Day: August 1, 2019

July 29, 2019

I spent Monday night in the town of Gander, located in northeastern Newfoundland.  When I arrived in town this was on top of the Welcome sign:

For those of you who don’t know me, I am a helicopter enthusiast.  I have been fascinated by them since I was a kid and for several years, before getting the Airbnb bug, I was learning to fly radio-controlled helicopters.

Exactly two minutes after I took that photo a large, yellow helicopter flew over:

Literally, the time stamp on the first photo is 17:18:45 and second is, you guessed it, 17:20:45.

When I got to my Airbnb I asked my hostess, who lives about a mile from where I took those photos, if there is a reason for the helicopters.  Sure enough, there is a Canadian Search and Rescue squad based next to the Gander International Airport.

This was the helicopter I saw flying.  I took this photo the next morning as I was leaving town to head south to my next stop.

July 29, 2019

These are some photos taken at a look off near where Route 340 ends in Twillingate.  There was a high rock peninsula I could walk up on to look out over the water.  The first two are looking down into a cove near where I parked my car.

I had an incredible view over a large expanse of water.  I won’t post those photos (just water, folks, and boo-hoo – no icebergs…) but it was neat to just stand there for a while, ponder the meaning of life and enjoy the journey I’m on.  And in case those of you familiar with this area are wondering, I am NOGO FOGO.  Fogo Island and Change Island are located just off the coast east of here.  Time does not permit me to take the ferry out there this trip but I have already decided I am coming back up here next year (woo-hoo!) to see some of the things I didn’t get to this time around.  The next photo is just a random shot before I left Twillingate and has nothing to do with the islands I just mentioned.

I turned around and started driving back south towards the TCH:

I followed the map in my book to see several small villages off the main road.  This is often where I take many of the photos you see.

I took some other “regular map indicated” scenic roads over towards Musgrave Harbour.  In the little town of Frederickton I saw a sign for Shipwreck Point and of course I had to drive out to the end of it:

The photo above shows what’s left of the SS Ahern Trader which ran aground here in 1960.

This was off Route 330 near the communities of Aspen Cove and Ladle Cove.  The scene below wasn’t staged.  This was exactly how I found it.

These three buildings were just up the road.  Remember the middle one because you’ll be seeing that theme again in a few days…

July 29, 2019

Before I post photos from this leg of my journey I have 3 more pictures from up near Quirpon which I want to share.  This shot is in that village itself.  At the extreme northern end of the Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland I noticed that many of the bodies of water, both large and small, had huge rocks (too big for a single person to move) in the shallow water close to the shore.

These two shots are from just down the road in little Saint Lunaire-Griquet:

OK – now that I was back in Deer Lake (Monday morning) I headed east on the Trans Canada Highway towards my next overnight stop in Gander.

As I drove east I saw several good photo ops.

Someone thought this sign needed a visual aid:

The State of North Carolina would run out of these signs…

When I got to Route 340 I turned north and took one of my primary scenic routes (from my book – they are always highlighted on orange on my maps) up to Twillingate.

This was a Railroad Park in Lewisporte:

This was further north up the road:

This is the Interpretive Centre near Boyd’s Cove.  As I drove out the very bumpy road to get to it I couldn’t understand why it wasn’t IN the town of Boyd’s Cove until I got there and found that it is mainly about the indigenous Beothuk people and is out in the boonies next to a reconstructed village (which I didn’t pay to go in to see).

Back out on Route 340 here are more things I saw as I drove north towards Twillingate, at the end of the highway.

The shot below was taken just before I got to town.  You are now looking out northeast towards the Atlantic Ocean beyond the two rock peninsulas.