Two weeks in Newfoundland - Part 2 of 3

August 17 - August 19

The drive up to St. Anthony was breathtaking despite the mist and the constant drizzle of rain.
The secondary road 430 was a pleasant surprise. Though a two lane road, it was of decent surface and hardly any pot holes - better than some of those roads leading to Chicago!!!

The drive itself took us about 4 hours with the highway hugging the western coast, We had a view of the Gulf of St. Lawrence the whole way and at one point we were at the closest approach to Labrador. But for the mist and fog we should have been able to espy that piece of land.

View of St. Anthony town from the top of the bluff

St. Anthony or Santhony as the locals refer to it, is bigger than any of the towns in Gros Morne. It has a fairly large size hospital - to give you an idea.

We visited the first Norse settlement in Lans aux Meadows - rather disappointing to me - but John found it interesting. Saw our first and only Moose while there - we could barely see it from the visitor cneter, grazing out in the distance. But, at least, I can now say I have seen a Moose - for what it is worth. All along the highway I saw signs asking us to beware of the Moose but I think they were hiding from us.

A bakeapple berry that I picked

On our way to Lans aux Meadows we saw some folks picking berries in the peat bog. So we stopped and decided to do the same. They were picking bakeapple. Actually the story goes that the french asked "baie q'appelle" meaning 'what is it called' and this morphed into bakeapple and the name has since stuck. These grow low to the ground on wet bog and does a number on ones back. We picked a few to say we had done it and I promptly bought a jar of bakeapple jam rather than try to make my own. Life is too short eh?

another view of the town

just in case you thought we were not actually there

You might have heard of the Peterman Iceberg? Well, the harbour at Santhony had big chunks from this ice island floating in the harbor. We were two weeks late - or we could we have seen the big ice island itself as it went past St. Anthony.
Ok; no more words, just look at the pics. AWESOME!!!!