Happy Valley - Goose Bay

23 July 2012.

This is the final route we took, from St John's to Goose Bay

 We arrived at Goose Bay early in the morning, and put our packed bags outside our cabins at 6 am. The MV Northern Ranger was at the dock so the Akademik Ioffe had to anchor, and luggage and passengers were transferred to the dock by Zodiac.
Between mid-June and mid-November (depending on ice conditions), there is  a ferry service operated by the Newfoundland and Labrador Government. The ferry boat is the M/V Northern Ranger and provides weekly service from Goose Bay along the Atlantic Coast, with stops in Rigolet, Makkovik, Postville, Hopedale and Natuashish. Nain is the northernmost stop on the route.

MV Northern Ranger 

Loading bags into a Zodiac.

Closer view of the Northern Ranger.

 We were taken to the airport by bus, about 8 am to let people catch 9 am flights, but my flight didn't go till 1 pm. So I wandered around near the airport, looking at the parked planes and the fluffy clouds.

Voodoo.

Air traffic control tower.

PBY Catalina Canso water bomber.

Memorial to the crew of a crashed search and rescue plane.

RAF Vulcan XL 361, with airport buildings behind.

Goose Bay airport. 

Air Labrador flight loading.

My flight took me back east to St John's by way of Deer Lake.
This is some post-glacier landscape near Deer Lake.

Near St. John's.

Then I had another 4 hour wait before a flight to Ottawa by way of Halifax. Arrived home about 11 pm  (an hour later by body clock). The plane landed in a thunderstorm, so we had to wait on the runway until it was safe for the ground crew.