Bugs and clouds (okay, bugs) prevented last night’s sunset. But we were up early and heading north to Red Bay.
The town is right of the fork in the road. The left was tempting, but the gravel road is not for us, yet:
We don’t usually do the pay-for-it tourist stuff, but the Red Bay National Historic site, now a UNESCO site as well, was tempting. So we toured the Visitor’s Centre (complete with a small iceberg just outside the window which had been there for 4 weeks1):
then headed to Saddle Island with our Water Taxi Captain, Truman.
This place is amazing. In the 1970’s, this archaeological site of a 16th century Basque Whaling Station was discovered by the observation of red tiles piled everywhere on this little island just minutes off of Red Bay. Many years of digging on land and under water has revealed an amazing story of the killing and rendering of 25,000 whales, sunken galleons, and the Bernier, a 1960’s wreck.
You walk the island (we spent two hours) and the places for tryworks (where they rendered the blubber), cooperages, wharves, a possible church, a burial site, and a Dorset Eskimo site. It was amazing:
And we saw two life birds: a Spotted Sandpiper:
and Truman pointed out another, an Eider (duck):
We asked how he knew it was one (thinking markings, size, etc.) and he said he’d shot and eaten enough to know! He said you “fill ’er with Stove Top and bake ‘er”. We loved Truman. He also took us on a tour around the little iceberg and we both touched it. Beautiful colours and solid as a rock:
We tried more Fish and Chips (tasty but still not a winner) and decided to walk it off on two trails. The first was the Boney Shore Walking Trail along the beach where many of the bones of the whales slaughtered by the Basques still lie. They’re bleached, many still intact, and some crunch underfoot:
The Tracey Hill Walking trail (670 steps up) was more a challenge. We climbed 442 of them then decided “this isn’t Mount Everest, so we have nothing to prove” and headed back:
On the way home, we stopped at the wooden deck bridge over the Pinware River, a beautiful, salmon-fishing spot:
Back at the campground, we filled with water, avoided bugs, drank wine and Scotch and went to bed!
Here’s another view of the campsite:
No comments:
Post a Comment