Greetings from Newfoundland

The six hour ferry trip from North Sydney, Nova Scotia to PortAux Basques, Newfoundland was smooth sailing. After settling in at J. T. Cheeseman Provincial Park on the southwest corner of Nfld we used the Jeep to explore around the ROCK . The terrain is mostly a monstrous mass of rock and gravel with jagged sea cliffs on the outskirts. 

 It bears fewer traces of human occupation than most of the other Canadian provinces we have visited. Much of its sparsely scattered population clings to the coast as it always has done, looking to the sea for sustenance and for connection to the outside  world.

One of many inaccessible outport villages

Lobster season in the north has closed

Fishing containers are as colorful as houses and boats

 There are outports (small fishing settlements accessible only by boat) that we can’t reach with the motor home. Away from the often spectacularly rugged 6,000 mile coast, much of the landscape is scrub, rock outcrops, ponds, and bogs which seemed to have emerged from the crushing weight of the Ice Age glaciers. 




 

Red cliffs along Port au Port Peninsula

We’ve found the somber mountains of Gros Morne National Park quite lovely arriving at early dusk. 

The following day was a great wilderness experience hiking into Western Brook Pond and taking a two hour boat trip up into its fiord. It was an easy two mile hike in to the boat dock and two mile hike out afterward. 

From there we drove north in the afternoon to catch the sunset at Arches Provincial Park camping right near the beach. We met a nice young man from Germany who had slept on top of the arches for the night. He played a didgeridoo for us which he had made. Since Tim was backpacking we gave him a ride 200 miles to the northern tip of Newfoundland along with us to see L’Anse aux Meadows. Where is that?