A Day Doing Nothing

Not a lot to tell you all tonight.  We have spent the day mooching about doing very little indeed.  We all had very good intentions this morning at breakfast to have a healthy day.  Ian started breakfast with a plate of fruit (it's a very rare thing over here)

If you look closely the guy in the background is astonished!  We then decided that we would WALK into town, another thing that the locals thought was highly amusing.  We had a mix of reports on how far it was and how long it would take.  We were told that it was 3 miles and then Craig our intrepid leader told us it was about a mile.  No problem we thought and set off to find the "Town".  On our way we saw the town hall

and we passed the fire station..... with lime green fire trucks.  They must be on drugs and thats why its called happy valley

There was very little else and we were sorely disappointed that we had in fact walked 6.5km to get there.  There were two highlights, one was a little shootin, fishin, huntin shop that sold everything from a wooden shack.  They had clothing, souveniers, guns, machetes, knives, snow shoes, decoy ducks, jewellery and..... what was the equivalent of Anne Summers.  I've never been in a store like it... bizarre.  They also had a mini museum with all sorts of WW1 and WW2 artefacts and photos.

The other highlight was the Canadian Legion branch.  A great memorial and friendly bar staff and customers

All Ians good intentions came to an end at the sight of the Burger King.

Tomorrow is our longest day on the gravel.  We have 230 miles to do and there is no tarmac at all.  It is the newest section of the Trans Labrador Highway and we are told it is in good condition.  However, good condition for a biker might not be good news as it probably means the gravel is deeper than we would like.  There are no facilities at all along the route so we have to take a spare can of petrol with us just in case as it is at the limit of our mileage capacity.  Any relief that is required will be in the woods with the bears and if we want food and drink we can only have what we have with us.  We intend to use the Jetboil to make tea but if the other sections are anything to go by, as soon as you stop you are swarmed with black fly.  This section will break the back of the gravel though with just a short section to complete on Monday before we are back on tarmac for the rest of the trip.

I hope to get some photos of Gary tomorrow riding the gravel as so far we dont have one.