Wednesday August 14 ... On the rock ... Not moving...:)

We woke this morning to rain and a totally socked in sky in Port au Basques, Newfoundland, and had our first real glimpse of the town since it was pitch dark when we arrived.  The bay is right across from our hotel - which is up on a hill.  Rock everywhere...and buildings sort of built around it.  We're wondering if it's the same everywhere on the island...time will tell!  

The other bikers in the hotel we had met the day before made the decision to take the chance and hit the highway, but after breakfast, we made the decision to stay here one more day.  It just isn't worth it to us to take chances on the bike - especially on roads that are unfamiliar and having been informed by the weather network that rain was moving east...figured it might follow us all day long and that would make for a very tiring day on the bike as well as some potentially hazardous driving.  We are hoping our fellow cyclists all made it to their destinations without incident.

So - we took the day as a "down" day and did some laundry, caught up on some emails, did some Sudukos, read some and just generally lazed around for a good part of the day.  We had a late lunch in the hotel - pea soup and tomato red pepper soup - obviously very "home made" and absolutely delicious.  The pea soup had dumplings in it...I had thought they were mashed potatoes - and it was so thick it was like eating stew.  Homemade buns rounded out the meal and we surely enjoyed it!  

Around 3 p.m. the rain had stopped so we put on our jackets and headed from our hotel to the downtown Port au Basques.  About 4000 people call this town home.  It was fun walking around for almost two hours - seeing people going about their lives in much the same way we all go about our lives in our hometowns...shopping and visiting with neighbours and going to and from work.  People were very friendly and we are sure we stuck out like sore thumbs what with our taking pictures every few steps!  Here are a few of them...

Downtown Port au Basques is comprised of homes and businesses - often times all squeezed together so it didn't really feel like a separation of 'downtown' and 'houses'....if that makes sense.  We passed one home that literally had been built around a huge stone...

We stopped at the Shoppers Drug Mart to pick up a few things (felt weird to see the familiar sign amongst so many other business signs that were clearly locally owned stores) and a used book store for me to pick up another novel.  It was a neat shop with literally hundreds of books piled in what appeared to be no apparent order.  I could have spent hours in there but after just a few minutes it was so hot and humid that I had to get out of there...with an Andrew Greely novel in hand so hope it is good - but for $1.50 if it isn't I haven't lost much! :)  On next to the grocery store where we picked up a salad for an in room supper and some snacks for a picnic on the road tomorrow.

More murals adorned many of the walls...just love these!

For those interested in history here is a bit of what we learned on our walk along the boardwalk today...

Tomorrow it is supposed to be sunny so our plan is to leave the hotel around 8 a.m. headed for Gander...about 600 km. away.  We know it will be a long and gruelling day but if the weather is good it will be manageable.  Not sure what the roads are like and what kind of time we will make but we'll just play it by ear and stop when we need to.

Short post today...here are some final pictures to leave you with til next time...