Forteau to L'anse Aux Meadows
We hoped that we would wake up this morning and find the fog had disappeared from site and we would see Labrador for real! No such luck. Still pea soup fog this morning. The original idea was to get up and get going to drive north to Red Bay first thing in the morning to see the sites on the way and the historic site. We had a quick discussion and decided that with the amount of time we had before the ferry, the road conditions and the fog we would go the other way towards the ferry terminal in St. Barbe and drive south in Quebec to explore. So that is what we did.
Once we hit Quebec the roads are so much better! We headed south in the fog exploring along the way. What we could see looked interesting and we wish we could see more. We stoped at a site that supposedly you could see and island with Puffins (Perroquets in French) along with a walking trail, of course the misty rain decided it should start again as well. We stopped and I took a photo of the sign and then another photo looking out to the island, of course the island is lost in a white fog! But we can say we were there.
We also found a fishing museum along the way but, just our luck, it wasn't open as we found when we stopped. We had a look around but not much to see outside of the buildings and the fog blocked any good views. Took a photo of the dock with a couple of small boats tied up. Easy to see just how foggy it was. Also took a photo of the ground at the site, wonderful display of lichens on the rocks.
Driving back to the ferry we stopped at a sign for the Notre Dame de Lourdes Sanctuaire (Shrine) beside a church. Thought the Shrine must be within the church building so we went in but no, it wasn't. Across the street from the church was a giant outline of a jperson standing beside the hospital, not sure what this was about but took a photo anyway, at least what you could see through the fog! We drove to the parking area near the Shrine and walked through the Shrine area. The actual Shrine is on the top of a hill but was mostly hidden in the fog and clouds. As it was misty and cool and we didn't want to get too wet before the ferry we just walked around the lower area. The pathway had carvings spaced out and numbered from 1 through 15 with the story of Jesus' crucifiction and arising. Nothing better to do so took a photo of each carving. We then headed to the ferry terminal to wait for the ride bac to Newfoundland. Again the ferry ride was boring as the fog didn't let us see anything, supposedly lots of whales and ice burgs on the trip over!On the Newfoundland side the fog had thinned out and coming into port you could actually see a bit of land and rocks. But the rain was a bit heavier there. So we headed off on the drive to L'Anse aux Meadows and our B&B for the next couple of nights. We arrived and the weather cleared up a bit and we had a great view of the ocean from our B&B and our first real view of ice burgs. We did a short drive after arriving around the area to locate the historic site and facilities in the area. Tomorrow we visit about the most important site we wanted to see on the trip but first, off to supper at the Norseman Restaurant and what a wonderful meal we had there, expensive but well worth it!