Labrador - Part 2 ; )

Coming in to Mary's Harbor

"Iceberg, right ahead!"  This one's practically the size of a cruise ship.

Mary's harbor -- beautiful sheltered little fishing town of 350

This is Reg and Isi Rumbolt.  They had stopped us in their car near the start of the gravel road and were interested in our bike trip.  Their son, they said, had biked across Canada a few years before and so many people were so kind and helped him out they wanted to do something for us if they could.  They invited us to stop in at their place in Mary's Harbor.  So, a few days later, we did.  Isi had moose stew and "bakeapple" (cloud berry) cheesecake for us so we stayed for dinner of course!!  They invited us to stay the night and take showers and we did and it was wonderful.  This was the first time we said good bye...

After this, we started down the road, biked 20 miles in Cold, cold rain and our bike broke down.  Some little peice got bent and the chain kept coming off and off again and again and Keith's hands were getting totally numb trying to fix it.  He was in wet bike shorts and it was close to freezing, so if we couldn't keep moving, we needed to set up the tent for some shelter.  B-rad and Mary went on to the next town about 12 miles away to wait out the storm for a few days in a B&B.  Keith and I spent the next 27 hours in our little tent, eating nothing but pop tarts and peanut butter and doing nothing but dozing and listening to "Atlas Shrugged" on the I-Pod.  The temperature was in the 20s, with constant rain, sleet, and hail.  We had slushy ice from our tent piling up around us.  Well, we knew we needed to get ahold of the manufacturers of our bike to ask about biking without the peice that broke and to have them ship a new one, so we decided to hitch a ride back to Mary's Harbor.  It felt good knowing we would be welcome at Reg and Isi's, that we had some place to go in this storm to work on our bike and dry out our gear.  We spent the next three days there (there's no cell phone service here and we had to wait until the weekend passed to get ahold of Davinci Designs) eating wonderful food--we tried some traditional favorites like "Fish and Brewis" (salted cod over rehydrated hard bread) and DELICIOUS moose sausage, we were introduced to some awesome music, and went on some walks, joined them for church on Sunday, and just had a great time getting to know them and hearing tales of the area.  Isi is from Scotland and came in her early 20s to work as a nurse in this isolated part of Labrador, Reg is native Labradorian with really interesting tales of growing up here (he is one of 15 kids!)  We had a great time with them and they became our good friends.  We miss them already.

On an evening walk with Isi

She took us up to this waterfall that was RAGING with the late rainfall and snow-melt.  It was just Amazing--I've never seen water like that. 

Could have just sat up there and watched that for a long time...

Another short walk -- view of Mary's Harbor

This is the way Newfoundlanders stack their wood.  Keeps it dry.  We saw piles like this all over.

Good bye again Reg and Isi!!!  These guys are awesome : )  Hope we meet again.

Lots of motor bike tourists passed us this day actually.  These are two nice fellows we met from New Brunswick.  They were impressed by our "pedal biking."

One of six black bears that we crossed paths with in five days of biking

First night's campsite after Mary's Harbor

We had "bottled moose" to put in our spaghetti that night thanks to the Rumbolts!  So good!

Stretchin'

Yep, we've got a ways to go yet on gravel!

This one was a little scary.  Used the air horn on him... a couple of times.  The first time I did it he started running down the road TOWARD us.  He hadn't seen us yet and couldn't tell where the sound was coming from. 

Beautiful beaver dam and lodge -- I love beavers, I think they are so neat.  What amazing little creatures to build these.

The road graders made the roads nicer for cars, but not nicer for bikes..

Third night's campsite

Dusty road...

So, we were just coming into Happy Valley- Goose Bay when on the bridge over the inlet this helicopter started circling us!  It came down across from us and Keith was like "Are they trying to talk to us?"  And I thought, oh my gosh, what did we do, what's going on?  But I still wasn't sure they were after us until they circled around again and came back down to us on the other side... Keith was like "Did you push the SPOT??"  (the emergency signal device we have).  I was like "No, I swear It has a cap on it!"  But I was a little worried..  Then it hit me, there was a guy we met on the ferry coming over to Labrador, Wilf, a helicopter pilot.  He had given us a Sattelite phone which we sent with B-rad and Mary to use on the remote road up to Happy Valley-- Goose Bay where he lives.  It was Wilf!!  And Mary and B-rad!! They took pictures of us, we took a picture of them.  Later found out they had come out just to see how far we were on the road!!  We were almost in town so they didn't have to go too far.  They met us in a truck to show us the way to their place, and brought us that night for a wonderful steak, potato dinner at the club Wilf's wife Brenda works at.  AMAZING.  They are great people too and we have enjoyed their company--hope they've enjoyed ours!  We've met and been helped by so many wonderful people on this trip.  We will have to pay it forward somehow.  We've been at their place a few nights and are leaving in the morning on a boat trip--a ferry up North on the coast to Nain. 

Labrador!!! -- Part 1 (or "Newfoundland -- Part 3" : )

 Catching the ferry to Labrador in St. Barbe, we met four fellows we picked out immediately as Scandenavians.  Turns out they were Norweigan, four awesome guys travelings around Newfoundland.  We sat and talked with them for the entire ferry ride (1.5 hr) and found out a lot of interesting things from/about them--one of which, is that Finn, the one in the tan shirt, is dear friends with Nancy Weeks who was one of our neighbors and fellow ward members in Rexburg!!!  He had stayed with her family for a highschool exchange in Arizona and still visits and keeps good contact with her :) And we met this Norweigan on the ferry to Labrador... Nancy Weeks!! Funny world!

 Okay, so we can into Blanc Sablon which is actually part of Quebec.. just one little french-speaking, Quebecan town right on the border with Labrador.

 Blanc Sablon was a beautiful little port.

 Had to climb a pretty steep set of hills to get out!  Fat little marmots everywhere in the rocks here.

 This coast was so beautiful!!!!  I couldn't get over how this reminded me of a mixture of Hawaii and Alaska right here. Glad to be able to see it on a sunny day.

 Now we're in Labrador, "The Big Land."   Yay :)

This is Andre and his cute little daughter Laurance.  He's a friend we met back in Corner Brook, "on the island" (of Newfoundland) as Labradorians say, had told us we could stop by his place in Labrador on our way past if we needed to use a bike stand or anything, since his was one of very, very few for a very long way.  Since our bike had been making funny noises for the past few days it was really quite the perfect opportunity to adjust some things.  He and his wife, Jose, part of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police, invited us to camp that night in their yard.  Great to have a flat grassy place without a long search.  Those guys are awesome.  Very greatful to them and great to get to know them.

 Near Capstan Island.  One of the 60 century-old lighthouses that can be found all around NL's coasts

 A pokey friend we made along the road

 It was so peaceful and beautiful up on this plateau... great day of riding

 A veiw of the little town, Red Bay -- were we cut off to start up the Long gravel road to Happy Valley- Goose Bay

 Hmmm, which way??

 Run-off from snow melt just coming through the ground everywhere along this stretch... lots of nice clean water!

 These sleds are used behind "skidoos" in the Winter, for hunting I think.  They are all along this road just sitting out in the middle of the wilderness.  They leave them right where they are until the snow piles up again the next year.

 Using the solar panel outside out tent : )

 Beautiful evening..

 Cooking up some "supper."  We've learned from some locals that here lunch is called "Dinner" and it is always served at noon.  Dinner is "Supper" and is always served at 5:30.

 Nice sunset that night

 Neat lakes with these little Taiga islands... we were blessed with some NICE weather for a few days!