Blogs from Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada, North America - page 27

Whales June 25, Point Amour and June 26, Red Bay and Point Amour Harold's new Canon Rebel got quite a work out on the trip. The result is many wonderful closeups impossible without a good zoom lens. Point Amour is known as a great whale watching spot and we saw several in the rain on June 25. To our utter delight and great good luck, by the next day, the capelin had arrived and the whales were in a feeding frenzy thanks to these little morsels that they eat by the millions. You could actually see a dark circle in water indicating the presence of capelin, you got an oily fish smell and the birds, seals and whales all gravitated to the same location for their gourmet dinner. We saw quite a few whales while at ... read more

June 25, 2008 Ferry to Labrador, Visiting Point Amour We drove north 120 miles to St. Barbe, had a quick lunch and proceeded to the ferry for our 90 minute crossing of the Strait of Belle Isle. It was a cold windy day so while the hardier souls, Harold, the Peters 2 and guide Mark headed to the outside decks, Marilyn and I chose the warm lounge with it's big pictures windows across the entire front of the ferry. I ventured outside when Mark rushed in to announce a whale sighting, and I made it out just in time to experience the thrill of watching the huge tail of a humpback slip into the water. The ferry actually unloads in Quebec at Blanc Sablon, but after a 10-minute ride east, we entered southern Labrador and began ... read more

We came to the St. John's area on Sunday and have really enjoyed it. It is built on the sides of mountains and the houses are kind of "stacked" up. The historic downtown area is pretty cool but Bob and I both felt it wasn't a very clean city...lots of graffiti and crazy looking kids (like Picadilly Square in London) around. You can go up to Signal Hill and that is where the first trans-Atlantic signal was heard in 1904, I think. Anyway, we stayed there for 3 days and the last day was the BEST!! We had so much rain and dreary weather in Grand Falls--Windsor and that last day we woke up to a beautiful and sunny day. We did a drive called the Baccalieu Trail which took about all day. It is a ... read more

June 24, 2008 Today our destination is Tablelands. First we visited the new interpretive center in Gros Morne and then drove through south and west along highway 431. What a contrast! The north side of the road was lush and green with gently rolling hills, plenty of trees. The south side was rocky, barren and flat. Scientists think that this area originated in the earth's mantle and was forced up from the depths of an ocean during a plate collision several hundred million years ago. The rock, peridotite lacks the usual nutrients required to sustain most plant life. It’s very low in calcium, very high in magnesium and iron and has toxic amounts of heavy metals. No wonder nothing grows here. After experiencing some more of Newfoundland's liquid sunshine, we continued west to Trout River for ... read more

Sunday, June 22, 2008 (Newfoundland and Labrador is the correct name of the province, but most people refer to Newfoundland when speaking of the island and use Labrador to talk about the more northern area of the province. We’ll use the common abbreviations of NL for Newfoundland and Lab. for Labrador.) We got an early start, leaving home at 6:00 a.m. for our 7:20 Northwest Airlines flight to Detroit. Then we continued on NWA from Detroit to Halifax, Nova Scotia, where we’d hoped to catch a taxi and take a quick tour of Halifax waterfront during our four hour break. Since a couple of 747s deplaned just as we did, the line through Canadian customs was very long and took a lot of time. We’ll have to tour Halifax some other day. Our final flight of ... read more