Day 9: Off to St John's

Day 9: Norris Point to St John's

Yes, there is an apostrophe in St John's....I've always gotten St. John's mixed up with Saint John in New Brunswick.

We woke up in Norris Point (near Gros Morne) to pouring rain, but we were happy that the rain had held off until we finished climbing Gros Morne mountain.  Our drive to St John's was long, but the highway is well paved, and pretty easy compared to the earlier roads we've been driving on.

We passed through Gander, and arrived in the capital of NFLD around 5pm.
Our hotel is at the historic Murray Premise , which used to be a shipping warehouse back when Cod fishing was the main industry in NFLD.

St John's is picturesque with brightly painted row houses, and a nice downtown near the waterfront.
Tomorrow we tour signal hill, and then board the 16hr ferry back to Nova Scotia

View of harbour in St John's

Murray Premesis - our hotel

Water street - St John's

Row Houses - painted colourfully

Newfoundlander dog - it is 1.5 actual size

Signal hill - see the Cabot tower on top of the hill

Day 8: Gros Morne Mountain

Day 8: Let's climb a Mountain

Today we stayed in Gros Morne National Park, so we didn't have to drive anywhere...yay

Gros Morne Mountain is the highest point in the national park at 800m, and takes about 4-8 hours to climb.

We arrived at the parking lot at the trail head by 10am, and started hiking up the first 4km uphill trail, while passing streams, and lakes.  This led us to the base of the mountain and the more strenuous hike began.

Gros Morne Mountain from the approach

The first 3/4 of the trail is located in a valley of the mountain and is mostly large, sharp rocks.  It takes some delicate foot placement to prevent rolled ankles.  Marg lead the way and she kept a good pace all the way to the top.  The wind started to pick up as we climbed higher and we had to put on our jackets once we reached the top of the boulder field.

At the base of the mountain

About 1/2 way up 

Lots of rocks

The trail actually flattened out and changed a smoother terrain for the last 1/4 of the way to the summit.  The views were fantastic, and totally worth the effort to get to the summit.

The route down...board walks along sensitive areas

Small shelter at the summit blocks the strong wind

Summit !

The best view

The route down was around the back side, and much less steep terrain.  We both preferred the uphill section as the downhill was hard on the knees.

We reached the parking lot by 3:30, so it took us around 5.5 hours to finish the climb.  

Tomorrow we're off to St John's !

Day 7: Gros Morne National Park

Day 7: St Anthony to Norris Point 

Today we head to Gros Morne National Park, which I am very excited to visit since I keep seeing the commercials on TV about how beautiful this place is supposed to be...and it didn't disappoint.

We left St Anthony at 7am, but I felt pretty tired since my internal clock thinks it's still eastern time. There were lots of "Warning Moose" signs, which I didn't believe.  However, in our 1 day in the northern side of NFLD, we saw a total of 5 moose on the side of the road.  They really are massive creatures, and just seem to be hanging out by the side of the road.

After a 4 hour drive south, we arrived at the border of Gros Morne National Park.  The first stop point is for a boat tour at Western Brook Pond.  It is a landlocked former Fjord (now a pond) inside the park that has towering cliffs on both sides.  It was created when glaciers plowed through the mountain range, and created massive valleys.  The water is so deep here that it is taller than the CN Tower at its deepest. As well, because it is bordered by bogs, and only has a few feeder streams, it takes 15 years to replace all of the water in the lake vs the 2 months most lakes of similar size would take. Since its a landlocked Fjord, they had to chopper in the boat we took in pieces, and assemble it on the lake.

The boat ride was 2 hours return, and was a fantastic experience to see the awesome views.
Definitely recommend this boat tour.

Our boat on Western brook Pond

We finished the boat tour and got to our hotel in Norris Point by 4pm, very happy to have a shorter day with less driving.  The Neddies Harbour Inn has such beautiful views it makes me want to move to NFLD.

And to top it all off...I saw my first UNIMOG.  It was from Montana, and it is the ultimate road trip machine...this is for you Adam Howard.  Portal axles, with 6 diff locks is craziness.  Full kitchen/bed/hotel/hot tub..whatever else you want.

My new dream car !

Tomorrow we are off to climb the tallest mountain in Gros Morne

UNIMOG

Neddies Harbor Inn...what a view

View from our Hotel

Day 6: The Rock

Day 6: Blanc Sablon to St. Anthony, NFLD

It's so nice to be driving on paved roads now !

It is very cold at the east coast..even in August.  The morning temperature was around 5°C, so we needed to pull out our down jackets.  Our ferry left Blanc Sablon at 9:00 am, or 10:30am NFLD time.

We made reservations for the 28km ferry trip, and were glad we did since there were tons of people waiting on stand-by who didn't make it across without a reservation.  The ferry crossing took 2 hrs, arriving at St. Barbe, NFLD at 12:30pm, losing 1.5 hrs due to the time difference.  We had breakfast on the ferry, and ready for an exciting day at L'Anse aux Meadows

MV Apollo Ferry - As we leave Blanc Sablon, QC to St, Barbe NFLD

Waiting to load the car to the Ferry

 L'Anse aux Meadows is the location of the first Viking landings in North America.  The vikings first went to Iceland, then to Greeland.  Since there was not enough lumber and iron ore in Greenland, they ventured west towards Baffin Island, then to Labrador.  The vikings finally settled at L'Anse aux Meadows and made a basecamp for future exploration of North America.  They ventured south to find grapes, lumber, and butter nuts but eventually abandoned their camp for unknown reasons.

Aside from all the beautiful views, it was a truely exciting experience to see this in person.  Many of the previous building locations have been preserved as they were.  The raised mounds you see in the pictures below are the foundations of the buildings, and the 1 reconstructed building is an example of how the buildings looked.  After the fantastic guided tour, we ate dinner at a local restaurant.

Tomorrow we have to wake up early and leave for Gros Morne National Park

Apparently this could have been a Sauna

One of the reconstructed buildings

The fire pit in the chief's house

There's a nice walk along the coast at L'ans aux Meadows

Some viking and Marg

Day 5: Off to the Rock, but first back to Quebec

Day 5: Happy Valley Goose Bay to Blanc Sablon, Quebec

After a good nights sleep in HVGB, we packed our car in pouring rain for our next segment back south on the Trans Labrador Highway.  This is the last, but longest and hardest driving since the road is completely dirt/gravel for over 550km.  Once we left HVGB there are no services (No gas stations/restaurants/stores) until we reach Fort Simpson about 390km into our drive, so it was important that we carried extra fuel.

The first 100km of the gravel road was smooth and we could travel at 80kph, but soon after became very bumpy, with lots of water filled pot holes.  It was tiring trying to dodge all of the pot holes, and some of the massive pot holes covered the windshield with mud when we drove through them. It was truly awesome drive and so glad that we had a bigger truck to absorb all of the spine shattering bumps.  The trans-labrador hwy didn't disappoint.  At this point we were driving the most northern road in the eastern side of Canada.

HVGB to Blanc Sablon, QC

The stretch between HVGB and Fort Simpson was really lonely.  We saw on average 1 car every hour passing us...even the traffic of the large transport trucks disappeared for some time.  We arrived in Fort Simpson with only a 1/4 tank of gas left, and very happy to see that the local gas station was open.

Gassing up at Fort Simpson

Once we left Fort Simpson and headed south, the time zone changed to St John's NFLD time.  This gets kind of confusing.  HVGB at the west coast of Labrador is in Altantic time, where as the east coast of Labrador is in NFLD time.

Our hotel is located in Blanc Sablon, which is 10km west of the Labrador border, so once we arrived at our hotel, it returned to Eastern time. 

 So when we left our hotel in HVGB we should have arrived at 5pm, but in the east coast of Labrador we lost 30min, so our arrival time increased to 5:30pm.  But when we arrived at our hotel, it was actually 1.5 hours at eastern time, so arrival time ended up being 3:00pm.  

Blanc Sablon is interesting since it is in Quebec, but they are more strongly tied to NFLD.  Most people here speak English, and there are currently no roads from Blanc Sablon to main land Quebec.  Due to the time difference, you could wake up at 7am, go to the store in Labrador 3km away at 8:30, and then have time to get back before work...pretty convenient !

In reality, we ended up arriving at our hotel at 6pm since there was tons of construction on the Trans Labrador Hwy

Tomorrow is off to Rock with the Ferry.

Oh...and even though we are in Quebec, the ferry leaves at 10:30am NFLD time...which is actually 9am Quebec time

Red Bay Historic Site

Cookie cutter man at Blanc Sablon

Day 4: East through Labrador

Day 4: Labrador City to Happy Valley-Goose Bay (HVGB)

I'll just like to point out that Happy Valley-Goose Bay is probably the best name for a city...ever.  I expect Happy people to live there.

Day 4 started with rainy, dark skies in Labrador City.  The night before we picked up our Satellite phone at our hotel that the government lends out for free.  There's no cell signal at all when driving on the Trans-Labrador highway, so we were happy to have it with us.  We drop it off at the end of the highway in L'ans aux Claire.

Satellite Phone

The highway in between Labrador City and HVGB used to be unpaved gravel, but in recent years about 300km of it has been newly paved, so we made good time, reaching the city of Churchill Falls by lunch time.

Churchhill Falls is a company town; there is nothing of interest there and all buildings and shops are there to support the workers and families.  The hydroelectric dam there uses the water from the Churchhill River to create electricity, but the river is now completely dry.  We gassed up, and left for HVGB.

Churchhill River is now empty.  

The road now turns to gravel, and it was very bumpy with tons of potholes.  Driving at 80+ kph, it was tricky to avoid the pot holes and was quite uncomfortable.  Whenever a truck drove by, it sprayed mud on our truck; it looks like a proper truck now with all the caked on mud!

We arrived at HVGB, and staying at the Hotel North 2, which are a chain of hotels up north.  It looks pretty ghetto from the outside as its made up of modular construction, but the inside is nicer than some chain hotels I've stayed back home.  

Tomorrow is off the Blanc Sablon, ending our time in Labrador

Massive pot Holes

Sign to HVGB

The trees are funny looking 

Hotel North 2

One dirty looking truck...mud and dust everywhere