Blogs from Newfoundland & Labrador, Canada, North America - page 7

The day started as the second day of a four day rain warning. Regardless, I decided to visit Middle Cove as planned and if nothing else I can at least get wet beachcombing Middle Cove beach. After scampering around the beach, collecting the mandatory few rocks, I noticed the Silver Mine Head Path trailhead up along the cliff. I checked it out and decided to venture along the path a km or two then return. The rain did subside for the majority of the hike but the trail was extremely wet. Upon reaching a point where the trail was submerged in water, and since my enthusiasm for bushwhacking was non-existent, what a wonderful opportunity to turn around. All in all my hike lasted about an hour. Like most of the East Coast trails, the trail is ... read more

My three week trip to Newfoundland started with a 16 hour ferry ride from Sydney Nova Scotia to Argentia Newfoundland. After the ferry I drove to Placentia for breakfast, followed by an hour and a half drive to Quidi Vidi; a small fishing village just outside St John's. Although small, it is very popular to the tourists who check out the small fishing cove, the fishing shanties and of course the Quidi Vidi microbrewery. The next day I visited Signal Hill in St John's and completed the North Head Trial, the trail from Signal Hill down to the Battery.The trail skirts the Narrows, the narrow entrance to St. John's Harbour. The trail down is 1.7 km and ends at the Battery, a unique collection of small houses, fishing shacks along a narrow, narrow road. This was ... read more

Day 2 distance travelled 210 km Rob's Cabin -> Ferry to North Sydney, NS After getting crushed in last night's game of drinking chutes and ladders, we were up at 7am ready to wait for our ferry to arrive.....at midnight. So we hiked along a wetland with the promise of the most wildlife on the island. We saw 2 birds and a spider-slug; damn thing was an ungodly freak of nature dangling from a tree by its think snail trail slimy uuggghh. Birds suck and wildlife is fickle, so we bailed and went for a sure thing. Mountain views! welllll as close as you can get in Newfoundland. After an hour and half of almost vertical climbing we hit the top of the "starlite trail". Beautiful! Found a small plastic bucket with a log book and ... read more

It is interesting how when you “turn your face towards home” everything changes. Gander is as far East on Newfoundland as I go. By turning back towards the West, I was abandoning the Eastward Quest, and heading for Virginia. There would still be new lands, new places, but the push East had been broken. The tradeoff between speed and exploration changes. Now there is an arrival date. Today was a case in point. I had to make a ferry time tomorrow morning. So I had to do the 570 km to Port aux Basques today – straight West and then Southwest on the Trans Canada highway. I set a new standard – I would do a Tim Hortons crawl – drinking latte’s every hour and a half – until I got there. It worked like a ... read more

All sorts of strange things happen when your island is rising. For instance, what used to be a glacier gets changed into a fjord, and then becomes a lake. Same vertical walls sloping straight down into the sea – except that you can walk there. I did, at Gros Morne National Park. I must confess I was rather skeptical about a lake being a fjord, but it all made sense when I got there. The Park is right on the coast. The mountains are only 2,500 feet high, but they are dark, made of granite and go straight up, making them very imposing. Newfoundlanders being a fit bunch, they make you walk 3 km to get to the lake. The boat ride across the lake was quite exciting, as the wind was blowing 20 mph or ... read more