Nicole wanted to do something for my birthday weekend, so I went about working through the logistics and what I wanted to see.

One of those things was to play hockey (or at least skate) at one of the isolated, dated arenas of this province.

Since regular guys would certainly think I was a weirdo if I tried to just show up to play random pickup hockey in a town where I don't live - because really, why would anyone want to do that? - it was easier to look into how much it would be to rent the ice for an hour.

Especially when the cost of renting the ice in La Scie was only $68.

Even if it wasn't my birthday, I'm pretty sure Nicole & I could have handled paying $34 each - because really, we'd pay about 6x that much to golf 18 holes together.

Even if I broke my stick & my camera, this was still a good start to my weekend (unfortunately Nicole shoots right-handed, so I had to take backhanders with her stick after mine broke.)

I later learned that the arena was only built in 1986. I guess in comparison to all of the bland, lifeless arenas you see throughout the country, it was enticing by comparison.

I still felt nostalgic and euphoric about speeding around the ice in this old-school facility. I loved it.

After dominating Nicole at some puck, the two of us drove around La Scie since she had never been & because I enjoy the town: it is isolated, has unique buildings (in terms of their metal siding, strange angles & funky colours), and is quite large for its distance from the Trans-Canada Highway (meaning it feels like a bit of a hidden gem, instead of the TCH towns which I've drove through 100x by now).

We had a 100km drive back to the Trans Canada Highway, then another 80km drive to the town of Triton, where our night's motel was located.

With a little bit of daylight left, we checked-off the short, 15km, NL-381 highway to Port Anson & Miles Cove (Miles Cove is above).

We had a nice dinner for small town Newfoundland, then spent the night at the local Triton motel with some Private Stock 40s which I brought back from Boston.

Waking up the next morning, we continued past Triton to Brighton, to complete the drive down the NL-380.

Brighton was an interesting town with the main road connecting 3 islands; but I was mostly interested in this abandoned house. It was my birthday...so something needed to be explored!

Even if the interior was about as exciting as a Organizational Culture class lecture.

Nevertheless, it was obscure, it was remote & I have to imagine it is rarely explored. It was a nice addition to the birthday weekend.

We would have completed the birthday trifecta of arenas, abandonments & skateparks...if it wasn't for the rain.

Even simply walking on the ramps to take pictures of the Triton skatepark, I almost fell & broke my ass because of how slippery the surface became with the addition of water.

I will need to return to Triton. Hopefully these ramps will still be there.

We continued through Robert's Arm - apparently home to the Newfoundland Loch Ness.

While in Triton, I found a $3 point-n-shoot film camera to replace the camera that I broke in La Scie.

I had previously been using Nicole's camera for the other pictures, but I wanted my own.

The last two pictures are from Little Bay East, where we continued up the NL-392 towards more new communities.

The above picture is from outside the Little Bay East fish plant. The whole fish plant is in the picture & it was mostly empty inside - my birthday house ended up being more exciting.

At the end of the NL-392 is the community of Beachside.

We both thought this house design was interesting.

The NL-392 may end in Beachside, but there is a gravel road which goes to the old settlement of Southern Arm.

I had read about a decaying chapel in Southern Arm...but the article was written in 1991. Even though it's ridiculous to imagine it was still there, it WAS only 2km along this gravel road to Southern Arm.

Nicole's car would make it...

I know you're shocked, but the decaying chapel from 1991 wasn't in Southern Arm anymore.

This technically counts as one of the abandoned communities of Newfoundland. It was abandoned as a municipality in the 1950s, but people still maintain cabins & homes there (they just don't receive services from the government.)

This is the case for a lot of the abandoned/resettled communities of Newfoundland.

Returning back down the NL-392, I would have probably skipped the road dictated by the brown sign to Coffee Cove, but I had found the website for the hamlet's b&b the night before - housed in a 1870s house which I wanted to see.

It was another case of where you sometimes have no clue what you're driving past. I would have never stopped in Coffee Cove if it wasn't for finding the website at the Triton motel the night before.

One of the other 5 houses in town had a handful of sheep circling the house & grazing the lawn.

The last highway we had to drive in the area was the NL-391. We veered off of it to see the communities of King's Point & the falls of Rattling Brook.

The highway ends in Harry's Harbour and while there was an appetizing looking hiking trail, it was beginning to rain a bit more, so I left it for another day.

The NL-391 is one of the rare roads in Newfoundland where you can take a different road home, instead of having to backtrack on the road which you came in on (it's because the peninsula is so narrow, that there are fishing villages on both shores and connecting roads).

Again, it was nothing overly exciting, but I still enjoy seeing the places in this province which I haven't yet seen.

I considered this a good birthday weekend.