Travelling Past Time: 10 - New Foundland, Canada. July 2022

Entry 10 – New Foundland, Canada. - July 2022

We spent a whole day travelling from Novia Scotia to the Island of New Foundland. Our morning started with a short drive to the ferry terminal, arriving at about 9.40 am.

It was a slow process from arrival until we drove onto the ferry. At the entrance gate our booking particulars were checked and our vehicle length was also measured, confirming our provided information. We were given the all correct and were issued with our official boarding tickets. We queued up behind about another 150 vehicles whom had already checked in. Sometime later our vehicles gas bottles were inspected and verified we had attached the required tags.

About 11 am our tickets were scanned, verified and we were allowed to drive onto the ferry, parking amongst hordes of other vehicles. We left our vehicle and walked upstairs a couple of flights, finding a location to park our bodies.

The ferry slipped it’s dock at about 11.45 am, heading out into the open Atlantic Ocean. The outskirts of the harbour entrance seemed awash with lobster pots and attending boats. It was an interesting sight.

After a while we sighted another sister ferry travelling towards us, heading for our departing port.

The weather outside was pleasant with calm seas. We seemed to be cruising along at a good rate. Suddenly we were engulfed by thick fog. Our speed seemed to slow to a dawdle and the surrounding noise was replaced by the constant sound of the ferries fog horn. It felt we were part of an eerie movie setting.

We finally arrived at New Foundland, after travelling about 177 kilometres by sea, driving off the ferry at about 6.50 pm.

We drove to our next planned stop at JT Cheeseman Provincial Park, located about 10 kilometres down the road. There were a couple of nice walking trails with a nearby beach and we enjoyed an opportunity to stretch out our legs.

We drove back down the road a bit to the ferry port at Port aux Basques where we had a look at the town and nearby landscape.

After a couple of nights at JT Cheeseman P/P we headed up the road a bit to the town of Corner Brook where we set camp at Blow Me Down Provincial Park. There was some magnificent scenery along the road to Corner Brook and more magnificent but different scenery along the road to the Provincial Park. We were experiencing plenty of awesome scenery of the likes we hadn’t previously experienced. We were very glad we had decided to travel to New Foundland.

The main reason we had decided to travel to the Blow Me Down Provincial Park was due to its catchy name and we thought we just had to go there. We quickly worked out where its catchy name came from. The wind just blew and blew. There were some nice walking trails and a lookout with a gradient requiring 475 steps up, provided fantastic viewing of our surrounds. We could have easily stayed a lot longer at this location and were disappointed we were only able to allocate one night.

The following day we headed up the road a bit (best part of the day driving) to one of our target locations, Gros Morne National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Though at one stage during the days driving we saw signage promoting a strawberry farm which required a stop. We couldn’t resist picking our own strawberries, we picked 2 buckets in no time. Some of the strawberries were the size of apricots and so yummy.

Once we entered the N.P. we headed to our camp site located about another 80 kilometres up the road still in the N.P. As we drove along this route, we saw many of the “prime,” locations (viewing and walking trail start points) were very crowded with people and carparks unable to cope with the volume of vehicles. It was a popular location indicating why we had difficulty booking a camp site, even with many different camp grounds available throughout the N.P.

Unfortunately, the weather forecast was for rain, lots of rain with an arrival timeline provided to be around 1 pm the following day. We woke to cloudy skies and headed back down the road a bit (100 + kilometres) to the main information centre where we obtained information about the various attractions. To view most of the promoted attractions, required participation in a reasonable amount of walking ranging from a 4 to 17-kilometre hikes with a reasonably good fitness level required. At the main information centre, the Tablelands hike was promoted to us as a must do and we headed out, hoping to beat the rain. We enjoyed this hike, finishing just before the rain.

At around 1 pm the rain arrived, stifling any further day’s activity. All night we could hear was the steady noise of rain echoing inside the trailer. The following day the rain was showing no signs of relenting. We drove up the road a bit to view a rock formation called The Arches. We ventured out of the dry, warm confines of our truck for a closer look at The Arches. It was wet with a chilly wind blowing. By the time we returned to our home, “the trailer,” we were all feeling cold and Taylor made a nice hot vegetable curry to warm us up.

At about 7 pm the rain finally stopped and we ventured out for a much-appreciated walk to stretch out after being confined in the truck and trailer most of the day.

Gros Morne National Park was another location we could have easily spent a week or three, exploring its beauty. Once again, it was time to clock up more kilometres. Canada was a vast country with a short season where movement was generally ok without the restrictions of arctic winter weather conditions. We were on a tight timeline, with many more special, beautiful locations to experience whilst we were in Canada. The scenery continued to be amazingly beautiful during the 80-kilometre drive before we exited the N.P.

Our next stop was at the town of Grand Falls – Windsor. It is noted for its wild Atlantic salmon which jump and swim through, a fishway passage system at the Grand Falls on Exploits River, the largest river in New Foundland. We visited the Salmonid Interpretation Centre where we watched the Salmon jumping up over various waterfalls along a passage system on their way upstream to spawn. There was even an underground viewing area where we got to watch the Salmon making their way upstream. There were good supplies in town, enabling us to stock up the pantry and a good variety of stores to satisfy nearly all of our needs.

Our next stop up the road a bit was the Terra Nova National Park. It had a great information centre where we obtained all the particulars about the N.P. we were in need of. We set camp at one of several optional campgrounds available. It was a great setting and we enjoyed a walk about with beautiful viewing scenery. The evening sunset was another memorable spectacle.

Day two we did a drive just out of the Terra Nova N.P. where we got to view some of the authentic New Foundland remote landscape and life style. We started out at the small town of Sandy Cove. On arrival we spoke with a “local,” who informed us the beach sand was once mined due to its suitability for providing traction for locomotive wheels in the early days of trains.

Our next town for exploring was Salvage. We were mesmerised by its harbour views. New Foundland’s landscape was surrounded by hundreds, thousands or more of bays connecting with the vast Atlantic Ocean waters.

We had heard about a restaurant in this area providing quality seafood meals. We visited the town of Happy Adventure where we lunched on seafood at the Happy Adventure Inn. We ordered a seafood platter, sharing it between us. It tasted exceptionally nice and we finished off with a strawberry and rhubarb pie, also shared between us. We were both feeling rather full after the meal, even though we had shared one serving between us.

Everyone was feeling rather cheerful after lunch when we headed back into the National Park and we visited a lookout point at Ochre Hill. There was a fire tower we were able to walk up its steps to just below the lookout area which had a locked gate blocking entry. It was very windy with the tower rocking about making for an exciting experience. It was another fantastic experience with the best elevated views we had experienced during our time in Canada.

Our next destination was at the Lockston Path Provincial Park nearby Bona Vista. Once we had set camp, we drove down the road a bit to view the town of Trinity. Just another water fronted village. It was very quaint with many unique buildings.

We were in the Bona Vista area of New Foundland. Our research had shown at the small village of Elliston, there was a possibility to view the distinctive “Puffin Birds,” from land. Our research had been primarily flooded by an overwhelming amount of promoted boat charter companies as the way to be guaranteed Puffin Bird sightings amongst this area of New Foundland rugged coastal islands. We were a bit on the sceptical side as to whether we would actually sight a puffin bird at Elliston.

We made our way to Elliston. There was no signage promoting a direction towards “Puffin Birds.” We had a look about without any sightings. We spent time in a gift shop and spoke with one of the attendants. In a dry manner he said, “drive up the road for 30 seconds, turn left and travel up the road a bit till you come to a carpark. You’ll see thousands of puffin birds.”

We thought yeah right mate?

We found the carpark area and started to wander along a narrow path along a narrow bit of land with ocean on both sides. We spotted a single puffin bird off to the side of a track and took a few photographs to capture it for our records before it flew off. We continued up the path over a crest and right in front of us was a small island separated from the mainland by a straight drop of about 20 metres to the ocean floor and about 20 metres wide.

Before our eyes was an island covered by thousands of Puffin Birds. Wow.

And this was what we had initially thought to be the closest we would get to Puffin Birds.

This was our first ever puffin bird sighting. It was a fabulous rewarding experience. We spent about 3 hours watching and photographing, “Puffin Birds.” It was an awesome, memorable encounter.

We travelled up the road a bit to the town of Bona Vista, heading along the coastline enjoying its rugged landscape. Just shy of the light house we spotted the tell-tale spray of whales a few hundred metres off the coast. We spent another happy hour watching whales moving about.

We had a look at the lighthouse. There was another island a few hundred metres off the coast line and we were delighted to spot another colony of “Puffin Birds.”