Friday, October 06, 2017

Yesterday I came close to mastering all the controls of the second right-hand stalk on the steering column. Took me a while to realize that three of the functions causes a little hand to wave at me in the rear window. How Clever! Then the rain started again so I turned it off (hah hah).

Are there TWO stalks on the right-hand side? It sure seems like it.

Today I plan to start playing with the stalk(s) on the left-hand side.

Also I will try to reset the long-term fuel consumption. It has been dropping 7.5 to 7.4 to 7.3 Litres/100 Km (that's Mpg if you stand on your head) which reflects my steady pace of motoring. After a reset it will be more like 4.5L/100 Km, which will cause agonies to all the hot-blooded jerks who use the car after me, because no matter what they do, the long-term consumption will rise alarmingly.

I will experience a few drops of rain, by the look of it. The weather is very poorly managed. Look at all that ocean off to the right-hand side. Why can’t it rain there where, to the best of my knowledge, no one is driving?

The plan was to have stayed at Chanel-Port Aux Basques last night and then drive to Harbour Breton today. The fog and rain and my timidity saw me stop short. Chanel to Harbour Breton is 7h18m and 698 Km on a good day. I would first have to drive from St George’s to Chanel, 1h33m and 142 Km, which would make a total of 840 Km and nine hours of driving.

I am not going to do that. The purpose of this trip is to visit 20 towns and get the lay of the island. Today showed me that I COULD have reached Chanel, even with the lousy weather.

Today I will just head to Harbour Breton, 566 Km 5h59m and make it an easy day. This will keep me on schedule for my plan of doing five “legs” in five days.

The drive breaks down into four sections which I have cunningly named “NE”, “S” and “E” and “S the second”, because I have found the compass sign on the dashboard.

I read the 370-page Trax manual again last night, and finding no answer to my question, posted a question in an online forum and spent the first three minutes in the car experimenting with the audio system:

I drop in the two memory keys and use “Source” to select USB-1 and it starts playing “tunes” (Spanish MP3 tutorial files) quite merrily.

It plays all the tunes it can find.

I press the “Menu” command bottom RHS of the screen

Well, Waddyaknow! I choose “Browse Music”

And here are the songs it is playing somewhat mindlessly.

I choose “Menu” again, but this will load a different menu. The “Menu” command is context-sensitive.

I choose “Folder View”

I choose “Barrons501_Disc2” (originally the second CD disk from the back of the language book) and mirable dictu I am launched into the first of 28 tracks, each track 2 to 4 minutes long.

I then went back and selected “USB-2” as the source and repeated the exercise and listened to the first ten seconds of a story, a real story.

Then, just to prove it was no fluke, I programmed my way back to the twenty-eight tracks of verb conjugations.

Later in the day, on a quiet stretch of road, I tried loading up the other disk of Spanish, the one with a million three-second pronunciation exercises, but quickly learned that this is a good way to bring the car to a stop, Newfoundland highways having NO shoulders, just twelve inches of gravel and then a ten-foot drop into a ditch. I should add that I learned that just in time.

Moral: Program the selection on BOTH USB keys before engaging Drive and releasing the parking brake! The screen menu system is not something to mess around with at 100 Km/Hr (60 mph in Texas).

Or get a passenger to do the grunt work. (Kim: you interested in a tour of Newfoundland?)

In summary, if there is a screen, then there will be a programmed menu system, but you need to spend three to five minutes exploring it while still in the parking lot. It can’t be learned just by thrusting a memory key in the slot.

This was of course quite different when cars has CD players or Cassette players and all you could do was shove the disk/tape in the slot and listen.

P.S. FWIW this Trax is exciting. I read the manual each night before turning off the light. It is an automatic BUT you can move the gear lever to “M”annual and then use a +/- button to shift down gears (from 6 to 1) at the top of a steep grade.

I miss manual gear shifts. With the Trax I get both Automatic AND Manual.

I set off to trundle through the town as late as 9:45, behind a yellow school bus, which stopped every two minutes to drop of one, two, or three children, sometimes met by a parent. The children scurried away, obviously happy to be out of school. This is a scene you see repeated across rural Ontario around 3:30 p.m., but it is not yet 10:00 a.m..

What is going on? Teacher sick? Bomb threat at school? Or do they have very short school days in Newfoundland. About a kilometre or so ahead of us, another school bus was repeating the trick.

So here I am heading out of St George’s, back towards highway 490 and hence the Trans-Canada Highway.

I have learned how to open the hood and so have been able to top up with windscreen washer fluid.

It is not sufficient to pull that little lever under the dashboard. You have to turn to the 370-page user manual and learn that releasing the hood lock is the first step. Next step is to grope around in the 2cm gap to find the second lever that must be pushed towards the drivers side to actually release the hood.

Third step is to realise that the entire universe can be divided into “up” and “down”, and this lever might be sited on the fender frame rather than under the hood. Doh!

While I was walking back and forth between the front of the car and the rear of the car – I’d managed to open the trunk, but not the hood – about six cars went by. One of them, bless him, actually slowed to a crawl and looked ready to ask “Everything OK?”, so I yelled “Everything’s OK!” and we waved hands. He drove on.

You can’t read this sign, but the third line says “Grand Falls- Windsor 333”, which is almost mid-way on my trip today. YL 333 was the registration plate on our car in 1956.

This is a photo of a moose. The oncoming car had come to a halt, my first clue. Then a big brown lump ambled off the road, descended the non-existent shoulder, and stalked across the weedy growth into the scrub on the right-hand side.

Of course, you can’t make out the moose because as I flicked on my smart phone it displayed a message “The camera has stopped working”, and the stupid, stupid-phone is too stupid to actually rectify the situation by (so help me!) restarting the camera. So I have to Power-Off the Dumb-Phone while the moose exists stage left, and by the time I have powered it on again and re-opened the camera it is almost time for lunch.

Just be thankful I gave you a hint of what the picture MIGHT have looked like, and be glad that you don’t own a MOTO-X phone, OK?

And here we are on the Trans-Canada Highway heading towards Corner Brook. Most of today’s drive will be a rerun of earlier days.

I contemplate my expenses. Hotels are running to about $140 by the time you add the 15% HST and, I suspect in some cases, a “hospitality tax” or similar. Bed&Breakfast nooks are much cheaper. In this Western and Central area of Newfoundland, B&B are sparse on the ground, but when I examine the 2017 Traveler’s Guide, the eastern peninsulas are crowded with B&B.

I think that the old supply-and-demand kicks in here, but B&B so far seems to cost me around $80 in used banknotes.

There are numerous side tracks along the Trans-Canada Highway where you can signal, brake, and turn off and drive a few hundred yards from the highway to stretch your legs.

There are many clues to these lanes. In this case I see a left-turn lane and arrow. There will be a lane running off the highway once I negotiate traffic coming towards me at 100+KM/hr.

Another clue “School bus stop ahead”.

Another clue: a gap in the double-yellow line.

Another clue: a large rectangular sign that reads “Caution, left-turning traffic ahead”.

The clouds lift and blue sky presents itself. Gone is the terrible fog and rain of yesterday.

The mountains along this stretch are great to see. Also they are great!

I pull over to “stretch my legs”; it has been an hour since those three strong coffees at breakfast time.

On this service road the brush cutters have been at work.

I suspect that this is a continuous project to increase the visibility of moose. A fifty-yard cleared border each side of a road means fifty yards visibility on encroaching moose.

Here is the brush, laid down and dead.

On both sides.

And here are the stumps up close. These are serious knives or shears.

And here are the stumps up close. These are serious knives or shears.

The sides are just a tangle and, I can report, difficult to cross to reach the water-filled ditch before reaching the cover of the trees, for whatever purpose.

Here is part of Deer Lake.

So named because the words “Deer Lake” were found in the middle of it in Google Maps!

It is a magnificent lake, and funnily enough reminds me of Dease Lake which ...

... doesn’t have “Dease Lake” in the middle of it.

Sigh. We don’t have this sort of view in Toronto. Lake Ontario is bordered by three or four tiers/rows of condominiums.

Sigh. Again.

And again.

And on. I don’t get tired of these views, so much better in real life.

Speaking of Real Life, I have learned how to reset the driver’s information statistics, so now the long-term average is around 5.6 litres per 100 Km, whereas when I picked up the car it read 7.5 L/100KM, which is what I expected. My driving style is “No Braking” which means less gas consumption, whereas I suspect most renters thrash the car.

I am also watching the readout that tells me how many kilometres of gas are remaining in the tank. Right now I have traveled 200 Km since I filled up, and Trax says there are 505 Km remaining, so my range is around 700Km. Later legs of driving told me I’d get around 850 Km or more from a tank of gas.

I still distrust gas gauges, and rely more on my early knowledge of a car’s characteristics. I’ve owned cars where “seven hours on a tank of gas” is the guide, whereas this Trax seems to be “eight hours on a tank of gas”.

And, of course, as you head on to the next major town 240 Km away, if your gauge is telling you “250 Km remaining in the tank”, you don’t trust it; you stop and fill up!

More evidence of good driving habits of Newfoundlanders. The right-hand lane is almost dry, the left hand lane is distinctly wet.

A standard “Moose Crossing” sign. But there are never any moose near these signs. The moose are always someplace else along the highway, in my limited experience.

Another clue to a quiet spot. The sign says “Howley”, but when we get a little sign, it is a very little town, and will have peace and quiet on its approaches. Those big green signs with distances measured in hundreds are highways, not by-ways.

You can’t read it, I know. The orange sign shows a dump-truck and a double dotted line. This signals “dump trucks entering and leaving the highway”, and the signs appear every ten kilometres or so. This means we are approaching a quiet gravel pit, or even a laneway to a quiet gravel pit.

Here is another one. Can you read this?

Clouds roll in, painting the valley walls different shades of green.

You can see the cloud shadow on top of the ridge to the right. ***I*** get to see it moving!

And for long stretches I could be in Alaska.

Speaking of long legs, I am now on my third of four long legs (but see Sunday, which turns today into my third of five long legs)

Then a swamp-like lake appears on my right hand side.

More meese! And no, I’m not going to give you a map of Meese Lake. Find one yourself. I’m too busy driving.

At two o’clock I pull off highway 360 – Bay D’Espoir highway, just south of Bishops falls to stretch my legs and eat an apple. I was so full from breakfast that I decided to skip lunch and keep going.

“Bay D’Espoir” is of course Bay of Hope, but the stupid Anglos thought of it as Bay of Despair, turning the meaning around so completely.

My idiot ancestors.

Here is a view across the valley to the easternmost limb of Bishops Falls. I was there but five minutes ago.

I examine the pebbles. I had this vague thought about taking some home with me for my aquarium, but then remembered Porter Airlines. They’d make me take them out to re-weigh my shoulder bag.

There again I could have a half-hours fun taking them out one at a time and saying “OK, try weighing my bag again”.

The day is getting HOT. I heard on the radio that St John’s was a torrid 18c this afternoon. Another half an hour of this and I think I will turn off the floor heater.

My gas gauge readouts tell me I have 394 kilometres remaining, and I have driven 464 kilometres so far, which suggests a total range of 858 kilometres on a tank of gas, and that includes hilly driving. Well, I mean, I am in Newfoundland.

A while later the gas gauge readouts tell me I have 263 kilometres remaining, and I have driven 572 kilometres so far, which suggests a total range of 835 kilometres on a tank of gas we see that the predictions vary according to some form of running average, for my actual distance traveled is correct, so it must be the prediction that fluctuates, and that prediction must be based on past history.

I pass though barren patches. You’d think this was the Atlantic coast, swept bare of trees.

A glowering lowering cloud, bright warm sunshine, and chlorophyll doing is job.

More bare land.

Nothing special about these electrical pylons, but earlier I had noticed that where the steel pylon lines crossed the highway, three of these wooden towers were erected immediately below the power lines where the lines crossed the road.

Presumably when an ice-storm snaps the wires, they merely drape themselves across the wooden towers and do not short out on the roadway, or cars.

Another Sleeping Giant. I realised too late that the mountains I had seen on Wednesday on my drive North were invisible on my drive South on Thursday, and I forgot to check my rear-view mirror after I came through Deer Lake again this morning.

Another smudgy view of a lake. I took this photo to remind myself to remind you that lakes run alongside the road for many miles. I think Newfoundland might have more lakes than Ontario.

I was in Seal Cove some twenty years ago:-

See?

These Efficiency Units are NOT where I stayed. I stayed at the Southern Port Hotel.

Here I am in Harbour Breton. I have gassed up AND checked in to the hotel, but they were busy, so I have decided to try a Mary Brown’s. The line up didn’t empty. At one time there were sixteen people in the queue, at other times only six.

Primary and Secondary children were about fifty percent of the queue, and here outside are the bikes to prove it!

Harbour Breton Is beautiful. I am standing outside the hotel (bed) and next to the Ultramar (gas) taking my first photo of the harbour.

I spot a bridge to the island and decide to explore.

Note the rock face to the right.

A view to the left. Wonderful hills, trees.

A zoom shot, showing the little bridge to the right.

I cannot resist taking photos of the rocks.

I mean it. I cannot resist taking photos of the rocks.

Or the harbour.

Or the houses.

If you get a chance, inspect the houses. In most of the small towns I’ve seen, the houses look new. It is as if all the small towns were wiped out by a “small town” nuclear device, and the government stepped in and re-housed half Newfoundland population within a period of ten years..

Another rock in the harbour

Why can’t we build rocks like this in downtown Toronto, instead of condominium towers?

The track of an avalanche. Note how even 44 years later the tree growth is not re-established on the avalanche track.

Here is where we find the Breton Harbour library.

It is established in what looks like a college building.

And to maintain my unblemished track record of Paris 2014 and Poissy 2016 , the library is closed when I show up. I am destined NEVER to set foot in any public library while on holiday.

What’s the point of going on holiday if you can’t brag about your own home branch to less unfortunate populations?

And I am clickety-clicking like mad, to the amusement of the villagers.

I have crossed the bridge and am now touring the little island. New houses everywhere.

Everywhere. That’s the avalanche track on the right.

A poor shot of new housing. Pretty housing, too, in the pastel shades.

Looking back across the harbour to the mainland of Newfoundland.

I know, I know, but I never tire of it. We don’t have a pretty harbour in Toronto.

Nor are we a pretty town.

The Sweet Thing in Mary Brown’s asked me “How are the french fries” and I told her that if they were any better I’d rent a room here.

I think that is the harbour entrance coming in from the right in the distance.

I was wrong.

It isn’t an island, but it may as well be, given the ridge of rock . I have circled mon hotel, the bridge, and pointed to the avalanche track.

I just can’t get over it. My belly is full, the car is gassed up, my bed awaits me, and the sun is warm on the back of my neck.

I just can’t get over it. My belly is full, the car is gassed up, my bed awaits me, and the sun is warm on the back of my neck.

I check out the store at the Ultramar, and the two supermarkets. In one supermarket I spot – TaDa! – Chapmans Butterscotch Ripple. Right here at The End Of The World.

$6.99 for two litre bricks. $2.99 in NoFrills on Parliament Street Toronto.

Should I or shouldn’t I? By an amazing co-incidence (right!) I retained the plastic fork from my dinner at Mary Brown’s. Tempting, tempting.

The manager told me that he gets his Chapmans via a warehouse from a Chapmans factory in Nova Scotia.

We had a lovely chat, and this is a good time to tell you that strangers call out Hellos. I pause and think “Perhaps they are calling out to someone they know who is behind me, in line-of-sight”, but there is no-one there.

Then I think “Perhaps this is the guy who checked in when I did, and just like me is wandering all alone”, but no, it’s just a guy in a truck who felt like saying Hello.

Why can’t Harbour Breton and Toronto just exchange populations. I’d love to be surrounded by Newfoundlanders.

Dusk creeps upon me. Here are some more houses back of what used to be the IGA but is now some other name.

More houses, back of the old IGA.

Yes, there are fishing boats in the harbour.

But I suspect I am the only pedant wandering around at this hour.

Yes. We definitely need to swap Toronto Harbour with Harbour Breton Harbour.

A hamlet nestling at the foot of the spur that turns this into a semblance of a small island.

I was puzzled over this small patch of snow on the far shore, especially as the shore faced due west into the setting sun at the end of summer.

So I took a second shot, and by then the patch of snow had flown away!

Now. About that avalanche track.

Here is a local shot of the track.

You can read more by searching for Hickey Landslide

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