Finally, we find ourselves in Newfoundland. Land of the moose, discovered by John Cabot some 400 years ago. Driving up to Bonavista (he was Italian and is believed to have said, “oh, buona vista” when he discovered Newfoundland – which sounds Spanish to me, but who cares?) you find a 1:1 replica of his ship “Matthew”. After I have seen the USS Constitution and earlier on Lord Nelson’s HMS Victory, it was only logical to visit that ship, too.

I shouldn’t have. It was such a perfect experience that I could not get rid of the feeling, that at least four process managers had teamed up and had planned the course of events during a visit at the “Matthew” interpretation center (they have so called “interpretation centers” for every second tree up here). Right at the door of the center a uniformed lady welcomes you and brings you right over to the cash desk, where you get a card with a time printed on it. After the transaction is done, you will be accompanied to a first room, where you can see a miniature of what you anyway will see 5 minutes later in reality. Great, it helped me to prepare for the moment of truth. Further-on, you can see a miniature of the museum/interpretation center, so that you don’t forget where you are. Since this is rather complex to understand, a new guide is explaining what you see – and I was sure that she would say the exactly same sentences 20 times a day. After the mentioned 5 minutes, the next guide welcomes you in new room. “Now, I am about to see this ship” I thought. Well, before that, the guide explained the trip of John Cabot and his crew. That was interesting indeed. Then we got 15 minutes to read in a couple of showcases what she just had said. Right, that’s what you do when facing the client: read out loud what is written on the screen. Like this you make sure that everybody really understands the importance of what you are talking about. Then, the great moment came: the door opened and a new guide foreced us towards the ship which looked really impressive. Being on the ship, we got some further information and then, after exactly 15 minutes, we reached stable ground again. I headed for the exit only to find the door looked. It was not yet time to escape. First, there was a further visit scheduled: the souvenir shop. How could I forget! I hurried through it and being out, I was quite sure that museums and total process management should not sit in one boat together.

Well, other than museums, Newfoundland is really a nice place. People like to party and it’s easy to talk with just anybody. I spent “Canada Day” in company with some travellers from the hostel in St. John’s – quite an experience. George Street with all its pubs, bars and clubs is better than Mallorca, I can assure you!

The scenery is quite breath-taking and people here are really friendly. I am anyway surprised, how kind they treat each other. They always have time for a chat and when you enter a shop you really seem to be the most important thing in the shop assistant’s mind.

Looking for a new winch cable, the owner of a shop for ATVs (=all terrain vehicles) took special time to write down a couple of addresses of companies which might have the sort of cable I was looking for. He even called other shops in order to find out whether they had cables on stock.

Then again, some Newfoundlanders seem to live in their own world. Having a late night burger at a bar in Gander, I not only learnt about an abandoned railway track which could be used as an off-road track, I also met a fellow of the “Flat Earth Society”. Interesting. Out on Fogo Island there is one pillar of the flat world. I was asking whether under the Swiss Alps, there would be a pillar, too, but, no, there is none. In Lhasa, Tibet,  is another one, though. I asked how planes manage to fly around the globe, and to my astonishment I learnt, that this is part of a huge conspiracy. I did not know. Later on that evening, I realized that my new knowledge seriously endangers my trip AROUND the globe.

Earlier that day, I had picked up a hitch-hiker. A young Canadian, aged 19, who plans to travel to Europe one day. So far, he has not been out of Newfoundland. He seriously asked me about the chances of being kidnapped if he visited Amsterdam. I said “approximately 50%” and he seemed to seriously consider that for being true. I guess he will not leave Newfoundland.

Today, the Land-Cruiser is at the Toyota garage in Gander. Finally, the additional fuel tank will be connected. This will result in 265 litres of Diesel available – or driving for about 1’800 kilometres without a filling-station stop (if you drove from Halifax to Dawson City across Canada this would be 7’682km). It worried me a bit that the guys at Toyota were very impressed by the additional tank (they haven’t seen anything like this before), but they were confident “to work things out”. I am confident, too.