Monday, August 18, 2008

Day 45 & 46 – Baccalieu Trail, Newfoundland

Day 45 - Every day we start of with the same weather pattern: foggy and drizzling in the morning, clearing up in late morning and by late afternoon misty again. Today there was more heavy rain as well.

But before we got hit by the rain we, again, had a beautiful trip along one of the shores of the Avalon Peninsula. This time we took a northern route. We only got 1/2 of the route done because Newfoundlanders like to talk (or is it that Leo likes to listen?) I have to repeat myself again as to how beautiful the scenery is here but then the pictures will also show you this as well.

When we got to the village of Port de Grave we met Matt Petten, a 74 year old ex-fisherman, who now occupies his time making fishing type artefacts and displaying them along the road on a piece of property he owns. At first we thought this was a display set up by the village but when we stopped to take a picture out came Matt to tell us all about his work. 3 hours later we moved on.

Matt was a lovely old gentleman who told us stories of times past, such as when he fell into the water of the very harbour before us and drowned when he was a 9 year old. He could not swim and came up for air a couple of times before he sank to the bottom. Some townspeople noticed him drowning and one took a grappling hook which he threw into the water to retrieve Matt’s body as he was lying too deep to reach. He pulled Matt to surface whose face by then was totally blue according to his mother. This man remembered that if a person has waterlogged lungs you need to empty them through his nose so quickly ran a tube down to Matt’s lungs and did what he could to remove the water there. Matt was unconscious for a full day afterwards but miraculously then slowly revived. He truly came within a fisherman’s whisker of dying on that day. Recent scientific research suggests that it likely was the very cold water which protected his brain while it was without oxygen for that long time.

Then Matt gave us a tour of his 65 foot, million dollar fishing boat. It was a very luxurious boat inside with all the conveniences of home, even a washer and dryer. Matt also explained to us how the fishing is done and partly processed on the boat. It sure was an educational experience for us. As we were talking I noticed an ‘iceberg’ floating by in the harbour, just in time for Leo to take a picture of it. It had been cast in by some fishermen, but even Matt thought it was funny to view it as an iceberg.

Afterwards I had a chance to talk to Matt’s son Neil. I came to the conclusion that fisherman are like our Alberta farmers. It is never right, it either rains too much or not enough and the government has too many rules. But I can tell you that some of these fishermen live in pretty nice big houses.

Because we spent so much time in Port de Grave talking to Matt, and the fog and rain started again, we cut our route short and headed back home to continue the next morning.

Day 46 – 2nd leg of the Baccalieu Trail
The rain had a mind of its own this time and decided to stay, but the forecast was for some sporadic sunshine. We just did not know where it would occur. We decided to go and finish our route anyway as every time we have gone on these excursions the sun had decided to shine on us for at least a part of the day. And so she did again this time: by the time we got to where we left off the previous day the weather started slowly to clear and soon out came the sun. Again we took in the scenery as Leo’s pictures will show. To finish this tour we decided to have supper at Dildo’s Dory Restaurant. (The town claims to be named after a Spanish town rather that what many people think!) We thoroughly enjoyed our meal there and recommend this restaurant for when you are in the neighbourhood. (Lance, this restaurant is located on main streets and there are many road signs leading you to it).

We then drove back to our campsite after another full day of sight-seeing in Newfoundland.

Pictures for the last 2 days can be found here.