From Cartwright to the Coast
One thing I
haven't mentioned about Labrador is the BLACK FLIES. Even in September the pesky insects are
biting but not as voraciously as in July and August when bug jackets that
enclose your head with netting, and Deet are recommended. Some Labradorian
expeditions in the early days had deadly consequences because of black fly
bites as recorded at the Labrador Interpretive Centre in North West River. We have been bitten a little bit especially
around the hairline, and they don't disappear quickly like mosquito bites, they
are hard lumps for several days.
Back to our
travels, on a sunny and windy day, we left Cartwright and backtracked to the
junction with the Labrador Coastal Drive (route 510) and turned south towards
Port Hope Simpson, 98 km away and the next opportunity to get gas etc. This is
the older portion of the gravel road, and it was in much worse condition than
the newer portion we drove on yesterday. The scenery changed from forests and lakes, to sparsely treed bogs (moor-like) and rocky terrain with low growing vegetation.
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| Boggy, moor-like vegetation |
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| Rocky terrain, with lichen |
We had driven about 40 Km when the "trailer failure" light
came on the dash. Stopping to
investigate, Cecil noticed that that there was a burning smell coming from one
of the wheels on the trailer. A bearing cover on the hub of one of the wheels had
fallen off with all the jiggling on the rough road, allowing the grit and
gravel to get in so the brake and bearing had heated up and seized. The only solution was to remove the wheel
once it had cooled down and limp to Port Hope Simpson 58 km away, slowly, with only three wheels
bearing the trailer weight. Many people
again stopped to see if they could help while we were parked, and one couple
let us know that there was a garage in Port Hope Simpson.
It was very
fortunate that the garage at Port Hope Simpson could fix the bearing for us,
but did not have the right parts to fix the brake. Tom at the garage said this fix would get us
to Corner Brook where there would be an RV dealer that would have the necessary
parts. He was not surprised by our
predicament, he sees a lot of flat tires etc., coming from that stretch of road.
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| Fried wheel on the trailer |
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| Port Hope Simpson from the garage |
Back on the gravel
Labrador Coastal Drive again, we headed slowly for St. Mary's Harbour for the
night. We drove through a rain shower and had to take a picture of the double rainbow that kept moving in front of us.
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| double rainbow |
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| Rainbow further down the road |
St. Mary's Harbour is where you can catch a passenger ferry to visit the Battle
National Historic Site, a reconstructed whaling village. With no campground there either, we parked on
a newly constructed parking lot next to a boat launch ramp in the sheltered
harbour for the night.
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| Parking spot for the night |
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| St. Mary's Harbour |
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