Gravel Roads And Arches

We survived it!  We survived camping in the cold!  We are currently in a motel room in St. Barbe and are hoping to get a spot on the ferry to Labrador tomorrow morning.  Should have had a reservation but every time I tried to book it online I got an error message so I decided to chance it.  Turns out it is fully booked but apparently they do give away spots on a first-come basis.  The Ferry terminal is in the same building as this motel so we should be able to pull it off.

Now, I do believe that the last blog post mentioned something about how it was not supposed to be cold that evening but that did not turn out to be true.  It was quite frigid.  Last night was a little less cold, temperature-wise, but the wind was out of control.  So it goes.  Like I said, we survived it, so no need to complain about it too much anymore.

The days between the cold nights, however, were quite nice.  Yesterday was cloudier than the days before but the temperature wasn't so bad.  We got up and at em on the earlier side and went into Rocky Harbour for an actual sit-down breakfast.  It was a nice break from our usual breakfast of Clif Bars, dates, and fruit.  We both tried moose for the first time.  It was actually quite tasty.  Unfortunately the town is currently in the midst of, ahem, dismantling that beached whale that I wrote about earlier and, whooo, the whole town smelled like hell.  So we high-tailed it out of there.

Our first stop was a 6km hike along the Coastal Trail which was windy but beautiful.  One of the many unique features of this area is, along the coast, there is forest that extends up to the beach but, given the harshness of the coastal winds and such, their growth is stunted.  This is known as Tuckamore.  From the outside it looks like a scrubby hill or perhaps a patch of shrubbery but it is really a forest underneath. And a most unique one at that.   Every so often there is a slight break in the cover so that you can go in.  Underneath the Tuckamore is one of the coolest places I've ever seen.  You can't help but feel like a Hobbit when you are down there.  Had it not been so chilly I totally would have taken a guitar in there and a blanket and just let the muse fly.

Coastal Trail

Look one way, it's rocks and the sea.  Look the other way, it's this.

Krissy guards the Tuckamore.

The beach along the Coastal Trail

The view of the top from inside the Tuckamore.  The tops of these trees were no more than 10 or 12 feet high.

Just one example of the crazy trees inside the Tuckamore.

Hans in trees.

This is what the Tuckamore looks like from the outside.  If I was ten years old this would be the most badass fort.  Even for forty years old it is still the most badass fort.

And I shall guard my fort with all the fury I can muster.

From there went went to Berry Hill and climbed to the top.  It was very tall and steep but was a pleasant climb.  As with most of the the trails we've hiked in the park, we saw plenty of evidence of moose but we did not see a single moose.  We saw lots of moss though.

Some mossy business on the way up Berry Hill.

Close to the edge on Berry Hill.

The view from the top of Berry Hill.

Zoom in on Attila II from the top of Berry Hill.  This little trooper has taken us over 3000 miles on this journey (we crossed over today) and keeps on ticking.

Our next move was to go into Norris Point to visit the aquarium but got sidetracked by a small community trail.  We were itching for some lunch so we did not hike for too long.

View of Norris Point from atop a nearby hill.

We got into Norris Point and our plans of a picnic lunch were dashed as it had gotten a bit cold and windy so we ate in the car while listening to traditional Newfoundland music on the small-band community radio station.  It was most quaint.  After that we went to the post office to get stamps and wound up having a long and very lovely conversation with the woman behind the counter about the trip and the weather and Newfoundland in general.  Remember the other day when I was complaining of the lack of charm in some of the people?  Well, there have also been plenty of people like her who have been closer to what you would expect.  And there is nothing like a Newfoundland accent.  It could not be more Irish had it come from the heart of Ireland.  I could chat with a Newfoundlander all day, just to hear them talk. And we probably would have, had we not been so itchy to get to the aquarium.

The Bonne Bay Marine Station is a marine research facility operated by Memorial University and sits right where the two arms of the bay join.  They give guided tours which are very informative and hands on as well.  Our guide, Zack, is a student from Ontario (can't remember which school) who is at the center on a Summer study course.  We learned about the bay itself as well as just about everything in it, from the plankton to the larger wildlife.  There are tanks with examples of the marine life but the best part was going into the back with all the big tanks and tubs, the area where they actually do their work, the part that you never get to see.  And we saw, learned about, and held everything from starfish to snails and crabs.  They had a lot of snow crabs and I did feel a wee bit guilty when I looked at them and thought of how delicious they are.  But I did not eat them.  Because that would have been wrong.  Nor did I eat the lobsters that they had there.  They had a couple of blue lobsters there which are quite rare.  After the tour we were looking at the bay through the big windows upstairs and saw a Minke whale which was in the bay, right outside the station, rolling around in the water.  Very cool.

Once we finished up there we went back to the campground and did laundry and wrote out some postcards.  By then the weather had gotten fantastic.  Sunny and very, very warm.  Being that it was Friday night and they were calling for a beautiful weekend in Gros Morne, the campground exploed with people.  It was a major shock to our systems because there were times this week when we were the only people in the entire camp and then, boom, there were people everywhere, including two couples right next to us who were very loud, playing way too many crappy songs from like 1996-2002 and flapping their yaps long beyond quiet time.  Fortunately it was soon time to move on.

Got up this morning, broke camp, and hit the road.  One of the first things we saw one our way out of town - for the very first time since our first day in Newfoundland - we saw two moose.  Just chillin' on the side of the road, eating grass.  The first, and larger, one took off before Krissy could snap a shot but the other one didn't care.  He just kept on munchin'.

A'yup.

Our mission for today was to drive up the coast to Saint Barbe, which is where we are staying tonight, and hit all the cool looking stops along the way.  Our first stop, after the moose, was the SS Ethie, the site of a dastardly shipwreck off the coast in 1919.  It was during an awful storm, as it usually is, but everyone survived, including a baby that was sent ashore in a mailbag.  Not all of the ship is still there but there is a good bit of it, obviously quite rusty from having sat there for 95 years.

Look how clear this water is.  Just look at it.  That is how it is up here.  And, in the sunlight, it glows a shade of blue that you just don't see anywhere north of the tropics.  Cold as all get out but pretty to look at.

Some of the rusted remains of the SS Ethie.

Our next stop was the Arches Provincial Park.  The Arches are just what they sound to be.  Massive clumps of  breccia that, over millions of years, have been carved into arches by the pounding waves of the gulf.  The sad part, of course, is that one of these days they are going to collapse into themselves and either exist as a pile of boulders or end up as sea stacks.  That probably won't occur for millions more years.  Fortunately we exist in a time when we can see it in its glory.

Hans leads the way to the Arches.

Closer to the Arches.

Ohhhh Arrrrrchie!!!!

Hans gets pensive, studying the sea.

Andersons and rocks.

Krissy rocks.

From there we continued down the road for a while and made our way out of Gros Morne National Park.  After a while we stopped for lunch at a park called Torrent River.  We had our picnic.  While it was chilly and very windy on the coast, just a few hundred yards away from the coast, it was warm and beautiful.  I discovered a boardwalk trail around the river and the adjacent pond and so we hiked it.  It was a beautiful trail that went on and on and on and on.  Eventually we ended up off the boardwalk and on a gravel road, after crossing the river on a bridge.  The boardwalk picked up on the other side of the bridge, but nor going back in the direction that we needed it to and we had no idea how much longer it was going to go so we followed the gravel road up to the highway, probably at least a kilometer or two.  It was the closest we've come to being "lost in the wilderness" while on this trip.  Not that we were lost, but we were in some serious backwoods business.  We did not get many photos of the gravel road part but the pond part sure was lovely.

The pond inlet at Torrent River.  Look how blue this water is.

We met this little red squirrel on our adventure.  Those things are so adorable.

Look at how green this place is.  And it's not even at its peak.

Ducks in the pond.

We crossed this bridge once we got to it.

View of the Torrent River from the above-mentioned bridge.  Not so much a torrent here but there are other places, which we don't have good photos of, that are quite the torrent.

Crossing the old bridge and starting in on the gravel road to who-knows-where.

Our next stop today was at Port aux Choix National Historic Site.  Unfortunately the visitor's center was closed for the season still (up on the peninsula nothing really starts until mid-June) but we still made it to the Point Riche Lighthouse.  Set back amidst vast fields of basalt, we had a field day, running around those rocks.  There is a trail there that leads back to sites where archaeological digs revealed Maritime Archaic Indian settlements from thousands of years ago but we did not have time to check that out.  We may hit that on the way back South, next week.

This went on for a long time.  This is some fun stuff to run and scramble around on.

A perfect shot of the spirit of the Point Riche Lighthouse.  If it was Summertime and it was hot I would have totally been in this crystal clear lagoon.

Hans on the rocks.

Top of the lighthouse against a pure blue sky.

Hans + lighthouse = this.

A couple of the outbuildings at the lighthouse.

From there, we drove around Port aux Choix for a bit and stopped at a memorial at an ancient Maritime Archaic Indian cemetery.  It was nothing more than an interpretive panel and a simple marker but it was nice.  We did not take photos, however, because that would not be nice.

Once we were back on the highway we high-tailed it to Saint Barbe and the Dockside Motel.  Grabbed dinner at the hotel restaurant and chilled out.  The ferry to Labrador is at 1pm tomorrow and, if all goes well, we will be on that boat for a two-day drive up and down the coast.  Should be a good time.

Also, tomorrow marks one month that we have been on this journey.  In a way, it's hard to believe that it's been a month but, given just how many adventures we've had, it really feels like it's been a million years since we have been home.  It kind of feels like the road is home now and it feels great.  Krissy is looking more forward to the stops where we will spend more time and be a little more grounded.  I am looking forward to that too but I am really enjoying being on the go.  I love seeing and learning new things constantly.  This has been an absolute blast.  I think I can say that I have never been happier in my entire life and I don't ever want this journey to end.  Sure, it will end at some point, but not for a long time.  So many more adventures to be had.  This is just the beginning.

Hopefully the next blog entry will find us in Labrador.  Until then, I shall leave you with one last untold little learning lesson from our stay in Gros Morne:

Jiffy Pop + Andersons + campfire = disaster.