What We Didn’t Do

Yesterday we decided to drive to the end of Route 364, a branch off the road we came down on. It was on my map program as a route, but our paper map said the last bit was gravel.

Okay, not so bad. There was a warning sign that this road was not maintained by the Department of Transportation, use at your own risk. We’d been on those before.

This is where we turned around. We’d crawled up two hills in four wheel drive. The map program said we still had five miles to go.

There was nothing around us and no cell coverage.

It was a long walk back if we got the truck in a situation we couldn’t get out of.

So we didn’t drive to the end of Route 364.

On our way out Bud had seen a nice little bridge. He wanted to try going that way. I told him I thought it was a walking trail. He said there was a road. I said it was a trail. I said it will be a long way to back up if it is a trail.

It was a trail.

It was a long ways to back up. And you don’t drive off the edge into the field because it’s probably a bog and you’ll sink to the frame.

So we didn’t get to drive over the little bridge.

But we did get to see more of this country in the sunshine.

It’s worth the drive.

It’s huge and empty and very striking.

I was trying to catch this where the cliff was closer to the road, but trees made it hard. Our altitude here is about 500 feet. That’s sea level down below.

We stopped at the overlook for the mouth of the Connaigre Bay. One of the resettled communities, Great Harbour, was just on the other side of the point. For public services and supplies folks came by boat across the bay to a cove below this point, then took a path into Harbour Breton, about three miles. No wonder they agreed to move where life was a bit easier.

But we didn’t actually get to go to Great Harbour.

Today we decided to take the passenger ferry and go to Gaultois, one of the outport communities still accessed only by boat. The ferry was at 2 PM. We left in plenty of time. It took a bit to find the right wharf in the little town of Hermitage, and then to find a place to park. Still, we were at the wharf at 1:40.

That wasn’t soon enough. They had their allowed 20 passengers. They pulled the gangway in as we walked out on the wharf and told us sorry, we are full.

They were underway at 1:45 without us.

So we didn’t get to go to the outport of Gaultois.

We saw this boat with a huge reel on it…

and this one with what looked like a vacuum system. We are pretty sure they are both used in aquaculture.

There is a lot of aquaculture here. These rings are in a fresh water pond, but we’ve also seen them in the salt water bays. They raise salmon and mussels. But Bud asked about a retail seafood store in town and there isn’t one!

So we didn’t buy any fish.

But there are always nice trails. So we came back to Mile Pond and took Matey and the stroller around the pond.

This is a pretty big pond.

At least two thirds of the trail was boardwalk so it made pushing the stroller easy.

Here and there along the trail were little fairy towns…

and collections of painted rocks. It was fun.

We came to one spot where there was a ramp up to the trail from the bog…

and then down to the pond. It took a minute, but then it dawned on me, that’s a snowmobile crossing!

No matter what you can pretty much count on a nice walk on a well made trail in a beautiful setting.