Nature at its finest

Official greeter of Gros Morne National Park

Day 16: Sandringham ~ Gros Morne National Park (540km)

Newfoundland is just big. Despite not really having that many kilometres to cover today, we still didn't make it to our destination as early as we'd have liked. Of course, the fact that we got sucked into a Discovery Channel program at 9:30 this morning that didn't let us get out of the B&B until 10:30 certainly didn't help. It was on the investigation into the explosion and fire that killed 31 people at London's Kings Cross tube station in 1987. Don't ask me why we couldn't peel ourselves away, but we couldn't and so got a late start to the morning. Happily, we were back into T-shirt weather, as 19C temperatures greeted when we walked out to the car.

We had been waffling on whether or not to head up to Twillingate, yet another "traditional fishing village", on our way across to Gros Morne, but we had to gas up in Gander and so put off the decision until then. Arriving in Gander, we filled up and then went to the tourist office, where I spent a good 30 or 40 minutes checking email and trying to upload the last blog update. This didn't work because the office was running a machine that brought memories of my childhood back to me. It was a P2, clipping along at a dizzying 300MHz and running a Win98 platform. So the OS was 9 years old, and when I stuck in my USB memory stick, things just went wrong. I got the blue screen of death more than once and so Andrew and I bailed on that idea and quietly snuck out of the office.

We also decided not to waste any time on Twillingate. If someone wants to prove to me why that was a mistake, I'll gladly hear evidence and decide then, but for now I don't think we missed anything grand. A stop at the craft and souvenir shop next to the tourism office was far more interesting, where we learned a little bit about the popular partridgeberry and bakeapple (which is a berry, not an apple). The former falls into the cranberry family and the latter is more well-known internationally (especially in Scandinavia) as a cloudberry. Anyway, the shop had fudge in both flavours, so I was obliged to partake.

Late in the afternoon we found ourselves back on the west coast of Newfoundland, pulling into Gros Morne National Park. We hadn't driven very far in to the park when the incredible views assaulted us from every direction. Mountains and rock formations of all shapes and sizes with sweeping, forest-covered slopes levelling out to grand plain and valley areas stretched out before us, with pristine lakes and rivers dotting the landscape here and there. The photos I took just could not capture the grandure of it all.

On the way to Rocky Harbour for dinner supplies we spotted a fox crossing the highway. He spotted us too, and as soon as we pulled over, he trotted right up in front of the car (before I could even get a shot) and sat down beside the passenger side front tire. I wanted to get a better look so I backed up a bit, but he was quick to move again, planting himself just alongside the front wheel once more. So I pulled onto the road ahead and made a U-turn to get him in front of us, and tried to quickly get out my camera to get a picture. But no sooner had we turned around did he spot our car again and trot directly over, right in front and along the passenger side, this time to the back wheel. So Andrew leaned out and snapped a few photos at a few feet's distance. Satisified, we wheeled around again, and yet again the little guy started trotting across the road to our car. But this time, instead, he paused for a few moments in the middle of the road, which is when I snapped today's shot. After that, of course, he walked across in front of the car and took his spot beside the tire.

We bought supplies and headed to Lomond Camp Ground, a Parks Canada campsite with great views over Bonne Bay. Fellow campers were few and quiet, and although we didn't get to see it, we were told a moose was feeding a few campsites over. We set up as dusk began to fall and not only did the rain hold off, but we ended up having such a nice night that I was able to sit out in short sleeves right through dinner. The bugs were virtually absent once darkness fell, and it was only as we were going to roast our marshmallows that a few drops of rain started to fall, and so we did one or two quickly before heading to the comfort of the tent. Tomorrow we hope to see a little more of this grand park, but I know that we'll only just scratch the surface.