Canada:Newfoundland. 'You'll never ride a motorbike again!'

Episode 17
Miles so far = 1232

 

 

 

How long I was unconscious for I’m not sure, but the maximum would have been only a minute or so. I slowly came around hearing a young girls voice crying out;

‘Monsieur! Monsieur!’

Looking up over my shoulder, I saw a young girl, fourteen years old possibly, looking down at me from the rim of the ravine some 15ft above me.

‘I’m ok.’ I called back.

Frantically I looked around the jumble of boulders for my ‘bike, imagining all sorts of horrors. Then relief as I saw a handlebar was peeking above the edge, a few yards beyond the girl. It had not followed me down into the gully!

‘But,’ I mused, ‘it won’t have escaped scot free.’

Turning, I anxiously went to find out more, that’s when I found out my left arm wasn’t working.

‘Guess I’ve broken it,’ I thought. ‘ No doubt the excruciating agony will come shortly, but for now maybe natural endorphins are masking that, so ignore it and find out what the ‘bike is like’.

 

I thanked the young lady with a ‘Merci beaucoup mademoiselle’, and an ‘I’ll live, worse things have happened at sea’; which made her frown. Looking around I saw three or four large chunks of red plastic and lots of little bits. The little bits were from the hand-guards I had fitted, the big bits from the fairing. The wind-shield also appeared to be missing.

 

A small dark blue car turned out of the campground gate, followed by a Park Rangers Land Cruiser. The car was being driven by the young lady’s father, he looked very pale.

‘Are you alright?’ I asked concernedly. The absurdity of these few minutes only dawned on me later. He muttered a reply in French and drew his hand across his forehead.

Two Park Rangers jumped out of the Land Cruiser, one male, one female. Lots of fussing ensued and they managed to get my jacket off. Judicious feeling about along my arm produced no pain or signs of swelling or, my own nightmare, bones sticking out at odd angles. Then the ambulance arrived. The paramedics carried out the same tests on my limbs, held some fingers up for me to count and then ushered me into the back of the ambulance. The young female Park Ranger joined me and we drove off at speed towards St. Anthony’s Hospital, St. Anthony being the largest town in the area. The Ranger told me her colleague would pick up my ‘bike and its attendant bits, and store them until I came back from the hospital.  I sat quietly reflecting on what outcome this would have as we drove into the little seaport of St.Anthony.

 

St. Anthony's Hospital

The Intern in the A&E department checked me over, shined a light into my eyes and pronounced me fit apart from my useless left arm which dangled at my side like a wet fish. Asked to lift it I could only manage to raise it about 2” from my side, and I think most of that was from my chest muscles flexing. My fingers worked fine, and that seemed strange to me. He stuck pins into my arm in various places and asked if it hurt, it did! I went for an x-ray, and waited for the results. Some kind soul brought me some coffee along with a Trooper from the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. Now this was potentially awkward as I had no valid motor insurance, but I would act dumb and show him my accident insurance instead. The Trooper took the details off my passport and International Drivers License and asked if my insurance policy would cover the hospital bill. I told him that it was good for a hundred grand and he nodded, put away his book and said that as no one else was involved it was ‘case closed’ and grinned, shook my hand, wished me luck and left.

 

The Intern returned with my x-rays and we both looked at them on the light-box on the wall. No signs of breakage, foreign objects or twisted tendons. He said he wanted me to be admitted until the consultant could see me in the morning.

I was not allowed to walk anywhere and waited until a porter was free to take me to a ward. We chatted amiably as we ascended to the first floor and then to a small ward containing 8 beds. The Nursing Sister in charge put me in a bed next to the window because all my motorcycle clobber would be in the way anywhere else. A female nurse arrived seconds later and asked if I had eaten, it was now about 7.00pm. I said that I hadn’t and she said she would try and rustle something up for me.

 The ward had three other patients, and another was admitted the next day. Three I would get to know and like, the fourth left early the next morning before we had chance to get to know each other. But for now, Tyron, the fit looking alpha male opposite me had just returned from some treatment or other and was plainly in pain and wanted to sleep. Dan Griffin was in his late 60’s and had his back to me and the curtains were drawn around the bed diagonly opposite corner to me. The nurse returned with some hot food saying I was lucky because a patient in the surgical ward had his food kept warm while he had some procedure or other, but on returning to his ward found he was no longer hungry. Chasing peas around a plate one-handed is not easy but did create a diversion for me.

I saw the Consultant the next morning, a pleasant Scot who had emigrated 40 years or so before. He and my Intern examined both me and the x-rays and decided to send me for a scan. I was duly wheeled to the scanning room by the same genial orderly I had yesterday, scanned and returned to my bed. The young female Park Ranger visited me and said that the bike and bits thereof were safely locked in a store shed along with my tent and camping gear. I thanked her profusely and apologised that my clumsy riding had caused them a problem. It was no problem she assured me and wished me well.

 Later the Consultant and Intern arrived at my bedside. He told me that my scan was inconclusive and had been weighing up the options. It appears that the crack on my head had severely jolted my spine in my neck.

‘By rights you should have had a broken neck, as it is I think the nerve fibres that control your upper arm muscles have been severed. I could send you to Halifax for them to do a high definition scan, but that will cost you a lot of money. Or you could get your insurance company to fly you back to England from St. Johns and let the NHS look at you.’

‘If I fly back to England will they be able to fix it?’ I asked

‘No I’m afraid not, if the nerves are severed they will never grow back.’ He replied studying my face.

‘Not much point in going back then.’ I rejoined brightly.

‘Let me make this plain to you,’ he said, unsure whether my casual grin was bravado or stupidity. It was neither, just my innate sense that everything turns out the way it is planned to be, and we have to roll with it. Then he said the words that should have turned me to stone.

‘You will never ride a motorcycle again!’

‘We’ll see about that,’ I thought, ‘if the ‘bike can be fixed I’ll damned well rig up some form of controls so I can manage it.’ But I said nothing, and they left, telling me I would be in for the weekend, as weekends were quiet and I would be no trouble to accommodate.

 

Tyron was feeling brighter this afternoon and told me a little about himself and the life he led. He did inshore fishing mainly from a small boat with an outboard motor. It was while lifting the outboard back into his boat after some repairs to it, that his back went. He now had some prolapsed discs that had virtually paralysed him, and caused spasms of intense pain, or ‘fucking agony man’ to use the technical terminology.

Besides fishing I learned that Jason was a licensed hunter and guide, and hired himself out to small groups of hunters during the hunting season.

‘Bears and moose mainly.’ He replied to my question about his quarries, ‘both get to be a nuisance if they are not controlled. The bears will come into the villages looking for food if there are too many for the land around to support; and then terrified amateurs taking pot-shots at them out of their kitchen windows will leave them injured to die of starvation as they can’t forage properly. Each year I get a quota depending on the estimated populations. My kills are clean and swift, I always cover the animal that I have authorised my client to go for, if he only wounds it, my shot finishes it a few seconds later. Not only is a wounded animal dangerous, but it’s not right to leave it in pain. During the first few weeks of the season I also hunt with bow and arrow. The guns are not allowed during the first couple of weeks. In truth though the government handouts are the only thing that makes it viable to live in the small villages since the lobster fishing went bad, but that’s slowly coming back since the government stopped the overfishing by the big boats.’

I found it fascinating talking to him about the austere life the Newfoundland folk led. And then Buddy burst in!

 

Buddy was in a wheelchair and always wore a huge grin.

‘The old farts in my ward are no fun at all,’ he said looking around, ‘I hope you folks here are better, ‘n I here you got an Englishman too.’

We all laughed and I introduced myself. Buddy became a regular visitor over the weekend and Tyron always greeted his appearance with, ‘Oh look, it’s Buddy, the carpenter who nailed himself!’

Apparently Buddy was finishing off a roof on a new house; they used planks covered with wooden shingles; when he slipped and nailed a 4ft plank to his thigh bone with a 4inch nail from a nail gun. ‘Yep! Had a hell of a job getting me off that roof, in the end they injected me with painkillers and waited ‘till my leg went numb. Used my own saw to shorten the plank so they could get me in the ambulance.’

We were in stitches of laughter at the way he told it.

Dan Griffin was from across the St Lawrence in Labrador, and St. Anthony was the nearest hospital from the little community he lived in. He did a little hunting, a little fishing and a few odd jobs here and there, but since he got ill the community welfare people had been helping him. He said that he had a sister nearby, but he wanted to live in his log cabin, untidy as it was, just him and his dog. He said he grieved over the fact that they wouldn’t let his dog come into hospital with him. This was his third or fourth stay here, the others were only for a day or two but this time was longer. He said that he expected to hear that he could go home soon. Buddy told me later that his chances of going home were slim, I was sad to hear that.

On Saturday morning the man who kept the curtains closed had visitors and he left with them among great to-ings and fro-ings along with huffings and puffings. They brought along two unruly kids who were there just to make things more awkward for everyone.

Lastly there was James. I honestly can’t remember what was wrong with him, some strain or dislocation obviously as this appeared to be an orthopaedic ward. He was older than Jason by about ten years but of a similar independent nature and annoyed about all the fuss and bother his ailment was causing.

I told them my story, we laughed at the fact that here I was, grounded, three weeks after setting off to do a solo motorcycle trip around the world.

‘However, I will not be beaten, help me figure out a way to do this thing’.

‘What thing?’ said my young Intern walking through the doors.

‘Get from here to Alberta and then to Argentina.’ I said. ‘I’ll put my ‘bike on the back of a truck if I have to, and drive it there. Where can I get a second hand truck?’

‘Alberta.’ He said with a grin. ‘They just started drilling for shale oil there again since the world price of oil hit $100 a barrel, and everyone’s buying new cars. I flew out and got a second hand one dirt cheap, then drove it back here.’

‘I’m not sure I can buy one though,’ I said, ‘because I don’t have a permanent address here in Canada and can’t register it.’

‘I got a truck you could ‘borrow’ if the price is right,’ said Tyron, ‘we could say you kinda hired it.’

‘What about a quad bike,’ I said, ‘I think I could handle one of those.’

‘Fine in Canada,’ the Intern said, 'but not street legal in many States in the USA.’

‘I started this trip by wanting to take the ‘Trans Siberian Express’ to Vladivostok. Then wondered about catching the ‘Bullet Train’ in Japan. Before long I had Australia figured out too when a mate said ‘do it on your motorbike.’ ‘Huh!’ I said, ‘who would do that?’ ‘Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman’, he said; and lent me the video 'The Long Way Round.'. Now it looks like I will be back to my trains again.’

Monday morning arrived; the consultant checked me over and declared that there was nothing else they could do for me. Apart from my dead arm, I was fine. I packed my gear up, said goodbye to my room mates and Buddy, and headed for the front desk to fill in a dozen forms all about who would pay for my stay. I ordered a taxi and waited in one of the most fabulously hospital vestibules I had ever seen. The whole place was decorated with hand made tiles celebrating the Grenfell Mission which was dedicated to the physical and spiritual needs of the Inuit and Canadian people in this harsh island. While I had issues with the second objective, I certainly had reasons to be thankful for the first.

Thee photos of St. Anthony's Hospital's tiled entrance hall.

 

 

 

HONORING

ALL THOSE

WHO HAVE

DEDICATED

THEIR LIVES

TO THE

GRENFELL

MISSION

 

 

Miles at end of day = 1232

Next :'Gaffa Tape, Ty-wraps, Sealing Wax & String.’

 

 

Viking Trail; Newfoundland; Prelude to disaster

Episode 16
Miles so far = 1122

After a good nights sleep, I awoke and threw back the curtains to reveal a bright, new, clean and fresh day, as well as the sight of my motorbike on its side in the driveway. That must have been the crash I half heard as I was dropping off to sleep last night. Well it was now in a state of stable equilibrium and any damage was already done, so shower, dressed and breakfast; then I would sort it all out.

 

After I had gone to bed last night another family had arrived. They were expected, but delayed due to a fault with the ferry from Labrador. They had come from Goose Bay, where they lived, to visit with family in St. John’s. I told them I was planning to go to Goose Bay using the same route they had to get here. They advised me to take the ferry from St. Paul's all the way because the road was being graded. What this means is lorry loads of gravel are dumped on the road and it is levelled out and lightly compacted. The obvious reason they do this is to fill the pot holes and ruts, but it is not the main reason. Most of Labrador is tundra, fen and bogs. The only way they can keep the roads viable is if the land under them is frozen solid, the gravel acts like a thermal blanket and keeps the subsurface frozen. For me, they said, 400 miles of loose gravel was going to be one heck of a challenge. Add in the moose and bears and it could turn out to be an exciting trip. I swallowed hard, laughed and went to see what damage had happened to the ‘bike. Thinking to myself, 'Yeah, and that's only the first leg!'

 

The planned route through Labrador, three legs riding and two ferries.

 

When I had parked the bike I had put it quite close to the edge of the gravel driveway, during the night the rain had undermined the gravel and one of the motorcycle stand legs had sunk in to it enough so that a chance gust of wind had done the rest.

 

Once more on the road I was looking forward to seeing with my own eyes the remains of the Viking Settlement at Le Anse aux Meadows. A myth from the old Norse Legends, no one had really believed that the Norsemen had reached America 500 years before Christopher Columbus, until this settlement had been unearthed and hundreds of iron nails, tar, pitch and the remains of a ship repairing harbour complex had been found here. The road crossed  from the west coast to the east across bleak moorland before coming to forests with the odd meadow and field. There were several moose hinds with their calves at various points along the way, but the only bull moose I saw was about a hundred yards away, and there was a deep ravine running alongside the road between he and I. I expect that these ravines; too big, deep and rocky to be called ditches or culverts; were to take away the melt water from the snow drifts that were ploughed away from the road itself in the winter.

 

There was a Provincial Park and Campsite at Pistolet Bay and I soon saw a sign on the roadside that pointed the way up a long gravel track to a neat wooden hut that was the Ranger Station. The Ranger and I exchanged a few happy words and he picked out a camping site for me. I went of to find it along a track that had also recently been graded and found it hard going as the front wheel kept sinking in and then skidding out of the loose gravel.

 By early afternoon I was all set up and so decided that I would go and see the Viking site this afternoon. The driveway out of my camp area was shrouded by low bushes, and riding out onto the main track I surprised a young female moose who was browsing along the roads edge. I'm not sure who was more surprised! Anyway she turned and ambled quickly off in that loosed limbed way they have.

 

The Viking site at L'Anse aux Meadows, ('The Goat Field' in English.) is spread over several acres of rocky moorland that is adjacent to the sea. The visitor centre and museum is approached by a long road that gives you plenty of time to think about this inhospitable location.

 

The Visitor Centre is set low so as not to intrude on the landscape.

 

The inside of the building is lined with the warm hues of pine cladding with exhibits of the many finds from this site, and a fine reconstruction of one of the boats found here. Apparently this was a 'repair yard' for boats that had made the gruelling journey from Norway to Vinland, as the Vikings called America.

 

The modern visitor centre and Museum

 

Outside is a footpath trail to follow that passes many of the salient sites of archaeological interest.

These shallow depressions are all that are left of houses, workshops and forges

 Pride of place is the reconstruction of the turf longhouse that was here.



Inside the longhouse museum staff explain how the Norsemen lived and worked.

 

 

It was all very fascinating and I heard one American Visitor exclaim, 'I'm a teacher and for the last forty years I've been teaching my pupils the wrong thing!' Rather disingenuously I thought to myself 'You should read a little less conservatively sister, I knew about Eric the Red and Vineland when I was a teenager.'

 

 

All together an excellent afternoon, now I looked forward to cooking dinner over an open fire in the nearly deserted campsite at Pistolet Bay. The rains from last night looked as though they may have been a little heavier at this northern tip of Newfoundland, as stones and gravel had been washed to the edge of the road. Coming around the last bend to the campsite, and concentrating on not missing the entrance, I wandered too close to the verge, highsided once, corrected; and was just congratulating myself when I highsided a second time and flew over the handlebars. I remember seeing the boulders in the roadside ravine coming towards me, there was a violent bang as my helmet hit and then blackness...........

 

I'm not the only one to 'highside', this racing motorcyclist did the same as me, but for a different reason.

 

photos courtesy of misc. Internet sites, explanation to follow in later blog.

 



Miles at end of day = 1232
Tomorrow : 'You will never ride a motorcycle again.'