Father Troy's Trail - The Beamer at Flatrock

This post is from a hike I did in September

So after I hiked the Torbay end of the Father Troy trail I made sure to have a look at the end located in the small town of Flatrock.

The parking area and the trailhead were very easy to find.

It was a very windy day, so I made my way carefully on the slanted rock of the Beamer (the Peninsula protuding out from Flatrock) until it leveled out.  Of course I made sure to bring a painted rock with me for someone to find.

The views were expansive, and I bet some whale watching and iceberg spotting could be done in early summer from Flatrock.

I was so happy to be outside - with fall having arrived I knew that hikes would soon be harder to come by.

It was too windy to check out the cliffs, not to mention the wrong time of year for nesting birds, so I made my way over to the Base End Spotting Station.

The base end spotting stations were used to plot the position of target ships. In a bunker this size, two soldiers operated the instruments used to aid in plotting targets, including a depression position finder and an azimuth scope. The measurements from the stations would be sent to a plotting room at Red Cliff, where firing coordinates would be calculated through triangulation.

From 1942 until the end of WWII, American soldiers were positioned in these and similar bunkers that provided advance protection for U.S. bases in St. John’s, Argentia and Stephenville.

By this time the sun was dropping in the sky and directly in my eyes as I turned from the spotting station back to the trail heading toward Torbay.  Of course there was a large rusty rod sticking out of the ground that I tripped over, gouging my upper calf.  A quick look made me think that I must only have a surface scratch under that rip in my leggings so I continued on.

About 10 minutes later my leg started throbbing and a closer look revealed that my pants were not the only thing that had gotten gouged. A chunk of calf was missing (oops!) and that meant I would have to traverse the section of trail between the two ends another time.  I cut across the headland instead of backtracking because I would get to my car quicker that way... theoretically.

Well, when I ran across a partridge berry patch I had to stop and pick some, injury be damned. The next day I had my first personal experience with the Canadian health care system when I stopped at Emergency care in Placentia to get a tetanus shot. Fast service, no copay, no insurance EOB's to inspect in the mail and a smiling nurse who sent me on my way after making sure I waited 10 minutes in case of dizziness or other effects.

With the 2020 election looming on the horizon I will get into the healthcare here in more depth soon.  I've been taking pictures of our receipts from our presciptions and will give a full account before spring is over, I promise!