Expedition 2000

Expedition 2000, August 9-13

We left Nova Scotia at about 11:00 PM to catch the 6:00 AM ferry at North Sydney. We arrived to a partly cloudy day in Newfoundland and arrived at Burgeo in late afternoon to setup camp at Sandbanks Provincial Park. The weather turned bad on us and it began to rain hard. We had a big thunder and lighting storm. In fact lightning hit about a 500-1000 ft away from our tent! It knocked out power to the park and to the town of Burgeo.

We visited the crash site and think we have figured out how Tommy's plane ended up where it did. He landed on what was the best landing field available. It was the best place to go down if you absolutely had to land. It is a great credit to his flying abilities that he was able to put his plane down in such an area and to survive the landing. We will be posting some panoramic shots of the crash site and one from the top of the Rock Ridges, the highest point of land near the crash site.

We also visited the location where the rock arrow was said to be located. We l earned of the existence of the arrow last year but did not get a chance last year to see it. It was difficult place to get to; it was on the top of a small mountain that had two rings of very dense forests surrounding it. The walking was quite difficult. We decided the easiest way up was to a vertical section. In hindsight I think it was not easiest or the quickest. There were many moss filled crevices so you had to be very careful. Some crevices were quite big. The trees in this area are so dense that at one point I stood on the very top of a tree that was only 3 ft tall! We finally got to the arrow and photographed it. It is our opinion that it is not an arrow but a cross. It is very old. We later learned that it had nothing to do with the plane accident. A local person known as Peter who lived in a place called Peter s woods made it. We will post the photos as they are developed.

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