Rocky Harbour to Port aux Choix

Time to continue our trip north in Newfoundland from Rocky Harbour to Port aux Choix. Originally planned quite a few stops along the way but the weather didn't cooperate, cool and rainy with some fog on the way north. One stop was not going to be missed, the Arches Provincial Park was a mandatory stop no matter the weather. We stopped at the park just in time for the rain to stop for a while, still a bit foggy but not too bad. When we first arrived there was a bus load of seniors all over the place but they soon left to board their bus (later in the day we would meet up again at the National Historic Site on Port aux Choix Peninsula). We didn't take our time at the Arches as rain was threatening again. But we did enjoy the short visit along with visiting the arches.

After leaving the Arches Provincial Park we saw our first moose of the trip, a cow with calf frolicking beside the highway. We had planned on leaving the highway to visit an abandoned zinc mine to try to find some zinc ore but the rain returned and we decided getting wet and driving wasn't the best thing so we bypassed the stop and continued on to the Port au Choix National Historic Site. Parks Canada should be very ashamed about the state of the road in the Historic Site, it is atrocious with almost car sized potholes almost completely blocking the road. It was a slalom to try to drive down the road. We made it to the visitor centre and viewed the many displays there and talked with the interpreters on site. Then we drove down to the end of the road, still in a slalom type race to keep the car in one piece, to the lighthouse. There was still a light rain and a good wind blowing during the visit so we didn't stay very long. Then the slow drive back to Port au Choix and our B&B for the night. We met the same bus as we saw at the Arches P.P. which was trying to drive from the visitor centre back towards the town, it was going very slowly attempting to get by the pot holes without getting stuck or hurting itself! It let us by as the car was easier to drive around the major holes in the road. The weather was too bad to stop at the different archaeological sites along the road, disappointing to me.

We visited the French Rooms Cultural Centre where we watched a video on the floating of houses during the period when outports were being moved into areas with better transportation, health care and education. Watching a house being floated across the ocean being pulled by a number of fishing boats, the house almost tipped over with most of the first story on one side in the water and then pulled by a cat to its new location was amazing. How the house stayed in one piece and became quickly habitable was almost unbelievable. I wouldn't try this with houses built today! There were also other displays about the French culture on Port au Choix in the facility and a gift shop which Karen loved to browse and spend money in!