August 5, 2023. Welcome to Newfoundland! In my first 10 minutes after getting off the ferry at Argentia, before I even get to the tourist information centre, I'm pushing my bike up a hill - it's too big and too steep to ride up! Are you kidding me!? Is this a sign of things to come? Soon enough I know the answer - oh yes!! They’ll come in all types: big and long, short and steep, short and big and long and steep. By the end of my first day I had walked up more hills than I have in all my ten years of cycling in Nova Scotia, no fooling.

At Chapel Arm, some 50 kms from Argentia, I come across an old geezer cleaning his catch on the wharf, a whole bucket of nice cod, maybe 3 or 4 pounds each. As he hacks at them he boasts that he is terrible at filleting, as though this were a virtue or something. From each fish he ends up with two thin strips of meat, the rest he just dumps into the water. The water is clear and about three feet deep. The bottom is like a garden but it’s not flowers that are planted there, instead it’s sowed with dozens and dozens of cod, ghostly white, complete but for their two fillets. The seagulls and cormorants don’t even look at them, they're too full. My respect-o-meter for this guy takes a dive.

As I talk to him I look out over the ocean; it’s b-i-g and, from what I’ve been reading, incredibly dangerous. Yet this old guy goes out in a boat hardly larger than the 16 footer that my brother and I used to go out on the little lakes in Manitoba. My respect-o-meter climbs. And how does he know where the fish are? Are they evenly distributed or do they congregate in certain places? I think there must almost certainly be secret knowledge passed on from father to son through the generations.  I expect my respect-o-meter will climb again when I ask: “So how do you know where the fish are?” “Oh,” he replies, “fish finder.” The respect-o-meter wavers, crashes to the floor and shatters into a thousand pieces.

I take the roundabout Hwy 201 to Bellevue to avoid the uninviting Trans Canada Highway (TCH). It’s pretty enough but the hills are plentiful and brutal, they seem to enjoy slapping you down to see if you get up again. At a convenience store in Bellevue I ask directions to a campground and am told it’s 6 km straight down the road, no turns. An old guy overhears the conversation and tells me he will show me the way. He gets in his car and drives 100 metres in front of me for the whole 6 kms. With the hills and all it probably took 20 minutes. At the sign for the campground he stops and tells me: “Here it is, I didn’t want you to end up going the wrong way”. Then he drives off leaving me shaking my head and wondering what just happened.

I am reminded why I rarely stay in campgrounds. It’s thirty five bucks for a site, not a level spot in it, and $3.50 extra for a shower. There is no soap. The toilets are pit toilets. There is a group of teenagers at the next site. There are signs that say the water needs to be boiled. The lady at reception tells me there is no need to boil but next morning my stomach is dodgy. 

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