I've seen a bear!

Yes, I really have! Rupert sauntered across the road about 150 metres in front of me and then stopped by the side of the road waiting for me to ensure his immortality by recording his features in the camera.

But I'm ever so impressed by all of this, I really am. I think that all of the wildlife have been briefed to expect the arrival of the legendary Mr S Moose and they are lying in wait.

So this morning having left my extortionate and over-priced motel I had a wander around Goose Bay- its well-known airfield from World War II when it was one of the wayside stations in the Atlantic Shuttle - but there wasn't anything significant to observe. And so I headed off for part III of the route - the Labrador Coastal Highway, the one that opened earlier this year and finally made this voyage feasible.

The road was surprisingly good and I could keep up a good speed along it for the most part although there were a few bits that were thin. And Casey is thoroughly filthy "just like you" - ed as the weather conditions were awful.

But I did have a problem. Casey is doing about 9.5litres to the 100 kms on good roads and much more on the rough stuff and so when I took it to be fuelled up, the guy put about 24 litres in, to account for the 300 from Churchill yesterday. I reckoned that the fuel consumption over that last bit must have been exceptional despite the roads and I was impressed.

But halfway round the route today I noticed that the gauge had dropped alarmingly. It seems that the guy didn't fill it all the way to the top and it was about 8 litres (the length of the neck) short of fuel. Hence I arrived in Cartwright (after seeing my bear) on fumes.

I also have a semi-flat tyre, not that this is any surprise. I'm surprised that it's the only problem that I have just now.

Here at Cartwright, an old fishing port dating back to the 18th Century and one of these stops for the coastal ferry trade up the Labrador coast, the road is a new arrival. And there are two hotels, one of which was fully booked and the other of which is closed for the season.

But the owner of the fully-booked one rang up a friend of the owner of the other one and she unlocked a room for me - and gave me the key to the kitchen to help myself for cooking and for breakfast (those tins of beans and packets of spaghetti came in handy this evening like I knew they would). But there's about a year's supply of beer in the kitchen - all kinds of things and I could have a field day in there if I were of that type. Isolated and Remote Canada seems to have these really old and traditional kind of values.

Tomorrow when I've fixed the tyre and fuelled up I'm going to look at the Viking Wonderstrand then drive back the 82 kms to the highway and go to the site of a historic early Pioneer village, Canada's second-highest lighthouse, an early Basque whaling station and the Basque fishing boats from the  
16th Century that have been salvaged, and then off to Blanc-Sablon where I may well spend the night ready to take the ferry to Newfoundland the next morning.

But the bear. I can't get over that. What with the beaver on the first day, the moose on the second, the bear on the third - I'm going for the Loch Ness Monster tomorrow!