Thur 30 June

Well the sun was short lived – it's gray and cold again (real cold). Toured an excellent Basque museum in Red Bay. The Basques were whaling from the bay here in the 16^th and 17^th century. Divers found a wreaked Neo (merchant sized ship) on the sea floor of Red Bay. According to Basque records found in the area, the ship was blown aground with a load of whale oil. A reduced scale model of the ship is exhibited in the museum. An excellent morning.

In the afternoon we started on the first leg of the gravel road – the Trans Labrador Highway – with the 136km to Port Hope Simpson. This is our last gas stop for the next 400 km to Happy Valley/Goose Bay. This latter section of road is the new bit opened last year. The surface is good but the grader has spread the marbles across the surface seemingly just for us to slip and slide on. Made Goose late in the evening and ended up putting the tent up in the dark. Terry rand out of petrol a couple of miles out of town so Frank towed him in. All up today was 535km of gravel road. And a lot more to come yet – one sign says we still have 800 km to go just to get to Labrador City.