We made it to L'Anse Aux Meadows today ...

... but the place was all closed up and locked. However having driven all that way, a visitor centre with a low roof miles from anywhere is no barrier to anyone who is determined, and 10 minutes later we were in the park.

It's a little confusing at first - they have built some replicas of the Viking buildings, but these are some way from the remains of the original Viking ruins - and these are surprisingly open, not fenced off at all to anyone so you can wander around them. The view is spectacular and you can understand why the site was chosen. There are two crescent-moon shaped bays, both well-sheltered, next to each other surrounded by cliffs to the prevailing northern side, and a low bank behind to stop the easterly winds. The boats could be brought right up to the village when weather conditions were right but a sandbank has intervened these days.

There are all kinds of traces of bog iron too just floating on the surface of the bog- useful for the Norsepersons to repair their ships.

But after that I had to clear off smartish-like. I don't have long here and I have a lot to do - not of visiting but of driving. You may not think it but Newfoundland is huge, much bigger than it looks on a map and I have to travel from here, at the extreme north-east, down to the Marconi station at the extreme south-west, and its over 1300 kms, would you believe. And so in a kind of minimalist mode I've made it this afternoon to Deer Lake where I can pick up the Trans-Canada Highway. That was a drive of almost 500 kms, you know.

Northern Newfoundland is beautiful -  lovely mountains and massifs, and we also saw some of Strawberry Moose's cousins. One was quite a good clear shot but the second - there were about 3 vehicles in a line - I was the middle one - and in the darkness and we were travelling at speed, suddenly the front car slammed on his brakes screeched to a stop, and we saw four long legs in the headlight beam disappear into the forest. He had just had a close encounter with a moose. It was noticeable that for the remaining 30 kms to Deer Lake his speed dropped from over 100 kph down to about 70 kph.

Tomorrow I'm back on the highway and I want to do all of it to Saint Johns in one go. If I can find somewhere cheap to stay I'll do 2 nights there, visit Cape Race and the Transatlanti Air Museum, and then hea back to the south-western corner (Newfoundland is like a big triangle) to my ferry Thursday night.