Sorry for the long delay between Blog postings. Newfoundland is not known for its extensive cell service and WiFi has been hard to come by. Thanks to the Summerford Public Library for their public Wifi! We are both well and still on the road. Here is a snapshot of the last few days. Keep watching for more posts to come. We have been busy riding!
Cornerbrook to Deer Lake via Taxi Shuttle
Thursday, August 9 2018
The Star Taxi van picks us up at our Cornerbrook Airbnb and we travel 53 km (40 miles) in about 45 minutes on the Trans-Canada Highway. We only see lakes and trees and cover 5 hours of cycling in less than an hour. Neither Tom nor I are sorry to have missed riding this section. it looks just like the previous highway sections we have experienced.
Besides riding around Deer Lake and visiting their very nice public library and stocking up on enough groceries to last throughout our stay in the National Park, there is nothing significant to report. Heavy rain is expected overnight.
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| Here we bought the best fish and chips we have eaten on this trip. |
Friday, August 10 2018
Deer Lake into Gros Morne Park - Our greatest elevation gain day of the entire trip
We are both really glad to be heading into the park today. We have been looking forward to getting to Gros Morne and it is one place we don’t want to miss in Newfoundland. We are hoping to see as much as possible by bike, but it is a big park. The morning is rainy and warm and I am guessing the weather will be changing soon. It seems to do that a lot. There are big, beautiful clouds overhead - some grey and some white.
At our Tim Horton’s coffee stop, I talk to some old guys and one of them tells me we will be riding past the town where he grew up. Cormack is the biggest farming community in all of Newfoundland according to him. “About how many families?” I ask him. “Oh, 25 or 30,” he says. “Used to be more. Most are veterans who came back after WWII and started farming there.” We pass Cormack not far into the day’s ride. Neither of us sees any farms, but there is a farm market with kale, turnips, beets, and some jams and pickled vegetables. It must be very hard to make a living as a farmer in Newfoundland. The growing season is very short and the whole island is one big rock.
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| right around Cormack we hit the 3000 mile mark! |
At the farm market we meet a couple riding a tandem. They are on Day 1 of their two week trip and have just left Deer Lake. They are riding into Gros Morne by the same route we are taking. The tandem is slow on the uphills and flies down the descents. We know we can’t ride with them, but hope to see them again in the park or on the way. As it tuns out, we meet up several times that day.
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| Cheryl and Al ride up into the park. They have already stopped to fix a broken chain. |
The route today isn’t just hilly, it is mountainous. It is our biggest elevation gain day so far and we don’t anticipate breaking today’s record on this trip. The weather clears up and we have beautiful views of the little villages and harbours on the way into the park. There are remant patches of snow on some of the mountains and on the tablelands. We have decided to try to avoid the steepest and longest climbs in the “southeast hills” area of the park by taking a longer but supposedly less steep route. By doing so we will end up on the wrong side of Bonne Bay for our campground, but there is a water taxi which will ferry us across with our bikes for only $8. That will be a nice break because by now it is another hot day.
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| The views are so beautiful as we ride towards the ferry. One of those mountains might be Gros Morne. |
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| This is a view from the water taxi toward Norris Point. We have to get to this side of the bay to reach our campground. |
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| ever-changing clouds over the mountains |
We pass by several small communities along this stretch of coast which are tucked in between great green and grey mountains and the sea. We see just glimpses of the mountains and the highest peaks are obscured by grey clouds.
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| The moose in Gros Morne don't just cross the road, they are in full attack mode. |
It is a very long uphill climb out of Norris Point. We make a quick stop at the visitor center and get some information on climbing Gros Morne Mountain. They tell us it is an 8 hour hike and we should carry 2 litres water each. It is rated as “difficult”. I think the most difficult thing will be getting to the trailhead without a car, so I hope we meet someone else in the campground who might want to climb the same day and is willing to give us a ride.
By the time we make it up the long two mile hill to Berry Hill Campground I am seriously wishing we had camped at “Berry Bowl” or “Berry Plains” or “Berry Flats” campground. While slowly pedaling up to our site I have a lot of time to think of name variations along these lines. Too bad they don’t exist.
We cook dinner at the nicest Parks Canada common building we have seen yet. There are two wood stoves, several picnic tables and sparkling clean stainless steel sinks for doing dishes. It is a definite gathering place and by the time we are finished eating, Tom has met a nice couple who offer to give us a ride to Western Brook Pond so we can hike in to the fjord where we want to take a boat trip tomorrow.
Tonight is the Perseid Meteor shower and when we wake up in the middle of the night we take a walk out to an open area in the campground to see a few shooting stars. This park is also a “dark skies preserve” and the milky way is a bright path across the sky.
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| This is a view of the tablelands from Woody Point |
Still exploring Gros Morne Park and Western Brook Pond
Saturday, August 11 2018
Tom decides to take a hike around Berry Hill Pond while I hang out in the campground. It is a short 2 km loop trail and is very soggy and wet. There are tens of thousands of little toads hopping all over the trail. The pond is picturesque and there were some good views of the distant mountains. The woods was lush with ferns and moss.
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| Berry Hil Pond trail |
Later that afternoon we walk over to Brian and Beverly’s site so we can all go up to Western Brook Pond for a boat tour on the long narrow body of water with sides 2000 feet high that used to be an actual ocean fjord. It closed off thousands of years ago and is now a fresh water pond. “Pond” seems like a misnomer for a body of water so big and so deep.
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| Bev and Julia ride in comfort |
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| The cliff walls rise up out of the fjord |
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| lots of waterfalls cascading down the cliff faces |
That evening we make a stop at Lobster Cove Head to see the lighthouse and we have a nice dinner in Rocky Harbour with our new friends. We all order moose burgers and have some Partridgeberry Pie a la mode to keep the day as authentically Newfoundland as possible.
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| Lobster Cove Head |
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| biggest elevation gain yet |
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