Tuesday, June 29, 2010

Last Saturday, we left Gros Morne National Park and drove to St. Barbe to catch the ferry to Labrador. The picture above shows the ferry unloading at St. Barbe before we got on; we left the motor home and just drove the car. It's an 1 hour 45 minute ride, and we got to Labrador at 1:45. Labrador seems quite different than Newfoundland. The first impression is that it is very rocky and very few people (30,000). I think that's an accurate first impression. The ferry actually docks in Quebec, but Labrador is only a few minutes east. There are only 48 miles of paved roads in this portion of Labrador and most of those 48 miles could use some major help.

We drove to Red Bay to see the National Historic Site on Whaling. A very old Basque whaling boat was discovered in the bay not too long ago and quite a few artifacts were found and the story developed from the wreckage. I'm posed beside a whaler and the bones are from a whale's flipper.

We stopped at the light house you see in the photo. This is the oldest light house and second tallest light house in Canada, and it was built in 1858. It is still in use today. Not too far from the light house is the earliest funeral monument in North America. The monument is 7,500 years old. A 12 year old boy was laid to rest there with several different artifacts.

We spent the night at a B&B, the Greenfell Louie A. Hall B&B. It was originally built as a nursing station. It was a nice stop and a nice change from the motor home.

Sunday morning, we caught the early ferry back to St. Barbe and drove to L'Anse Aux Medows National Historic Site. This is the site where the Vikings landed back in the 13th century. The site wasn't discovered until the late 1950's. A lot of the remains of the settlement were found and large enclosures were built to allow the public to view what remained of the buildings. But, because of the severe winters and the huge snowfalls, the enclosures were deteriorating the remains so they covered them over with dirt. They did build a replica of one of the sod buildings and that is what you see in the picture. There's a photo of the tour guide, and he did a great job with the tour.

As you can see, we did see some icebergs. The photo is of the largest, and I took the picture from about half a mile away. We heard of some that people had seen that were 200 feet high. This one isn't that big, but it is large.

We left the historic site and drove back to St. Barbe, picked up the motor home and drove down the coast. We decided we wanted to dry camp as close to the ocean as possible. We found a minimum service gravel road between the highway and the ocean and spent the night. We ate at 10:30 p.m., played some bridge (girls won) , and went to bed at 12:00.

Monday, we drove back to Deer Lake, caught the TCH (Trans Canada Highway) and drove to Grand Falls-Windsor. Today we drove to St. John's and are staying at Pippy Park for the next 4 or 5 days.

Friday, June 25, 2010

Today, started out cloudy and cool, so we did a lot of driving and sightseeing. Our first stop was at the Gros Morne Discovery Centre. It had nice displays about the geology, biology, landscape, and wildlife of the park. The park is so old that geologist come to the park to see what they have only seen in text books. Part of the park is called the Tablelands; this was once the ocean floor before it heaved up to become land. Much of the park is the oldest in the world (before the continents shifted into place as they are now). There are pictures of Dave and Ruth, and Connie and me. The Discovery Centre had a bronze of a moose and that is the only moose I've seen so far. Yesterday, we did see two caribou when we were on the cruise on Western Brook Pond.

We drove to the far end of the park to Trout River. The photos are of the local harbor at Trout River. We had lunch at the world famous Seaside Restaurant. Fish chowder and a cod sandwich. It was a nice lunch. Not lobster, but a nice lunch.

For those of you who have been to Gros Morne, we went to Woody Point and Norris Point. These are on opposite sides of the South Arm of Bonne Bay. The last photo was taken from Norris Point with Woody Point on the opposite side. About 2 km across the bay and 40 km by road. Probably more bridge tonight. Last night, the men were victorious!

Thursday, June 24, 2010

Sunday, we picked up our friends, Dave and Ruth Buck, at the Halifax airport. We spent the night at the RV park in Halifax and drove to North Sydney, Nova Scotia, and stayed at the KOA. The park is only a short drive to the Newfoundland Ferry.

Tuesday we crossed over to Newfoundland on the Caribou. It was a huge ship. It had two decks for cars and trucks. The lower level was just for semi trailers and the level above had RV's, commercial trucks, and cars. The trip took just over six hours and the sea was very calm. Here's a picture of Connie and Ruth by the life raft, just in case.

We spent our first night on the "Rock" (Newfoundland) not too far from where we got off the ferry. On Wednesday, we drove to Red Deer, very close to Gros Morne National Park. , and they came and met us. We picked up six nice lobsters and went to their cottage for a lobster dinner. They had a place for us to park overnight and things worked out great. Again, we are thankful for all of the friends we have from South Texas. There's a picture of Clarence and Jean with Connie and the Bucks. There's also a nice picture of Clarence putting the lobster in the pot.

Today, we drove into Gros Morne National Park, to Rocky Harbor and our campground. The big attraction at the park is a boat ride on Western Brook Pond. It's a beautiful ride with lots on high rock walls and many water falls. In order to take the boat ride, you have to hike 3 km from the parking lot to the dock. But the hike was worth it. The boat ride was tiring for some of us, as you can see from the photo of Dave taking a short nap.

On the way back to the RV, we stopped to see one of the earlier light houses on the island. We picked up some fresh cod fish and had another nice dinner.

We're going to spend one more day in Gros Morne and then head to Labrador.

Saturday, June 19, 2010

Today, we drove in Northwest of Nova Scotia in the area known as the Annapolis River area. First, we toured the Historic Gardens in Annapolis Royal. The gardens were very well done; they had a great rose garden section. I have shown only a few of the pictures.

Second, we visited Fort Anne, also in Annapolis Royal. The fort dates back to the 1600's. The town was the early colonial capital for the French and British. You can see in the picture the cannons of the fort and the tidal waters of the Annapolis River flowing into the Fundy Bay.

Our last stop of the day was in Digby, known for its scallops. We wanted scallops for lunch and were told by one of the locals that The Royal Fundy Fish Market was a good place for lunch. We walked in a little before 1:00, ordered scallops, left at 2:15 and were never served. Waiting over an hour for lunch is ridiculous, so we left. The second place we stopped featured a special on scallops, but only if you ordered deep fried, so we left there too. We finally had lunch at our third choice and the scallops were very good. By the time lunch was finished it was 3:30 and time to drive back to our RV.

Tomorrow we pick up our friends Dave & Ruth Buck at the Halifax airport. They will be traveling with us to Newfoundland for the next three weeks.

Friday, June 18, 2010

Friday was the warmest day in the past two weeks. It was about 30c. We toured the Southwest part of Nova Scotia today. Our first stop was Kejimkujik National Park, the seaside section of the park. The big attraction here is the beach and the possibility of seeing seals. To see either, you have to hike back in about 2.5 km. It was certainly worth the walk. The ocean views were spectacular, and we did see seals on the rocks and swimming around the island. After the 2.5 km walk to the beach we had a 2.5 km walk back. I enjoyed the walk down to the beach better.

Our second stop was at Blue rocks that was advertised as being just as nice as Peggy's Cove, but without the crowds. It was less than advertised. It is near the town of Lunenberg which has some amazing architeturally designed homes dating back to the 1700's. They had a walking tour, but we were too worn out by then. There was an interesting Anglican Church in town that dates back to 1753. It was the second Anglican church built in Canada.

We drove to picturesque Peggy's Cove and stopped at the Memorial to Flight 111. This is the memorial to the 229 people who died when the Swissair flight exploded on September 2, 1998.

Our last stop was at the octagonal lighthouse at Peggy's Cove. It is one of the oldest on the Atlantic coast. There's a photo of the town also. The local population is 120 until the tourist are turned loose.

That's the end of our travels for today. Now we have a 10:00 scheduled skype call to wish our grand-daughter, Beatrice, a happy 6th birthday.