It was an early rise to drive and catch the ferry from Sydney over to Channel-Port Aux Basques over in Newfoundland. With the luxury of pre-booked tickets there was no question of getting on board, but the wait to do so was the usual hour or two, lined up dockside.
With Charlotte and Vanastasia safely locked away, Alex, Heidi and I rode the elevator to the 9th level deck and found a decent place to sit. One of the more mundane things that a western person takes for granted is electricity – and with a laptop, ipad, phone, bluetooth headphones, spare phone battery and electric beard trimmer, it was something of a necessity for my sanity and entertainment.
I’d managed to create a little cigarette lighter to powerboard setup that works brilliantly when Charlotte’s engine is running, but not so good (as I might have previously alluded to) when parked overnight (#flatbatterysyndrome). It’s a endless cycle of charge during the day, discharge during the night (not that type of discharge!), and as this was early morning most of my devices were a little low on juice
Fortunately the ferry had copious amounts of (now what do I call them – sockets, outlets, power points, meh who cares) right by our seats, so out came the powerboard and we hooked every device up to charge.
This being the Newfoundland ferry, and me being the “she’ll be right” sort of guy I am, I was happy to cover them with a jacket and go explore the boat. It’s the usual ocean crossing ferry – 10 or so decks high, comfortable seats, bars, cabins for those that want to pay for them – quite exorbitantly I must say. Interestingly many of the seating areas on the “entertainment deck” are labelled with “no sleeping area” to stop people stretching out and snoring (that being restricted to the next deck up where lights are dimmed and people whisper. Being a day trip not a problem, but it’s the same ferry on the way back so I sort of see the point.
The trip was uneventful (despite Heidi’s insistence to go back and monitor our electrical belongings), other than for a brief glimpse of a couple of porpoises/dolphins (whichever is actually local to these parts) about halfway across. Unfortunately it wasn’t the playful, race the bow sort of thing, rather a glimpse of some fins and dark shapes a couple of hundred feet way.
The trip is around 8 hours duration, so we arrived in Port Aux Basques in the early evening, and after a quick scout of the town, Alex, Heidi and Vanastasia lead us down some odd backstreets to a spot by a local park where we would overnight. Dinner, a beer and conversation done it was time for a good night’s rest save for interruption at around 5 or 6 am by the long and loud sounding of the ferry horn (which I think denoted the arrival of the overnight companion to our own boat.
Have I told you that Alex and Heidi are early risers (it’s one of their few flaws), sp we were up early for breakfast, coffee (YES, I am now drinking it occasionally) and we hit the road.
Newfoundland really only has one major highway, Alex and Heidi had more of an idea of what they wanted to see, so we let them take the lead. Unfortunately Vanastasia doesn’t have cruise control, her steering is, shall we say a little less precise than Charlotte’s and eventually I pulled past and took up point. Not that we could really go wrong with only one road to follow.
And none of the above is to suggest in anyway shape or form that Vanastasia is inferior to Charlotte – she has many outstanding attributes such as a stove, running water, a TOILET! and even a solar panel and spare battery to charge devices whilst parked! it’s just that she is a couple of years oder than my darling and as is the way of such things is less nimble than her younger counterpart.
But I digress.
Having taken the lead, it was only a short moment before the most pivotal event of our entire Newfoundland trip occurred. On refection it was a delicate conspiring of the universe that allowed this moment to transpire.
Charlotte was merrily trotting up a decent sized hill, when I spotted a couple of hitchhikers on the side of the road. To date I had never stopped to pick a single hitchhiker up despite spotting a few on the roads of North America, but a confluence of thoughts came unbidden to my mind – it’s overcast and looking like rain is on the way, it’s Newfoundland (so it’s like stopping for someone you see on a lonely desert road), and probably some subconscious illogical otherwordly sense that this would be ok (I had Vandastasia and the guys with me as well!) so I stamped on the brakes and pulled over to let the guys jump on board.
After a few minutes scrambling assorted detritus off the front seat and back captains chair (at the best of times I can be a little messy), they were safely ensconced in Chalotte’s warm embrace.
Introductions were immediately made (Editor note – well nted Captain Obvious!).
She was Alizee, a French architecture student, who was travelling specifically to Newfoundland to see the buildings and artists residences on Fogo Island which have quite world renown.
He was Victor, Alizee’s friend from school, who had flown out to accompany her on the trip as it was a leap too far to attempt it on her won. Oh and he is a classically trained frecnh chef, who works at the Elysee Palace cooking for the French President! Technically French, he had moved to Paris for the job, so is in fact not TRUE French (according to Alizee)!
Oh and did I mention they are both under 25! Bloody overachieving youngsters!
And for clarity, they ARE NOT a couple – both have intimate partners of their own, who were quite comfortable in letting them go travel together!
Their English was quite good, which was just as well as my French is, for all conversational purposes, non-existent, and which made for interesting driving and listening as they chatted to each other in French, possibly deciding if I was some sort of weirdo serial killer. Obviously they came to a negative conclusion on that, so the conversation again turned to English and discussion of our plans etc.
They were heading in the same direction as us – towards Deer Lake, where they were picking up a car, driving to Fogo, then down to the other end of the island to St John before returning to Deer Lake to drop off the car and catch flights towards home. They weren’t picking the car up for a few days, and had hoped to get a quick visit to Gross Morne National Park, a UNESCO world heritage site, before that.
Unsurprisingly for this tale, and for anyone travelling in Newfoundland tbh, we were already heading to Gross Morne, thirty or so kms north of Deer lake, so we offered them a lift there, and maybe even a lift back to Deer Lake in time for the car. After meeting Alex and Heidi and spending time with us, they happily accepted.
So out touring party of 3 swelled to a crowd like 5 and was going to stay like that for a few days. Those days would be filled with laughter, good food, crazy fishing attempts, cooking lessons in pubs and the establishment of firm bonds of friendship, but all of that is for another update.
Here come the Frenchies indeed!
