Canadian Maritimes - Newfoundland

After dropping off Lucy at the Halifax airport we drove up to Sydney to catch the next day's morning ferry to Newfoundland.  The crossing takes about 6 hours.  Since we were now at the end of the tourist season the ferry was only about a quarter filled.   We had our choice of just about anywhere to sit.  The staff was all very friendly with no lines for any of the services.  It was however cold and raining so we didn't venture outdoors at all.

It was going to be dark soon after we landed in Newfoundland.  Fortunately we found this great paved parking area just off the highway to spend the evening.  The ocean was on one side and this was the opposite view.  Once in a while a car or truck would pull in to use their cell phone.  Other than that, we had the place all to ourselves.

The next day we drove up to the Gros Morne National Park.  There was only one campground left open and as we were heading up, it was getting late, I was getting worried that we wouldn't get a camping spot.  I shouldn't have worried.  When we arrived the campground was pretty much empty.   Except for a couple of other campers we had the whole place to ourselves.  Our campsite had a great view of the ocean.

It was windy with showers the next day.  We decided to hike anyway into one of the main attractions in the park, the Western Brooks Pond.  It was a great trail, mainly flat with several boardwalks to get you over the boggy areas.  The trail ends at the "pond", a large lake really.  There is a rather large facility where the trail ends where you can rent boats or take a boat ride up the lake.  That's if you arrive in season.  Everything was shut down when we were there.  You could tell it was a very busy place in the summer.  Even though it was overcast with scattered showers and very windy, the changing colors of the terrain was pretty spectacular.  I think we would have hiked back to the pond if the weather had cleared during the time ( 4 days) we were in the area, but, alas, it never did.

 

Other than just generally exploring the Maritimes, there were few places I really wanted to visit.  L'Anse aux Meadows was one of them.  It is an archeological site and a World Heritage Site on the northern most tip of Newfoundland.  It is the only known Viking settlement in North America and dates back to around the year 1000.  It wasn't discovered until 1960 when an archeologist was asking some of the locals about possible archeological sites.  Some of the locals showed him what they thought were Indian burial mounds.  What they found were outlines of three sod houses, some artifacts  (which proved it was a viking site) and the remains of a smelter.  We arrived just in time for a ranger guided tour of the area, the last tour for the year.

The Canadian National Park service has a replica village  next to the archeological site with some folks reenacting what it was like when the Vikings were there.  I thought it was interesting that they now use a propane fueled fire since sparks from the wood fire they were using before caught the building on fire,  just like what happened to the Vikings.  There is some speculation that the village might have been connected to Leif Ericson's colony of Vinland.  They think this village wasn't occupied year round but more of a location to gather supplies, like wood, to take back Greenland.

Newfoundland is overrun with moose.  There are signs all over the place warning drivers to be careful.  I started taking pictures of some of them.  This one was the best.

One of Mona's friends told her that her grandfather built a church on Fogo Island.  The island was also having their annual Partridgeberry Harvest Festival which sounded interesting.  We thought it would be fun to go and experience some small town Newfoundlanders.  To save a little money we left the trailer at the ferry terminal and stayed at a "Cottage" that Mona found on the internet.  Our "Cottage" sat on a bluff overlooking one of  the many inlets on the island.  The main part of the festival was in the island's arena which also serves as the island's hockey rink.  So you can imagine it wasn't particularly big.  The highlight for us was the "Talent Show" put on one evening in a local church's hall.  I don't know who was laughing more, the audience or the performers.  The humor was pretty raw at times, like some British comedies.  That might explain why no young kids were in attendance.

Another goal of mine on this trip was to go to the eastern most point of the North American continent, a place called Cape Spears which we went to after Fogo Island. It is just outside of St John's, the largest city, in fact the only city, in Newfoundland.

 

Of course I had to go out there to say that "I stood on the eastern most point of the continent"

Here is a picture of St John's harbor.  It was taken from Signal Hill, a Canadian National Historic site.  Due to the hill's strategic location overlooking the entrance to the harbor, fortifications were built there since the mid 17th century.  The French surrendered St John's to the British after a battle there ended the 7 years war.

This tower was built around 1900 on top of the hill and dedicated to Queen Victoria.

This is the view from the trailer where we camped near St John's at Witless Bay.  It is an area behind a small general store which also housed a laundromat and a couple of other small business.  When we were parking a gentleman was picking up some trash.   Turns out he was the owner and when we asked if we could stay overnight he said we could stay a month if we wanted to.  Talk about a great spot.  We ended up staying there all three nights we were in the St John's area. 

Like Nova Scotia, there are lots of inlets and coves with cute towns on the east coast of Newfoundland.  With the tress changing, they were pretty picturesque.  This one is Petty Harbor south of St John's.

This cove is just north of the St John's downtown area.  We love the name, "Quidi Vidi Harbour"

Since St John's Newfoundland was as far east as we could go, from here on, we were heading west towards home.  

Here we are, back at our first camping spot on Newfoundland.  It was amazing how much the grass colors had changed in the two weeks we were in Newfoundland.

The area where we were camped was called "The Wreckhouse".  It got its name because of the severe winds that can blow there.  When Newfoundland was served mainly by railroad the train conductor would check with the one resident in the area to see how the winds were blowing.  Once when they didn't check the train got blown off the tracks.

This was our last night in Newfoundland before catching the ferry back to Nova Scotia in the morning.  We spent it looking for a Geocache that hadn't been found in over three years.  We surprised ourselves by finding it!

We truly enjoyed Newfoundland but it was time to head back towards home.  The weather was turning pretty cold and all the tourist related facilities were closed.