Dawn carries the reality of a new day through the skylight of my loft room, bringing with it the slowly dawning realisation that that was a fairly wild night down in Bonne Bay last night.
As wild as it gets, that is, when the pub closes shortly after 9pm, and you’re being watched over for the rest of the evening by a schooner full of armed cops.
We all sank a few, anyway.
Mark, sister Wendy and husband Jim and I – the four of us three sheets to the stiff wind.
I figure I’m going to need a heavy dollop of sugar in my tea to kickstart the day today … along with a fizzy tablet in my water, and a blast of fresh Newfoundland morning air.
I thought we’d already gone through all available shades of grey from the Canadian colour palette in the last few days, in the shadow of Shag Cliff and the Tickle, but it seems the hulking rock here has a few more dank tricks up it’s sleeve.
When I emerge into civilisation, it’s to thank Marie for renovating a 100-year-old house overlooking the glacial features at the harbour. And the pub.
I flee town when the feds aren’t looking, escaping in my Nova Scotia chariot, which delivers me to the scattered rusting parts of a shipwreck, strewn without thought along a pebbly beach, a few miles up the coast.
The SS Ethie, swallowed whole by the drink in minutes, and then spat out in chunks on the high tide, over several decades. It rests in pieces.
As with the crew of that godforsaken ship (all souls saved) – I need to be somewhere else.
Further up the road, I arrive at a busy parking lot at roughly the same time as yet another shade of grey: murky low-level clouds slowly lowering themselves onto the scenery, smothering all things in something approaching thunder.
But all I get is a kind of sombre outlook which is not my bag; although no doubt some folk get a kick out of it.
An easy wide-open trail to Western Brook Pond leads to a queue of tourists, and right on cue, the clouds shed their rain in semi-heavy bursts.
That snaking line of people may as well be walking off the gang plank straight into the drink – they’d likely see more down there than is visible up here right now.
My refuge is the cafe and the gift shop, paying more attention to the stuffed moose toys than someone my age really ought to, as I wait patiently for that heavy incessant rain to show any sign of letting up.
While I linger, the homemade cake eyes me up and we get a table together, in the corner.
This Victoria Sponge is local, so I’m told, is oozing character and a fruity filling, and is thrilled to hook up with an international visitor, according to my matchmaker – the inordinately enthusiastic till operator.
As we eye each other up in silence, this Victoria and I, my thought is: I only want to be your one life stand.
Yet before you know it, it’s all over, and I’m left picking over the crumbs of this brief but successful relationship.
Sod you, weather … I can have fun indoors! And it doesn’t need to involve stuffed moose, either.
I’m done with Gros Morne; or moreover, it’s done with me – I simply can’t see the point of it today. But then, I can barely see anything.
Drifting east in the unceasing gloom, a road takes me to King’s Point, where icebergs have also decided to stay over for the night.
The largest looks like a party yacht moored in the harbour at Monaco – if it was drawn by MC Escher.
Lots of straight lines and improbable angles, showing off a strange kind of blue light in overhanging shadows and oddly-drawn surfaces. Seems to be well-anchored, though – just beyond the ‘plot for sale’ sign.
Of course my overnight digs are around the inlet from this, just out of view, so I can’t spend the evening gawping at it from my loft window.
Instead, all I get is a partial glimpse of the road, and more goddamn trees.
I dump my gear, and backtrack through the clouds and around multiple bays and inlets and coves to Harry’s Harbour, where logs get piled up neatly to gaze out over the water next to brightly-coloured sheds.
On an early-evening coastal hike, remnants of an iceberg, tipping itself over or dragging itself under I’m not sure which.
Along the trail through the nameless trees, for further proof that Escher was here – the red wooden conundrum hanging from a tree by a clearing, in the drizzling rain.
Back at King’s Point, I do my best to comprehend all of this, at a food truck which serves me up a massive baby shrimp taco and an armful of fresh-cut fries, all smothered in homemade sauce.
It’s obvious: I had to wrap up this fifty-shades day, and at the same time call an end to my delirium tremens, with a full-on slap-up plate of the dirtiest, tastiest local fare.
I retire with a smile, to my elevated boudoir.
An Outside World 