ElsieD

The previous two trips were in August/September and we had great weather. We will be getting better weather later this week but I have to say today is miserable.

Excellent idea. How does that sound, @kayb ?

We clearly picked the wrong month. We have since found out that a lot of places don't open until July 1 and are only open for July and August. Still, we love the place and are enjoying ourselves (but would have liked better weather).

There is something about this place that gets under your skin. This is our third trip in 4 years. I was here several times on business trips in the 1980s and had the good fortune to spend a weekend at an outport with family of a friend. I fell in love with it then, although it took many years before I came back. I have also traveled through New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and they too are wonderful places, although quite different from Newfoundland, at least to me. I agree with you that we live in a beautiful country try. As they say, there's no place like home.

Maybe we could make you an honorary Canadian?

When we left our hotel this morning I promptly lost my internet connection hence this delayed note. The weather is not very nice, rain bordering on snow with a current temperature of 2 degrees celcius. Predicted high is 5. Breakfast was a continental, help yourself type of thing. The usual cereal, toast, fruit etc. Nothing exciting, no complaints. What is exciting is that we are headed to Hillgrade for lunch. A couple of you have said they are following us on the map, and Hillgrade may be hard to find. We will take the 340 exit from the TCH which is past Grand Falls-Windsor, going up to Lewisporte. We meander along past Dildo Run Provincial Park and Hillgrade is between there and Twillingate, Twillingate being today's destination. Once we get off the TCH I hope to find a craft store or two to poke around in. At home the only kind of shopping I enjoy is food related, in Newfoundland I expand my shopping like s to include craft stores Egads, we just passed SNOW on the sides of the highway!

No, that is gravy with the spuds. 😬

It is cold. Yesterday it rained pretty much all day so it was cold and damp. Today it did not rain, but wasn't particularly warm. Tomorrow's high is around the 6 degree mark but I don't mind as long as it is dry. We brought some warm clothesxwith us.

If I see one, i don't plan on getting close enough to collect a tick(s).😁

We got to our hotel around 6 and managed to sweet-talk our way into an upgraded room. That made us happy😁 although the regular rooms are pretty nice too. Then we had to make a decision on where to eat. We had thought to go to one of two places at King's Point, about 18 km from here. The one place was a food truck which had rave reviews but we didn't feel like eating in the car, and the only other option was to sit outside at a picnic table but the temperatures already was only 7 degrees and falling so too cold to sit outside. That left the option of the restaurant we went to last time which has a lovely setting but average food. We deemed the drive there and back for not great fare a non-starter so we went to this little dinner around the corner. I had pan fried cod, John had fish and chips. The food was good, not spectacular, especially not the canned peas but the service was friendly and the fish properly cooked. We got a piece of coconut cream pie to go which they cut in half so we could share it, put it in two containers and supplied us with knives and forks. We will have it later.

This afternoon driving to Springdale we decided to take 422 to the trans canada highway (TCH) instead of continuing on 430. We started out on paved road, which turned to gravel which turned to the narrow ......what do you call this, anyway? First we had the mini lakes then sizable holes then what looked to be a pathway. I had my eyes peeled the whole time for moose and we were not disappointed as we saw a female standing on the road. We briefly stared at each other, the moose and us, that is, then we both grabbed tablets and phones to try to take a picture. Alas, she trotted off before we could. We still had a ways to go and it was such a bone jarring trip, the whole time we were on high alert as we figured where there was one moose, there had to be more. @chromedome do they travel in packs or are they solitary creatures? We finally caught a glimpse of the highway and a track running down to it so we drove out of there and got on the TCH. About 1/4 km up we saw the entrance/exit to this miserable excuse for a road. The entrance was paved and looked like a proper road. We were also concerned because we only had 1/4 tank of gas, we saw no one else on this stretch, which ran for about 16 km and there was no cellular service. This is what the road looked like in progressive photographs.

What temperature do you SV it at?

I made a mistake. It is seafood chowder, not clam chowder. That's what happens when you read too many of @HungryChris 's posts.😬 What did you have? I'm glad you liked the place. We are having lunch there tomorrow, staying in Twillingate tomorrow night.

@suzilightning don't forget to have the clam chowder.

Random picture. Just saw a moose on the road ahead of us. We just had ourselves a bit of an adventure. Haven't had internet since we left Woody Point. Am about to lose it again.

A couple of pictures of Woody Point, the town in one, the direction we came from is the other. The scenery is spectacular.

We are in Woody Point at the moment and the restaurant we had planned to go to had scaled back on their offerings. This is a very small place, population of 281 so our other options were limited. We ended up with a very good fish chowder and a ham and cheese sandwich. The bread is made on the premises and was very good. That is the thing with Newfoundland - you are not going to get fancy food in these small places but you can expect well prepared tasty food. No fancy swirls of sauce or dads of this and that on your plate.. We did spot an ice cream place so will have that for dessert. When we leave here we will be going to Springdale where we will be staying tonight. We have stayed at this hotel, the Riverwood before and quite liked it. We aren't sure but are thinking of hitting up a food truck there for dinner. I'll let you know.🙂

We left York Harbour, stopped in Cornerbrook for a few things and are on the road to Woody Point. Woody Point is within Gros Morne National Park. There is a place there we want to have lunch at plus the scenery there is worth the side trip. We did not have breakfast today so no pictures. PS did not eat the gum drop cake.

We arrived in Lark Harbour at about 8 o'clock. We had previously made arrangements for a lobster dinner and when we got here, there were two big cooked lobsters waiting for us. Shortly thereafter Mary Lou, the owner came bearing plates with potato and macaroni salad, buns and a tossed salad. She also shelled the lobster and explained how to tell the difference between males and females. One way is that on the female's tail, there are slight protrusions on either side near the end of the tail called "hips". Male lobsters don't have them. Also, lobsters must be a certain size or they go back in the water and if it is determined that the undersized females are breeders (forgot to ask how they can tell) get a notch on the end of the tail and are put back in the water. It is illegal to catch and keep them. It was interesting watching her shell them. She used nothing but her hands and a knife to make a cut in the claw. No special tools for her! So here is our spread. We enjoyed it very much.

After lunch we drove to Rose Blanche which is as far east as you can go as that is where the road stops. There are no roads beyond that so you need to retrace your steps and go across the top of the island to get to the other side. There was a lighthouse there that we wanted to see but when we got there, there was a loooong climb up to the top of the thing, at an angle that looked to be at least 45 degrees. I looked at that with a jaundiced eye as I'm not as young as I used to be so we passed and went back to Port-aux-Basques as I wanted to see the main area. Well, the main area was disappointing, or rather, was not what I was told I could expect. It was raining and cold and most places were closed anyway so we dudn't bother strolling about. We had a three hour drive ahead of us so elected to drive to the cottage that is our home for tonight. Below is a picture of the town at the end of the road.

Saw this in the middle of nowhere.

@rotuts Did you happen to look up the lyrics? We have just had lunch at the Sea Shore Restaurant in Margaree, east of Channel-Port Aux Basques. We started with cod cakes, and had one each. They were maybe the best cod cakes we have ever had. Light, hot, delicious. I had cod au gratin, which is very common in the restaurants here and it too was very good. John had fish and chips which came with two huge pieces of fish. If the fries look dark to you it is because they are - he orders them that way. I saw bakeapple crepe on the menu and whenever I see bakeapples, I'm all over it. So, I finished with that. Yummy. The hot dishes were so hot that the initial bite of the cod cakes darn near burned my mouth and the cod su gratin when it arrived, was still bubbling. Very satisfied, we are. Should hold us til dinner. We were told that downtown Port-aux-Basques is an interesting place so we will check that out before we head back to our accommodation tonight in York Harbour.

Yes, we are 1 1/2 hours ahead. According to the song "Half an Hour Later" the half hour is because God wanted extra time to make Newfoundland. Good job, too!

A dreary day, but we are almost at our destination, and that means food!

Moose alert! Just passed a lit-up sign warning us to be on the lookout for moose. A couple at last night's inn told us they saw one on the way to and another on the way back yesterday from Port-aux-Basques on this same stretch of road.