Transportation Heros & Heroines

 Hullo!!! We have driven over to a little town called Carbonear... which has an interesting transportation artifact... can you guess??

Look!!! 

It's a railway remnant!! Yes, I didn't know Newfoundland had a railway either... I thought it was all boats and stuff. Cause honestly... once you are away from the shore, the interior is a stubby-treed wasteland!

But here we are... CN engine #803...

And no... it is NOT in good shape!

In late 2022, the town voted to scrap the engine due to repair and safety concerns. But there was a hue & cry and the engine has a reprieve... they are now looking at preservation funding.

The thing lists a lot as well, mainly because the old railway ties (sleepers for you UK folk) are rotting.

"All Aboard!!"

It's a sad sight...

And I think it would need a lot more money than expected... it's really only a shell of a locomotive.

It was built in 1956 and is... was... an 800 horsepower locomotive. It was retired in 1984 and has sat in Carbonear since 1989... with zero maintenance. Well... that's what you get then!

It is a piece of history though...

We also stopped at the old Carbonear Railways Station, which is now a museum. They said that people and goods were shipped on the railway lines... this must have been in the olden days... before cars!

The next day.... we had a rain day... which is not horrible.

We got to watch a bunch of Netflix movies and...

Made a big pot of spaghetti bolognese!

And watched more movies...

And then ate the spaghetti (or fusilli) bolognese. Yum!

The next day was sunny again and we went across the peninsula to Harbour Grace. Where we found an airplane sitting in a park!

Do you know who landed in Harbour Grace enroute across the Atlantic??? Hint: She disappeared in the South Pacific years later!

Yup! It's Amelia Earhart! She flew solo across the Atlantic in 1932 and stopped at Harbour Grace before heading off for Ireland.

And then in 1937, while trying to circumnavigate the globe, she and her flying partner disappeared over the South Atlantic.

She was an explorer and adventurer!!

They have a replica of some pages from the airport log back in the day...

Wow... to think Amelia Earhart walked here almost 100 years ago. Cool.

I mean... back then... the airfield wasn't much more than field but... still...

It's cool!

The plane has nothing really to do with Amelia Earheart. It is a DC3 manufactured in 1943, and used during the war by the US Air Force. In 1977, it was bought by a local who used it for ferrying supplies around the north. It retired here.

Cool.

And through these gates...

And along the boardwalk... we can see a ship lying in the harbour.

Can you see it behind me?

How about now?? Yes... that is the SS Kyle... she was launched in 1913 and served as a ferry and sealing vessel. She moved troops around during the Second World War as well. In 1967, she sustained a lot of ice damage and, while moored in the harbour, broke loose and then ran aground here. It was too expensive to salvage her... and here she sits... slowly mouldering. And if you zoom really far in, you can see bushes growing on her!

While we are here... I decided to take the opportunity to...

... dip my toe into the Atlantic!!!

Coast to Coast!!! Whoo!!

We then headed off... driving to our next Airbnb which is in Princeton... not the US version... the Newfoundland version!

We stopped for lunch in a little tiny spit of a village called Come-by-Chance... and it was the name more than anything that made us stop. We had lunch at a park... yes... more veggie sticks and hummus... with some boiled eggs thrown in for good measure...

 More later!