Iceberg Alley

It was raining when we left the MacLellan Inn yesterday morning, and it pretty much kept raining all day, as we drove east on the transCanada Highway, toward St. John's, Newfoundland. Parts of the highway are in pretty good shape, but some sections have LOTS of potholes. And they usually have a sign pointing out the fact that there are lots of potholes. Jack was wondering why they didn't use the money they paid for those signs to repair the potholes instead.

Rain and more rain as we travel.

Not too long after we got on the road, a young moose crossed the highway in front of us. Everyone has been telling us to watch out for moose on the road, particularly around dusk (we've been told that their eyes reflect blue at night). One section of the highway even has an elaborate "moose detection system"--poles along both sides of the highway have motion detectors on them, powered by solar panels, that then flash lights on the highway to tell drivers that a moose is on the road ahead.

Since we don't have to be in St. John's until Tuesday, we decided to take a detour and drive up to Twillingate, an island in the north central part of Newfoundland that has picturesque fishing villages and supposedly lots of icebergs. (There's actually a string of little islands connected by causeways.) We planned to find a campground there and look for icebergs in the morning before returning to the main road to St. John's. It turned out to be a LONG drive, made particularly tiring by the driving rain and potholes. We did see an interesting sign along the way for a seafood market: it said "Lobsters, Clams, Mussels, Crabs, Tongues, Flippers." I'm thinking that's cod tongues and seal flippers... Yum?

We got a little lost looking for our campground once we finally arrived in Twillingate, but that was fortunate to some extent, as we stumbled upon a couple of icebergs very close to shore and got some photos. Very cool to see icebergs floating along, practically in people's backyards! We finally found the campground and got settled in--it just keeps raining.

Icebergs in the bay at twilight.

In the morning, rain again, and fog. We drove up the hill to the Long Point Lighthouse, which was recommended as the best place to view icebergs and whales by our guidebook. It looked like a spectacular spot, except it was so foggy we could barely see our hand in front of our face.There may have been icebergs out there, but we couldn't see them!

The lighthouse in the fog.

A little discouraged, we headed back down the hill and decided to stop at a cafe for second breakfast, always guaranteed to lift our spirits. The waitress who brought our coffee, moose soup (me) and pea soup (Jack) was very friendly (as is everyone in Newfoundland, we've discovered) and told us to drive around to Blow-Me-Down on the other side of Twillingate Is. and we would see some big icebergs close to shore there. She was right! We wound our way through the fishing areas and over to the other side, and, sure enough, numerous growlers, bergy bits, and icebergs were waiting for us! (Iceberg dictionary: growler, the smallest iceberg; bergy bit, larger than a growler but smaller than an official iceberg.) It was a thrill to see these huge frozen sculptures just offshore--these are calved off glaciers in Greenland and the ice is supposedly thousands of years old. They gradually make their way past here--Iceberg Alley, they call it--to the gulfstream, where they finally melt.

Our second breakfast spot. Note the fishing boat headed out to sea.

A very large iceberg which we think was grounded in the bay.

Same iceberg with Carol in the foreground.

Close-up of this magnificent iceberg.

We took a bunch of photos and ooh-ed and ahh-ed for a while, then made our way back. We saw a sign for a museum on top of a hill, so drove up there to check it out. Fantastic view from up there! The little museum featured a stuffed polar bear. This bear had wandered into town a few years back on the pack ice and ended up getting shot by the authorities, since they couldn't come up with any other way to deal with him. We amused ourselves for an hour or so with the bear and the old stuff that the museum had collected, and finally got back on the road toward the transCanada Highway and St. John's.

View from the museum. We could see four icebergs in the bay.

Look who came to dinner! The polar bear that floated in on a large chunk of ice and scared the community.

 We're stopped tonight at a nice, quiet campground in Gander and we ate turkey burgers for supper. Still drizzling...