After leaving Cataracts, we stopped at the fish ladder in Colinet. The Rocky River is a salmon river, but it’s March and the salmon won’t put on their display until late autumn, so what we got to see was a tremendous river, a cool bridge and a fish ladder without fish.

Intriguingly, this wasn’t originally a salmon river. They built the fish ladder and seeded the river in the 1980s and a few years later, the salmon managed to figure out the ladder and returned to spawn. Must come back to The Rocky River Fishway for that in the fall!

We stopped for ice cream at Wilson’s Gas Station, where gas was .6¢ per litre cheaper than in Whitbourne. Filled the tank, bought ice cream and headed south.

There is a lot of nothingness between Colinet and Branch. It is breathtakingly beautiful and no camera can do it justice.

Even a 360° shot wouldn’t let you feel what it’s like to be surrounded by nothing but moors and ocean. When I go places like this, I understand why folks from cities or countries like Japan, in which people are packed in more tightly, are utterly astonished (and sometimes scared) by the openness and emptiness.

That was when John said, “The Hound of the Baskervilles is the Sherlock Holmes story most like a Scooby-Doo episode.”

I still can’t come up with a good rejoinder.

Next stop was Point Lance Beach. I wanted to stop in Branch, as it has so many neat nooks and crannies and interesting places to explore, but it’s one of those communities that I’d need to spend several hours just walking around in and we were a little pressed for time. It’s also one of those places in which ANY visitor is tremendously conspicuous and visitors in March are almost unheard of. I might blend in better in summer.

(Maybe)