0535 Churchill Falls to Relais Gabriel

10^th June 2016

A long hard day on the road……

Slept like a log last night, not stirring till 7 am.  Felt fantastic on waking up, and had breakfasted and was on the road by 8 am.  I knew I needed to make some serious miles today – This trip through Labrador is a long way – Am more than happy doing it, because I really wanted to see this area, but it is a grind.  You only want to ever do it once !!  As I have said before, the road is forest and water, and you only realize how much water there is around here when you look at a good map like the Maps.me app I use, and see that there is as much blue water as white land ! The road is really just weaving between lakes and rivers, wherever they have managed to find some firm ground on which to lay the road base.  And most of the lakes are stunning scenically – If the sun was out you can only imagine how picturesque it would look.  Trouble is, even picturesque starts to get boring after 1000 kms !!!  I have now done some 2000 kms in Labrador, and it has mostly been just driving non stop !

From Churchill River to Wabush was some 250 kms, and I had to go into Wabush to the Wabush Hotel to return my Satellite phone.  The road to Wabush was much the same as yesterday, but at least by the time I got to Wabush at about 11 am, the sun was coming out. When I walked into the hotel the guy at reception said “Are you the guy in the Landcruiser ?” – I asked how he knew so quickly, and he said he had been looking out the back window and saw me do a U turn in

their rear car park !  They were pleased to see me because they had run out of phones and were actually waiting on one for a guy who wanted to leave almost immediately.  So after a chat about the brilliant phone loan system, I left.

Outside I watched as a guy on the other side was loading a big Harley onto the back of his truck using a ramp, and after watching him get the belly stuck for a while, he finally got it on.  I went over and asked him how he would get it off his truck when he got home – Easy, he said, I have a ramp at the house !!  He said he was off on a long trip down to the US of 4000 kms.  I told him that wasn’t a long trip…….. He laughed, and after chatting for a while. I headed out of Wabush (not a lot there) over to Labrador City to get fuel and a coffee. 

Labrador City is the site of the largest open pit iron ore mine in the world, and Wabush has another almost as big, so everyone round here is in the mining business.  But the towns themselves are just camp towns – Nothing too scenic at all, and it is very obvious that most of the time they are covered in snow because most of the lots, and half the roads, are dirt.  No point in paving them ! I found just 2 gas stations, side by side, and that was it.  And for the first time in Canada, diesel was more expensive than regular petrol, which was odd – The guy at the gas station couldn’t explain why.  More reason to get over the US border !!

So I got my fuel, after having done some 1300 kms on the last tankful I still only took 155 litres, which means I still had some 25 litres left in the tank – Enough for another 200 kms.  So theoretically I could probably do about 1500 kms without refueling, although I wouldn’t want to push it too far as restarting a diesel after you have run it dry is a bit of a PITA.  Good to now if you really need it though.

Dropped into Tim Hortons for a coffee and some wifi, and while in there a guy came up and asked me if I was the owner of the Landcruiser outside – Getting common here – People chase me down everywhere !  He was in the mining here, and he and his mate were just heading out for a ride on their Harleys in the sun shine, so we had a chat about things for a while – Nice couple of guys. 

Then it was back on the road, and soon after leaving town I crossed into Quebec Province, and all the signs stopped being in English and French, and went to French only !!   Shortly afterwards I stopped for a sandwich – Found a nice spot right on the edge of a lake and had a break there before continuing.

I passed what I presume was one of the iron ore pits, with a great big mountain of rock with trails for all the trucks all over it.  I then came to a massive camp for all the workers, and also an enormous plant of some kind – Not sure what they do in the way of processing the ore before the ship it out on trains – There was a long train all loaded and ready to go with 3 big engines hitched in tandem at the front to haul it.  Certainly a big operation.

As I wove through the middle of it, the road turned to dirt, and initially I thought I had taken a wrong turning and was in the mine site.  Then I saw a sign which confirmed I was on the main road – and it was dirt again !!  I thought I was done with the dirt yesterday !!!  Bugger.   And this road was NOT as good condition wise as the one through Labrador – Lots of trucks on it meant there were quite a lot of corrugations, and the road twisted and turned through hills.  Quite scenic, because basically the last 2 or 3 days have been pretty flat, whereas this was up and down through hills all the time, up to 2000 feet in places.  Same old scenery though – spruce forest, with lots of bright green birch, and lots of water in between !  But at least being hilly, you could see the view !  After some 50 kms of dirt, we finally got back on to black top again.

Eventually I got to an odd anomaly on my map – It looked like a circular lake, with an island in the middle of it that appeared to be about 10 or 15 miles across, and the road drove around the east side of it.  Later, looking at the map in more detail, I could see the island is called Isle Rene Levasseur.  And when I read the guide book later, I found out that the lake is a reservoir called Manicouagan, and it is actually the 5^th largest meteorite crater in the world !  Glad I wasn’t here when that one landed !  I wonder where the other 4 big ones are ?  I must do some looking on google.  But at least it does explain the circular shape of the lake, which satisfies my curiosity a little.  (Later - Just found this https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manicouagan_crater )

Half way round this meteorite lake, I was hoping for a camping spot on the water side, but nothing seems to go down to the lake. I passed a kind of truck stop, but decided to look a bit further for a spot – And hit dirt road again !  That was enough – I had been driving since 8 am and it was now 6 pm, so I went back to the truck stop place, which was quite big, with a kind of hotel for truckies, and restaurant, and repair shop for trucks – And a parking area with a picnic table.  So I checked in the restaurant to see if anyone objected to me parking there, and since they said no problem, I set myself up, had a beer, cooked some pork medallions, and settled in for the night.  All good at the end of a hard day on the road, but at least I am starting to get to within sight of the end of this long road.  Quebec is still about 1200 kms away, so I am trying to work out when I can best cross the St Lawrence seaway and get over to the east a bit.  If I cross into the States, I could come down through the northern part of the Appalachian Mountains, which might be a much more scenic route to Niagara than ploughing through the non stop urbanization of Quebec, Montreal, and Ottawa.  Will see how we go tomorrow…….

 Pics here :- https://picasaweb.google.com/110185357936043625130/6294974299360652721?authkey=Gv1sRgCKa90bOtpK6F2AE