16 – Gros Morne, Newfoundland

July 20, 2017 – After leaving Louisbourg, we drove to North Sydney, Nova Scotia and checked in for the ferry to Port aux Basques, Newfoundland.  Got to the ferry with plenty of spare time.  We had our dinner in the RV, and got a lot of reading done while waiting to board the ferry.  At about 9:30 PM they started loading the ferry.  Since Newfoundland is an island, most stuff coming in has to come by this ferry.  There were a lot of tractor/trailer rigs, but they also lots trailers that have been dropped off.  This saves truckers the expense of shipping a tractor over and back.  Here is a photo of the ferry as it is getting ready to load.

This is a 7-hour ferry ride and they do have sleeping accommodations but, unfortunately, when I booked this trip all the cabins were sold out.  So, this is the way we will spend the night.

We arrived right on schedule at 7:00 AM, and we were one of the first off the ferry.  We drove a short distance and stopped at a Tim Horton’s for breakfast.  This is the first time that we have eaten at one of these and it reminded me of a cross between McDonald’s and Dunkin’ Doughnuts.  Service was very quick; their coffee was good and we were back on the road to our camping site.  We drove most of the way there, but stopped in the town of Deer Lake to pick up a rental car.  Turns out finding a rental car in Newfoundland is a problem as they have a short season and buy just enough cars to get by.  I usually use Enterprise and have had good luck with them, but this time they didn’t have any cars available so I had to go with Thrifty Rental Car and thrifty they were not.  They even charged us $11.00/day extra because Pat was going to be driving the car.  I’ve never run into this before and it was a definite rip-off.

We then continued on to our campsite with me driving the RV and Pat following in the rental car.  We found the campground in the town of Rocky Harbour without any problems and were quickly set up.  We then drove over to the Gros Morne National Park Visitor’s Center.

The official name of the Province is Newfoundland and Labrador with Labrador north of us on the mainland.  There is a ferry at the north tip of Newfoundland that will take you to Labrador, but we're not going there.  Newfoundland is referred to by the locals as “The Rock” and you will see why in the pictures that follow.

Wednesday morning dawned bright and clear and so we headed out to see the lighthouse just outside of town at Lobster Cove Head.  This lighthouse was built in the 1890s and began operation in 1898 with a kerosene vapor lantern inside a fifth-order dioptric lens.  It was maintained by a resident lighthouse keeper until 1969 when automated equipment was installed.  Here is a photo of the lighthouse and the keeper’s residence.

The lighthouse is located on the northern side of the entrance to Boone Bay.  Here are some photos of the rugged coast line in this area. (424, 430, 433)

The town of Rocky Harbour is just to the south and here is a photo of it with the Long Range Mountains in the background.  These mountains are a northern extension of the Appalachian Mountains and make up the backbone of western Newfoundland.

The reason we are here is to visit Gros Morne National Park.  The park is named after the highest peak in the park and translates as "large mountain standing alone."  Today we drove up the coast and hiked about 2 miles across bogs and ridges to get to Western Brook Pond.  This pond is actually a land locked fjord.  It was formed many thousand years ago during the ice ages when glaciers carved out what was a small valley that had been formed by a stream.  The weight of the glacier and its action created a fjord that was open to the sea.  Once the glacier had melted, the land rose and closed off the fjord so that it is now a pond.

The hike to the pond was very interesting as we crossed bogs separated by ridges of harder stone.  Lots of interesting flowers, streams and ponds such as this iris.

These little flowers which looked liked small wisps of cotton on the end of stems.

And these shrubs with pink flowers.

Here is an example of one of the ponds we passed when crossing the bog.

And one of the streams.

The path we were hiking was a boardwalk where it crossed wet areas and gravel as we crossed ridges.  We finally arrived at the fjord and here is our first good view of it.

We then took a boat tour up the the eastern end of the fjord and the scenery along the way was out of this world beautiful.  The panoramas were amazing and there is no way for a camera to capture the scale and beauty.  But first, here is our ride arriving to pick us up.

We quickly boarded and started up the fjord.  This photo shows what the fjord looked like as we headed toward its entrance.

And a closer look at the cliffs which line the fjord.

There were a number of streams and waterfalls coming down the sides of the fjord and here are the first 2 examples we cam across.

Here are some additional photos of the cliffs of the fjord.

And another waterfall.

They do get a lot of snow in the winter and in shaded spots you could still see some snow that hadn't melted yet as shown here.

Today, in Newfoundland, there are a lot of moose and not many caribou.  Turns out that moose are mot native to Newfoundland but were introduced in the 19th century and they thrived.  There are not a lot of caribou as a result of a brain wasting decease that decimated the population.  Before that happened, the caribou used to come down through notches in the cliffs, swim across the pond and then climb up out of the fjord at notches such as this one.

Here are more examples of waterfalls and streams.

After about and hour we reached the end of the fjord.  The valley continues up into the mountains and if you had a back country permit or a guide you could get off here and hike your way up the valley and over the Long Range Mountains.  Not today.

From here we started back up the fjord and I have added some additional photos to try to give you a better idea of what it looked like.

The end is in sight.

A last look at the cliffs.

We then hiked back to our car and headed south towards our campsite.  We came across a sign for the S.S. Ethie.  This ship was  a small coastal steamer that was caught in a severe storm on December 11, 1919.  It started taking on water so the captain beached it at Martin's Point.  All 92 people aboard were saved.  Here is all that's left of the S.S. Ethie.

It was late when we got back to our campsite and we were too tired to think about cooking supper so I did some consulting of Trip Adviser and found a food truck in town that was rated very highly for their fish and chips.  So that was what we did for supper and it was excellent.

Thursday morning our plan had been to visit the Tablelands.   This is a unique geological formation.  The earth is made of of a molten core surrounded by the mantle which averages 1,800 mile thick and then the crust which averages 3 to 6 miles thick under the oceans and 20 to 30 miles thick on the continents.  At the Tablelands, due to the mantle being forced up by tectonic activity and the erosion of the crust, the mantle is exposed.  It is only one of a few places on earth where the mantle is exposed.

However, the weather had other ideas and it was cloudy and rainy.  So today became laundry day and I dropped Pat off at the laundromat while I headed back to our RV to work on this blog.

Tomorrow, we head across the island to the capital city of St. John's.  It's going to be a long drive of about 450 miles which is just about our longest day's drive of this vacation.  We will be staying in Pippy Park which is a city park right on the edge of St. John's.

15 – Louisbourg, Nova Scotia and the Ferry to Newfoundland

17, 2017 – Our next stop is going to be Newfoundland, but the ferry doesn’t leave until 11:45 PM so first we are going to visit the Fortress of Louisburg.  On the way, we stopped for lunch at this little restaurant on the waterfront in the town of Louisbourg.   I had salted cod fish cakes and beans which is apparently a Nova Scotia favorite.  They were good and reminded me of the cod fish cakes my Mom used to make when I was a youngster.

The Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site is the largest historical reconstruction in North America.  Louisbourg is a fortress not a fort in that its fortifications encloses a town and not just a military installation.  It was founded by the French in 1713, and was named after King Louis XIV.  It was built to protect the very profitable cod fishery.  In 1731 Louisbourg’s cod exports were worth more then 3.1 million French livres and it was one of Canada’s busiest seaports.

As part of the struggle between France and England for supremacy in North America, Louisbourg was attacked and sacked in 1745 and again in 1758 at which time the French were forced to leave and in the 1760s the fortress was destroyed.  It remained a pile of rubble until restoration started in the 1960s, and to date about 25% of the walls and about 20% of the town have been restored.  Luckily, the French documented everything they did, so copies of all the designs of the town and fortification are on file in Paris.  This site reminded me very much of  Colonial Williamsburg in Virginia in the way that it is operated.  It is operated by a non-profit corporation and hires re-enactors to play the part of town residents and soldiers so that the fortress is as realistic as possible.

This first two photos are of the Desroches’ house. The construction is traditional piquet (vertical posts) and sod-roof.  This house is just outside the gates of the fortress and served as a tavern for Basque fisherman who cleaned and salted their catch of cod in this area.

This next photo is of the Dauphin Gate which is the main land gate to the fortress.

And here is a shot of the moat which protected the walls.

Just inside the gate was a barracks.  Here are shots of the barracks and the interesting looking sleeping accommodations for the common soldiers.

The main seaside gate was the Frédéric Gate shown in this photo.

Here is the quay or main street along the waterfront.

This house was owned by Joseph Lartigue who came from Placentia, Newfoundland.  He had been a fisherman and trader but became the Judge of the lower civil court.

And this was the ice house.

Here an interior shot of one of the houses.

Here is the De la Vallière House.  Louis Le Neuf de la Vallièwas born in French Newfoundland and served as a lieutenant in the garrison.

This is the house of military Captain Pierre-Paul d’Espiet de la Palgne, his wife and their four children.

This is the house of Michel de Gannes de Falaise, His wife Elizabeth and their six children.

This is the entrance to the King’s Bastion which was the main military facility and contained the barracks for the enlisted military and the parade ground.

And this is the guard post just outside the entrance.

Inside the King’s Bastion was the military chapel which served the town as no other church ever got built.

We did get to see a small military demonstration and here is a photo of the Fife and Drum Corp that took part.

This is a neat looking house on the quay.  Couldn’t find anything about it.

The French also built a lighthouse in 1734 to guide ships into the harbor.  It was the first lighthouse in Canada.  This photo is of its modern replacement.

After this we drove to North Sydney where we will board the ferry to Newfoundland.  As mentioned earlier in departs at 11:45 PM.  It is scheduled to arrive at Port aux Basques at 7:00 AM.