Month: July 2016

Today we spent the entire day at Terra Nova National Park. We started at the visitors center and working on our XPlorers books. They had a cool touch tank stocked full of sea stars, crabs and sea urchins. The water was ridiculously cold.

We learned to tie some cool knots.

We saw a lot of whale bones.

We hiked the coastal trail for 2km in and then 2km out. The trail was closed at the 2km mark for maintenance. We worked on our books as we hiked. We had to do tree rubbings from various types of trees.

A reward at the end of the trail was a beautiful beach spot with amazing views.

Next we grabbed a GPS walking interpretation and walked the Heritage Trail (2km) and learned about the logging industry that used to be here. It was neat to discover how they lived here in the winter and then in the coastal fishing towns in the summer. To make ends meet they worked many jobs. After the hike we came across the Amazing Race Terra Nova. It was a family friendly race through 2km in the park with obstacles and games at each stop. Sadly we couldn’t join in but it was fun to watch!

We drove to the campground and tried to find a beaver lodge but were unsuccessful. We were on the right trail (Campground trail) but after the 1km we were told to walk we couldn’t find it. We walked to about 2km and gave up and turned round. The directions we were given led us to a place we didn’t feel comfy walking so we gave up and will get better directions and try again tomorrow.

We then hiked a 4km trail around Sandy Pond. It was part bog so we saw a lot of pitcher plants and wild orchids again. We were hoping to see caribou but it was the wrong time of day.

There is a lovely beach at the end of the trail that we plan to go back to if we can.

We hiked around 10 miles or 16 kilometers today. Everyone was exhausted. We got back to the campground and played at the playground for a while with our new friends and then called it a night to journal and unwind.

We were up late and out the door at our leisure. We drove to Quebec to pick up the ferry back to Newfoundland. We had the late ferry but arrive early to have a place to park and hopefully be able to get off the ferry early as we had a long drive after the ferry to Deer Lake to the campsite.

The ferry ride was rough. The winds were higher this time. We saw lots of whales out int he water but nothing too close. We did see two tails of humpbacks.

Emmerson and Mom got seasick. The area we were sitting was very warm and with the rocking of the boat they were done for!

We exited the ferry and drove to Deer Lake for the night. Dumped the holding tanks and half the water we were hauling. We will have full hookups tomorrow! YAY!

Dad packed to head back to the states for a while. We will miss him a lot.

Mom dropped Dad at the airport around 4am. We woke up and visited the Newfoundland Insectarium. It was quite an impressive display of mounted insects from around the world.

Goofballs think they are stuck under water.

Owl butterflies are one of my favorites! 

We found the queen bee and watched her and the other bees working.

We got to hold various stick bugs. The staff was awesome and really spent time talking with us about the insects.

There is an indoor butterfly greenhouse and it was VERY hot and steamy. We saw lots of cool butterflies from around the world. They get weekly deliveries of chrysalis from around the world. The proprietor told us they spend almost $20,000 a year of that! WOW!

We drove back to the campground, hitched up the car and hit the road. The drive should have been around 4 hours but it ended up taking about 7.5 hours. There was a LOT of construction. One spot we were stopped for over an hour as they paved a section of road. It made for a long day but we arrived safely at the Shriners Campground outside of Terra Nova National Park.

We made some friends right away and walked to hatch some eggs in Pokemon after dinner.

We then went to a open mic night. It was all older people who season here. Lots of guitars, banjos and even an accordion were played. The songs were oldies and country. We tapped out feet and clapped our hands and sang the choruses of the songs. We stayed about an hour and were all exhausted.

 

 

Today we went back to Red Bay. We tried hauling more logs while we waited for the center to open.

We purchased our $2 tickets for the boat shuttle out to Saddle Island and then explored the enter until boat time. We were particularly drawn to this vermin comb! I guess they had lice back them too.

We learned more about the remains of the ships they found off the coast and how they stacked barrels of whale oil for transport to England to be used as lamp fuel.

More impressive hook rug art.

We took the boat out to Saddle Island and toured where they processed the whale fat.

It was a lovely near 2km hike around the island with interpretation along the way.

We saw a LOT of seals playing in the water and eating capelin. The capelin have finally come in so the whales were just off shore as well.

A more recent wreckage. The coasts and harbors are very dangerous here.

We walked up to the more modern lighthouse and learned that two families lived on the island to tend the lighthouse until it was modernized and they were asked to leave the park property. It seems the way the land of the parks was acquired left family generational homesteads to the park. People were moved off their land. This seems consistent throughout the parks we have visited.

More of the pretty blue iris.

We were the only ones on the island. It felt so odd and peaceful. Our boat back was quick. The shuttle only takes a few minutes.

They had a mini model of the whale fat boiling pots in the center.

We stopped at Pinware park afterwards and hiked the point from the ocean side to the inlet. We found all sorts of shells and dead sea urchins. The wind was strong but the black flies were still there. we checked out the view from our old campsite we didn’t use and said goodbye and headed to the hotel for downtime and laundry.

I crashed on Mom’s shoulder and was out like a light.

 

 

We started our morning with laundry and cleaning the motorhome while Dad worked in town. Then we drove to St. Barbe to a small campground to park for the night. Tomorrow we take the ferry to Labrador.

Mom found some wifi but not good enough to add photos to the blogs. We are hoping to get things caught up soon.

We took the Apollo ferry first thing this morning. It is quite small compared to the last ferry. We opted not to tow the car so Mom drove that and Dad drove the motorhome on the ferry. We raced up top to find some seats. We found a table near a window up front and settled in for the 1.5 hour crossing. It was a relatively calm trip. The ship is much more run down but it was tolerable.

Waiting for the call to exit the ship.

We arrived safely in Quebec just a few kilometers from Labrador. We proceeded down the rainy, bumpy road to Pinware Provincial Park. We found our site, a nice pull through on the water, and parked. We planned to come back later and set up camp. The black flies were pretty bad as well.

We drove out to Red Bay and picked up XPlorer books and started those and watched a video on the site. This is the site of the Basque whalers. They would cook down whale blubber to separate the oils to barrel up and ship back to England for use as lamp oil.

We saw some of the reconstructed ships from the remains they found berries int he waters nearby.

We learned about the bones in whale flippers and how they are similar in structure tour hands.

We hauled logs from the water int he rain while swatting away black flies.

We kept our visit short since it was rainy and planned to come back tomorrow.

We visited the Point Amore lighthouse. It was an impressive lighthouse! There were heritage centers set up and you could learn about the lighthouse and history.

We drove around town scouting out wifi and cell service (very minimal) for Dad for work. We found a hotel that offered wifi and the cell service was in the tolerable range with good service just a skip up the hill. Due to the black flies, lack of wifi and cell service and seclusion we opted to treat ourselves to a hotel room for our time here.

The hotel is small and we got one of the last 2 rooms. We kids spent our time watching TV! TV! TV! We haven’t seen TV in over a month and that was minimal then.

Dad ended up sleeping in the motorhome in the parking lot because the bed wasn’t comfy for him but Mom and we kids spread out and enjoyed the space and LONG HOT SHOWERS! And TV!

TV coma!

 

 

 

We went on a Northland Discovery tour boat today looking for whales and icebergs. We sat right on the front of the boat and the wind was quite chilly. We immediately started chasing whale spray. Someone would shout “THERE SHE BLOWS” and we were off in that direction. The crew was very knowledgable and knew just where to go to be there when the whale would surface. We saw lots of tails! We did not see a breach but the amount of whales, spray and tails was amazing.

The whales were humpback and finback. There are orcas periodically in the area but we did not see one.

They we visited a MASSIVE iceberg. It was over 600 feet long and 50 feet above the water. There were little waterfalls on the ice as it was melting.

While we were visiting this iceberg part of it broke off. You could hear a rumble like thunder and then saw a huge splash and waves kicked up around the boat rocking us around. It was AMAZING!

We saw more whales. Lots more!

Before we headed away we picked up a pice of “bergy bits” (fragments from the icebergs) and all got to eat 10,000 year old ice! YUMMY!

I kept going back for more 10000 year old ice! 🙂

For dinner we went to the Great Viking Feast. We saw Bonnie (Tora, Asgard) again. She works all over! We stared our meal with kaplin and cod tongues. Mom, Emmerson and Breighton all tried the kaplin. It is similar to a sardine. Only Mom tried the cod tongue.

The dinner was buffet and the food was traditional Newfoundland food. We had jiggs dinner, salt pork, roast beef and some cod dishes. After dinner the vikings held trial and people brought cases before the court. One case was about someone driving too fast and other people not seeing a moose in the distance. Another was about a man who lost his coat. It was weird and funny with lots of table banging with our hands.

We got cool necklaces from the vikings.

Our time here we felt like family. It was nice to see familiar faces and get to know the locals.

I did have a bite of the capelin with my nose pinched. I chewed it and then spat it out. Hey, at least I tried it and didn’t throw a fit.

Mom on the other hand ate all but the head and tail!