Labrador – Day One; Hunting Icebergs, Fighting Bugs

Yesterday we took the MV Qajaq W from St. Barbe to Blanc Sablon, Quebec. Here she is approaching the dock at St. Barbe.

As she comes to the dock the top of the bow lifts up…

and her ramp drops down. Only the ramp at the dock didn’t cooperate, so the ferry had to back a bit, raise her ramp, drop her bow and do the whole thing again at another spot on the landing. This had no ramp on the shore side, but the junction was okay and all the vehicles made it off and on without incident.

Bud and I spent nearly the whole trip outside near the bow looking for whales and icebergs. We spotted what we thought were two bergs near the far shore. Sure enough, as we got close I was able to catch this photo of the closer iceberg.

Same iceberg, different angle.

And this is it after we’d passed. We also saw three whales blowing, which a nice man from the Netherlands explained had to be humpbacks, because they are the only ones that blow. No pictures as it was just spouts of water and too far to photo. Bud saw their backs, twice, but I missed that.

We landed at Blanc Sablon, which is in Quebec but only a couple of miles from the Newfoundland and Labrador border.

There were no problems docking on this end.

Soon we were driving up out of Blanc Sablon…

and there was the iceberg.

I got a pretty good shot as we drove by.

We then drove down into L’Anse-au-Clair…

where we had reservations at the Northern Light Inn Campground.

Of course the campground was across the street and not so picturesque. Also it was swarming with bugs. There are gnats, black flies and the elongated tiny bugs that love to bite me. Bud swallowed a bug as we hustled to get set up. I had a conversation with a camper from Ontario this morning and she said they wore bug jackets. Before starting our day’s exploring we went over to the Home Hardware conveniently located across the street next to the Inn to see what they had.

We got two bug jackets, which are mostly net.

Bud suggested I take our selfie by the Welcome to Newfoundland Labrador sign, but I didn’t do too good a job.

I then discovered that the net hood is supposed to be pulled down on your head. I think it’s made to fit over a cap and next time I’ll try that. Whatever the fashion statement, it was wonderful to walk around with no fear of bugs.

Happily bug free we set off down the lovely walking path to try to find “our” iceberg.

This was another nicely made path. Here it’s cut through the peat.

It was carefully constructed through this incredible landscape.

I’m looking forward to exploring more of this gorgeous trail…

but today we were looking for our iceberg. And there it was.

We picked our way along off the path along the edge of the boulders for a better look.

We weren’t the only ones coming for a closer look, that boat was much closer.

If they were taking pictures they are much more dramatic than mine!

On the ferry we’d seen another iceberg further southwest. I was advised that the drive into Quebec along the coast was beautiful, so we went looking for the other iceberg.

We found it.

We stopped at a point of land at Lourdes-de-Blanc-Sablon to get this image.

After a brief rest stop we continued along the coast. Note that the port-a-potty is strapped down, I assume because of the wind.

This is the Rivière Brador Oest, which tumbles down these falls…

as it flows into the Baie de Brador.

Further along we spotted a third iceberg.

This was probably the largest of the three, but we couldn’t get very close.

We kept on and even tried a little off-roading, but the track was incredibly rough and this is no place to damage your vehicle.

We found that if we unzipped and pulled down the hoods we could comfortably wear our bug jackets, making it easier to get out and take photos.

And there were places I wanted to get out and photograph. This is Baie des Esquimaux, where the Rivière-Saint-Paul empties into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.