"Rain, hefty wind, moose, bears and much more frost"
After a rocking night on the ferry without sleep Nuffiland welcomed us with beautiful rainbows, blowing wind with force 8 and icy rain around 5°C. The already open (7 a.m. ! ) tourist information confirmed at last NO Grizzlys on Nuffiland. Good - and we can make the short cut through the midland wooden hills, the road is bumpy but OK – we will safe 3 days even better.
The first day I had to give up after 12 mi in order to catch up with some sleep at lunch (Katrin mentioned something like: you look like a tired pink piggy with your red wind burn in the face! Get some sleep!) Ending up soaked and worn after 20 mi at Cap Ray in the evening. We could park our van near the rough beautiful beach in the wild for the night without the “Damocles’ Sword of the US to get mugged or shot”. The storm was shaking us to sleep after a great sunset of exploding colours. At 1.23 a.m. the light house was blowing its fog horn with 140 dB…we should have to remember that in the future.
I was walking along the Trans Canadian Highway 1 and when the rush hour of about 200 cars from the ferry was gone the traffic was on sparse, lots of bear tracks along the road, lots of icy wind and much more rain, but hey that’s what I expected that’s what we got. Katrin was also walking about 12 mi a day but then freezing in the car. The winter here is not so far away. After three days of rain (the storm kept on) I turned into the highlands on a great sunny day and both of us were rewarded with fantastic views, autumn colors and absolute silence on the logging dirt road through Nuffi’s heart B-B-Qing fresh salmon on spinach with jams.
From that overwhelming experience Nuffiland seemed to hide itself under covers of dense fog, drizzling rain and storm. I followed the logging road through the woods in icy climate. Sometimes quite huge motionless moose were watching me and I got the impression that they were heavily stoned.. at least that’s how they looked. Katrin was happy (and very cold all the time) when she saw her first moose, “looks like a horse with antlers” “and they look quite drunk how they move when they move…”
The people were exactly as we were warned for a year. Special! Extremely friendly concerned (helpful) and curious like all people in scantly populated areas. Many people were driving around with pickups their “puppies” on the back… sleepy moose and some times a sleeping bear as well. Might have been hunters, too…may be.
Any way after 10 days of no shower, no electricity we ran out of smelling each other, food, propane and nerve so we made stop at the first B&B with “home feeling” in Middeltown (about 50 souls strong) with great dinner around a table with a bunch of prospecting nuffis, which was a fine experience (especially that lemon pie!!!). And we got the impression how it will be to sleep under a real roof again, without our beloved van, which smelled of hector gallons of sweat, 200 nicely cooked dinners and never really clean clothe, that must be odd…
Only 10 more days to walk... and I slowly get the feeling that I can really do it. But what then? Must be strange to get out of …a bed… and no more walking…then.
Written: Monday, Badger, Nuffiland Oct 15th, less than 250 mi to go to Cape Speer, the most western part of the American Continent. Ah yeah, no storm, but drizzling rain and only 2°C plus, from tonight on icy roads in the morning. Winter is here, hopefully no snow.
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