With light drizzle overnight, we began packing up a damp tent. Being clever and not yet having coffee in my system, I decided to put the car keys in a safe place, before flopping onto the air mattress in order to encourage the remaining air to depart. No sense puncturing our bed!
After rolling up the tent so well that it actually fit back in the bag, I handed the bag to Jane....just as I realized that the keys were now rolled firmly in the tent pocket inside. No problem says Jane, we'll use my keys for now and get yours out of the tent later......until she went to open the car to get her keys, and the doors were locked. In rolling up the tent with the keys inside, I had also managed to lock the car!
So we unrolled the tent, fished out the keys, and re-rolled the damn thing. Now fairly wet, we finished pack up and headed off to regain the 430 north, stopping in Rocky Harbour along the way for fuel and coffee. It rained off and on as we made the roughly four hour drive up the Great Northern Arm, following the Long Range Mountains all the way. Temperatures fluctuated madly from 7 C to 16 C seemingly around every turn.
Things got a little dramatic north of Western Brook Pond, where a family of Canada Geese wandered the road. Dodging well around the babies attempting to cross the road, I honked at them to deter them from crossing. The adults became incensed and reared up, hissing at the Juke like it was some threatening giant golden goose. In the end, nobody was hurt, and we warned oncoming traffic as well.
A little north of St. Barbe, where the ferry leaves for northern Quebec and Labrador, we started spotting icebergs in the Strait of Belle Isle. We counted quite a few along the coast before turning east to cut inland across the tip of the peninsula and taking the 436 N to St. Lunaire, where we stopped for fuel and a washroom break. We also started tracking a few specific icebergs using an app, including larger bergs in St. Lunaire, Gunners Cove, and Norstead.
We then visited the main destination for the day and main reason for the long trip up the peninsula, the UNESCO World Heritage site at L'Anse aux Meadows - an excavated Viking ruin from the year 1000. After walking the grounds and the recreated village, complete with actors in costume playing their parts, we hit the gift shop for a locally made version of an old Viking chess game.
With only a short night before heading back, we opted for a local motel (Snorri Cabins), with a handy restaurant just across the street owned by the same people. We had a late lunch at Skipper Hot's before settling into our room, delicious ground beef and gravy on fries (me) and dressing and gravy on fries (Jane). Great food and friendly people! We later returned to the same restaurant for takeout dinner to enjoy in our room.
With tornado warnings for back home, our hopes of Northern Lights were sadly dashed by cloud cover.
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