and, over the years, has amassed a stunning collection of antiquities and curios which fill every nook and cranny and is a visual delight to the eye. Every room is meticulously put together and yet warm and inviting. It was Nirvana after having crossed the River Styx (that was really probably just your average Maritimes storm but it’s always so much more dramatic on a bike... :) )

Juana arrived shortly after we did, greeted us and gave us some good tips on dinner. I was SO COLD I immediately dove into the luxury of a deep bathtub and Lynn had a bit of a time convincing me to get out of it to go eat before the diner closed at 7pm. 

Unenthusiastically, I hauled my somewhat defrosted self out, got dressed and we walked the two blocks down to Bette’s, a teeny-tiny (seats 10 people or so) cafe just down the street. Bette’s serves all home-cooked food and it was fantastic and incredibly affordable. Lynn had a full-on roast beef dinner and I had a bowl of homemade chicken soup and that, along with 2 beers came to $25. Bette’s is a definite stop if you’re in the area. 

By 8:00, we were in bed, so grateful to be warm, dry and out of the gale with full bellies, tucked into an exquisite bedroom in this lovely home. Around 10pm, we got a phone message from Marine Atlantic telling us our ferry sailing tomorrow is cancelled due to weather and is rescheduled for Monday morning at 11:45. Honestly, I wasn’t even disappointed by the news. We went down and told Juana we were stranded and, lucky us, our room was available for another night. I went to bed quite content at the thought of having a catch-up day and Heritage House B&B is about the best place in the world to be stranded, cozy with tea overlooking the bay. 

June 23

I think, quite possibly, Juana wins the award for the best breakfast spread. At 8:00, we came down and joined other stranded travellers at a big dining room table. She had a “Bagel Bar” with all sorts of bagels, homemade jams etc and on the table there was yogurt and a beautiful fruit salad. On the hutch behind me were tea cakes, muffins and other sweets and then she made each of us an omelet. Top all of that off with great coffee and orange juice and we waddled out of there. 

Our housemates were a wide cross-section of folks from a couple moving from Ontario to Newfoundland, another couple from Germany and three young adults from Quebec going to do the Traverse hike in Gros Morne (where they give you a SPOT, a compass and you do a 60 km hike where there are no trails to speak of. You “make your way” as it were....) 

After breakfast, I deposited myself into one of the delightful salons (it was hard to choose which one) and set myself up to do some blogging and catch up on emails, paying bills and other assorted adminis-trivia that goes along with travelling. I made myself a cup of tea and settled in for a couple of hours. 

Here are some photos of some of the other rooms in the house...

Lynn puttered about with the bikes and the weather improved somewhat so, around 11am, we headed down to the town of Sydney which is across the bay. We had lunch at The Triangle Pub (same owners as the one in Halifax) and then walked along the waterfront boardwalk. This is a cruise ship port so, at the port itself, they have a nice restaurant and an enormous, 50 ft tall fiddle that greets visitors to Cape Breton. The fiddle has some huge built in speakers and plays fiddle music all day. It’s pretty cool. 

We rode back to North Sydney and checked out where the ferry terminal was. We’d thought about doing a bit more exploring but, quite frankly, we were pooped. We’d had an enormous lunch so we weren’t even hungry for dinner. We got back to our room at 5pm and we decided to have a “nap” and the next thing we knew, it was 10pm. We were exhausted. 

We got up at 10pm and, while not HUNGRY, per se, we were peckish so we dug around in our kit and found some somewhat road-worn cookies and some left over chocolates from St. Benoit du Lac in Quebec we’d forgotten about. We made some coffee and ensconced ourselves in the delightful little library in the dormer window at the end of the hall and had our little repast. Juana has a collection of old books and I found a gem - a collection of poetry from 1835. I leafed through it a bit and found The Rime of the Ancient Mariner by Coleridge which was about as apropos as could be for the situation so for the following hour, I read aloud to Lynn. Seriously, in this day and age of technology, take some time out to drink a coffee or tea, eat a biscuit and read some poetry aloud. It’s very good for the soul. We passed a marvellous evening and went back to bed, wondering if we’d be able to get to sleep again. 

We were gone within minutes and slept straight through to 8am. :) 

June 24

After another magnificent breakfast (this time quiche!) we packed up and the whole housefull departed en masse to the ferry terminal. We were there two hours ahead of the sailing but we didn’t wait long before we were called to start loading. 

Once on board, we found seats. This ship has quite nice recliner chairs with TV viewing areas as well as a full-serve restaurant, a little bistro cafe and a deck for berths. To Port Aux Basques, it’s a 7 hour sailing so we settled into a couple of chairs and hunkered down for the run. Lynn gets motion sick quite easily so we had him hopped up on Gravol which made him sleepy so he slept for most of the trip. I read a book for awhile and redid our itinerary and, despite our massive sleep the night before, slept again on the boat for a couple of hours. It was so nice to just slow down a bit.

We knew we were truly on our way to Newfoundland when I spied these chocolate bars in the little ferry gift shop... :) 

We decided to book our return sailing from Argentia back to North Sydney for July 1, a few days later than our original itinerary showed. After losing some time due to ferry rescheduling, we didn’t want to cut our time in Newfoundland short. We made the decision to bypass PEI this trip and add the days to our Newfoundland stay. We also decided we needed to take a more direct route home after doing the Cabot Trail and we didn’t want to be pushing our days so hard as we’ve been doing. Consequently, after we finish Cape Breton, we’ll hit Moncton and then start making our way home from there, down through Maine, Vermont, New Hampshire and New York State to Niagra Falls. We’ll cross into Canada there for a bit and then back into the States to move through Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, North Dakota, Montana, Idaho and then home to Nelson in British Columbia. A bonus for Lynn on this new route is a day in Milwaukee at the Harley Davidson Museum which has always interested him. It’s the mothership for Harley so we can’t NOT go there and at least buy the t-shirt, right? 

Finally, we landed in Port Aux Basques around 6:30 pm and even though it was the end of the day, we felt good and ready for a ride so we decided to make a few miles. We rode for an hour before stopping for the night at a fish camp (literally a rough and ready camp where local commercial and sport fisherfolks stay) at Crabbe River. By now, it was getting cold (about 9 degrees) and we were ready to wrap the day.

Ha ha. 

We popped open our tent trailer to be greeted with a soaking wet foamie mattress and a very damp sleeping bag that had some sopping wet patches. Oh My Freaking God. And we were miles from anywhere so we couldn’t just go find a motel. 

These are the moments when you think, “That’s it. I’m done with this business. I’m never camping again...” 

It seriously sucked, folks. There’s just no other way to describe it. We lifted our mattress up and put our little heater under it but it was like trying to use a hair dryer to dry out your basement after a flood. Woefully inadequate but what else to do? And so, we put a plastic barrier we had on the mattress, wore a bunch of warm clothes and spent a soggy, cold night under a soggy cold sleeping bag on top of a soggy wet mattress, in a soggy cold camper in a soggy cold fish camp in 3 degree weather on the stoney terrain of The Rock.

Welcome to Newfoundland! 

June 25

We got up early this morning, given that there was ABSOLUTELY NOTHING to entice us to stay in our soggy, cold bed. We pulled everything out of the camper and draped it over picnic tables, bikes etc. At least the sky had cleared and we were in for a decent day. We put our heater in our camper and, while we had coffee and put ourselves together, we tried to give things a bit of a chance to dry out. It helped marginally but we still had to put our wet camp back together. 

We left Crabbe River and made our way north towards Corner Brook. It’s so pretty here in a very wild, Scottish Highlands sort of way. Great hummocky mountains flanked the highway and we left the bare desolation of the Port Aux Basques area and into this lush, wilderness. Snow still sits in patches on the mountain tops which aren’t so far away. 

It was cold (11 degrees) but we had patches of blue sky which lifted our spirits if not the temperature itself. We dipped into Corner Brook and decided to take the opportunity to restock our dwindling supplies. We bought some food, had a warm breakfast and found a liquor store. On cold nights, some Fireball tea sure hits the spot! 

Leaving Corner Brook, we continued on Route 1. We had originally planned on going into Gros Morne to do the boat trip down the Western Pond gorge but, with the way things were scheduled, we would have used up quite a bit of time. It’s always a tough call to pick and choose what to do but in the end, because we’d been to Gros Morne before, we opted to forgo it this time in trade of an extra day in Twillingate. Along the way, we stopped to fuel up and randomly met Ron Roberts, a bus driver who was waiting to take over his shift on the bus from St. John’s to Port Aux Basques. Rob is a very friendly guy and very shortly, he had us sorted out. He told us about the Catamaran campsite further up the road and he also told us about the dinner theatre in Twillingate which is a “must-do”. His old schooldays friend, Lorne, is in the cast of the show and when we go, we were to tell him hello from Rob. This is exactly the kind of thing we love so much about Newfoundland. It really is one big family here, in many ways. And everywhere you go, you meet someone who knows someone else. And so, we carried on to the Catamaran Campsite just south of South Brook. 

There we met Christine who checked us in and then told us about the new Chinese restaurant down the road in Badger so we went there. Christine grew up in Newfoundland and, in fact, her uncle was the last lighthouse keeper in Twillingate. She told us she used to spend the summers there with her cousin when she was a kid and they all lived in the little house that is now the gift shop. She said to say hi to Twillingate for her. 

We set up our camp, pulled it all apart and got the heater going in there and then made for Badger and some decent Chinese food at the Sunny Restaurant. By the time we got back, things were somewhat drier and we had a slightly warmer and drier night. Fingers crossed the weather is supposed to warm up for a few days. We might just get this camper dried out yet! 

June 26

Today’s destination is Twillingate. We only had 200 kms to ride so it was a very easy day. We got as far as Lewisporte and then stopped for breakfast. The highway to the Isles (as they call it) is a rougher road than the Trans Canada but you can see that they’ve been doing quite a bit of work to repair it. We continued on to Twillingate, which is a fishing village on the very end of a peninsula that hangs out into the wide open Atlantic Ocean. Nothing between Twillingate and Europe. It is also just a hop, skip and a jump away from Fogo Island which boasts the famous Fogo Island Inn that starts at $2000/night and has hosted lots of celebs like Oprah. It’s an architectural wonder so Google it and check it out. 

We arrived at Peyton’s Woods campsite and set up camp around 1pm. By now, it was a gloriously warm, summer day!! YAY! We tore our camper apart and draped our mattress, sleeping bag, sheet etc all over the place in the sun and left it all there while we went back into town (5 mins) to pick up our tickets for the Dinner Theatre. From there, we took a ride out through the town of Crow Head to the Long Point lighthouse. They have a Titanic display at the little museum there and, during high season, they have lighthouse tours although they weren’t up and running yet. 

Alas, we got skunked on the icebergs today. We are a little late in the iceberg season but apparently, there WAS a big one here the other day but it’s been carried off by the tide and currents. There are many different boat tour companies here, though, who will take you out to find them if you want to go. We’ve seen icebergs before, in Red Bay, Labrador, so we didn’t feel the need but Twillingate is on Iceberg Alley and they are common sites here in the Spring. 

We swung by our campsite and I got changed into my “dressy shirt” - only the second time on this trip I’ve had a chance to dress up a bit. I put a bit of make-up on and suddenly felt pretty damned fancy compared to my typical riding day, looking like the wrath of Khan with very bad helmet hair. 

We arrived at the dinner theatre and met Lloyd, who was the parking attendant and, as it happens, the father of the fellow who owns the dinner theatre. Lloyd is a retired fisherman who told his son, when the fisheries collapsed, to go find something else to do. His son ended up in Grand Prairie working as a carpenter and, after finding some success, he decided to pack it in and come home. He wanted to be back in Twillingate so he bought the little theatre company, built a brand new theatre building and some cabins and now employs 25 people during the summers which is a lot for this small community. Last year, they had 13,000 people come to the dinner theatre and this year they’re shooting for even more. They run 6 nights a week. They also sell 50-50 tickets all through the summer and make the draw in the Fall. The grand winner last year was a local fellow who won $20,000. The other half of the draw money went 100% towards hampers for needy families in the area. Last year, they provided much needed food, clothing and gifts to over 85 families from Gander to Twillingate to Lewisporte. 

The theatre itself is a lovely building which is very nicely decorated and they have a choice of lobster, crab, salmon or haddock. We, of course, took the lobster, and for $48, you get your lobster supper and the show. An excellent value...

The show was a riot. The cast are all local folks and it’s a variety show - lots of Newfoundland music along with some very funny, campy skits that highlight Newfoundland humour. My favourite was the two Newfoundland guys trying to fill out a moose hunting application. Oh my god. The entire audience was in stitches. That, along with the woman making a rum cake for the Christmas mummers who got royally hammed from drinking said rum while baking. When they played music, everyone was clapping and stomping along and they played some songs we all knew and encouraged us to sing along. It was a brilliant, down home show that lasted for about 2.5 hours. It was so much fun and I would absolutely go back and see it again.

We were seated with another couple at our table and they were from Victoria, BC. They come every year to Twillingate for his birthday and, each time they come, they come to this dinner theatre show. He said that he came here the first time, four years ago, and there was just something about this place that captured his heart. He looked into buying property at one point but decided it was too far away to make sense so, instead, every year since they fly into Gander, rent a car and drive up here and stay in a B&B. Twillingate really is a charming fishing village and I can entirely understand why he feels that way. I’ll write more about the town itself tomorrow.