Wednesday, July 31, 2013

NL July 30

Hiked 6.9 km

Here’s last night’s sunset over the trees:

1-DSCN4923

Up early again and took the 3.5 km hike to the waterfalls in the park. It was a nice trail through the woods and the end was beautiful:

1-DSCN4932

1-DSCN4939

Along the way, we saw Moose footprints, but, of course, no Moose. But these Ravens were having a noisy feed on some Spruce buds or something:

1-DSCN4950

We continued south towards the bottom of the peninsula. We stopped in at Ferryland and took a shot of the oldest church in Newfoundland made from local stones:

1-DSCN4956

We decided to forgo the Interpretive Centre, but we do know that this is the site of a 17th century British Colony and that archeological work is being done at the site. We decided, instead, to take the drive and hike to the Ferryland Head Lighthouse. It was built in 1870 and manned until the 1980’s. Now, it’s the site of “Lighthouse Picnics”, a restaurant (closed today). But we had a great hike, explored the lighthouse’s exterior and sat and saw some Minke whales! And some more grazing sheep. The parking area for the lighthouse would make a great free camp site

1-D31_6663:

1-DSCN4965

1-DSCN4971

We ate lunch there and before we headed on, saw a Humpback spout and tail in the distance..

Over Fermeuse, we saw actual Wind Turbines, nine of them working, and continue to wonder why Newfoundland doesn’t invest in this technology. There’s plenty of barren land and wind:

1-DSCN4972

In Fermeuse, we got this great harbour view from the Ultramar gas station:

1-DSCN4973

Renews has a beautiful cove and lookout (another possible camping area) and even had a “Devil’s Foot” to go with our “Witch’s Foot" in Fogo (sadly, no photos). But we did snap this beautiful salt box:

Renews. NL

We thought we’d stay at Chance Cove Provincial Park, free camping allowed. We headed down the 6 km gravel road, but we decided to turn back after about 1/4 of the way. This was a bad road.

The landscape here is very barren. And there are Caribou around (yeah, right):

1-DSCN4978

We ended up in Portugal Cove South. The women in the Interpretive Centre gave us some advice about the sites there. There is the Mistaken Point Ecological Reserve here; it’s a beach full of fossils that are protected, and access to the Cape Race Lighthouse and Marconi Site (now a museum) which were used to relay word of the sinking of the Titanic. However, the 20 km road is gravel and they advised against driving out.

But they DID advise us to spend the night right here, on the pebbled beach. We did some rock collecting (they’re beautifully rounded, coloured and polished). I keep looking for Whales in the cove.

Here’s the view from my chair:

1-DSCN4980

No comments:

Post a Comment