14 – 16th November.
Deep Bight to Gander.

Hi all.

Just want to say I am very disappointed with the SPOT tracking… I  don’t know what is the problem as I take a bearing about 4 or 5 times a day. It’s very frustrating to see my progress has not been tracked. I am very close to throwing this ‘ mom and pop ‘ technology in the bin. I consider it really to be only a gimmick for the site to be honest.

Left Charles at Deep Bight on Sunday morning feeling very strong after the serious protein from the moose steaks but also left the steak for the road in his fridge  

Rambled on through Clarenville and into Port Blandford and went into the store for batteries. Got talking to a few of the locals. A really nice guy gave me 20 dollars for some beers, so too  did his friend and another 5… And I don’t even drink beer!

I was tempted to stay but as it was only around 3.15 and I had made many stops for my measly 30 odd km I decided to push on. Ran on into Terra Nova National Park. I put on a high viz vest and red flashing light for my back as it was dark. After about 30 km I came to Charlottetown,which seemed to be a small village in the National Park.

Dennis the owner of the Chode Choice Motel let me stay in one of the nice cabins for only 20 dollars.He said they normally charge 90 and that’s prob 100 after tax, so I was delighted with my bit of hustling!

Then Dennis brought me over some bread, noodles,eggs, tea, coffee, juice, butter, cookie…How thoughtful…Thanks Dennis.

So it was a late night as I did a major clean/throw out and got Nirvana nice and lighter now.. Every piece of equipment has to earn its keep from here on!

The nights are cold here as is the start of the day but the days are unseasonably warm. Most locals say it’s not like November weather, more like October.. They say it could change any moment  and I could be caught in a major dump any day..One never knows..They say because it’s north Atlantic it’s even more unpredictable than in other areas of the world.

I sometimes wonder should I just put the foot down and really try to make some serious progress..I am running more now than I really want to. Ran 68 yesterday and today, Monday another almost 50 to Gambo.

On the way I continued for about another 25km through the National park.

Near the exit I stopped at Mary Brown’s famous chicken and taters place. On the way in 4 hunters gave me 5 dollars each for  lunch! Nice people here in Newfoundland.

Well I arrived in Gambo and ran the 2km off the route (not counted) and went into Sheila’s Restaurant for dinner.

The man at the next table started talking to me and said that his house was demolished by hurricane Igor that went through this town a couple of months ago. Said he was living with his sister and about to move into rented accommodation tomorrow and that insurance didn’t cover him. For a man that had such a recent upheaval  in his life I was impressed by his upbeatness.

I asked the manageress, Bev if I could camp behind the restaurant and was in bed by 9pm.

Slept soundly till 8am with two pairs of socks on.

Bev and her husband Chas invited me in for breakfast so I didn’t get away till after 10 but what the heck this is about socialising and I don’t have any major schedule.

Chas works for the Canadian Government flying airplanes into remote areas of the North-west territories of Canada to areas that are occupied by the Inuit Indians. He said its a 3 hour flight to drop in their food and supplies as there are no roads. He works one month on and then has one month off.

I walked the 2km out of Gambo before the clock began for running. ran up a couple of steep ones. Didn’t know the grade but my speed was down to 5.2 kmph! They were leg sapping and after about 25km I was a bit beat up after the last couple of heavy days, I guess.

Mike Keating pulled up in his pickup around 2.15. He said he had a great time in N. Ireland, Scotland and France in March as his daughter is studying in Scotland he and his wife made a vacation of it.

Mike works for the power company and seemed very interested in my travels. He gave me an energy bar and when I asked if there was a backpackers hostel there he invited me to stay in his place. So no messing about with phone numbers I got the address and directions of where to turn off the highway.

Am having problems with my phone and often there is no reception anyway.

On I went for a couple of hours and noted a 24 hour Mc Donalds, had it not been for Mike I probably would have settled for that as they sometimes got wi-fi.

I was very tired at this stage and ran on till i got to the turn off of the highway and walked to his house, 41.9km and 3 stops today.

My God! It’s always great to have a hot shower after a couple of days on the road.

Mike’s wife was away visiting  their son in St. John’s so he cooked a delicious chicken supreme dinner followed by some tasty banana bread.

We had a really nice chat also with his son Lorren who is a sparky who insists that more people get electrocuted by 110 volts ac as opposed to 220 in Europe, contrary to what we had thought in construction sites in Ireland where everything is stepped down to the safer 110v.  Lorren says, and I guess he may have a point that with 110 people become complacent and think it’s safe.

They also had another 18 year old friend over who is a student air pilot…fantastic land of opportunities.

Total km’s for 17  Road Days = 736.4

Terra Nova National Park. I ran through much of the Park on Sunday night.Was a bit scarred the Park Ranger would pull me off the road.

I continued through the National Park on Monday morning and had a friend join me for my break.

Bev and Chas wave me on my way after breakfast in Sheila's Restaurant

Goodbye to Gambo

Hello to Gander

This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 17th, 2010 at 3:19 am and is filed under jogging. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.