Days 46-50 Terra Nova National Park

Route as far as Terra Nova National Park  

Thursday August 9th

Norm and I both felt that we saw and did most things of interest to us in St John’s, so it was time to move heading west to what would be our new “base camp” at Terra Nova National Park. 

This is a HUGE park that took over an hour just to drive through it. It was heavily treed and there were moose warnings of all sizes and shapes on the side of the road.  Now THIS park had sites for us that were actually wooded!  (We barely fit into the site, but with our developed skills, Norm backed right in, and we didn’t even think unkind words about each other!  Wow!)  There were a lot of people here, yet it had a sense of peacefulness that I didn’t get anywhere else.  It was exceptionally clean, and since we had to conserve on our precious “potable” water, we took advantage of the spotless showers.

The first night we hiked to a comedy show in the open air theater right in the park.  It was about a middle aged man who was forced by his nieces to enter the modern dating world on Facebook.  We decided to take advantage of the opportunity to do something unusual and found it very well done and entertaining.

 When we returned, I worked on my previous blog which was taking much too long, and lasted later into the night for my own good.

 In order to do the blog, I first write the content, usually while Norm is driving through a non-scenic area. Next Norm does the very important job of proof-reading.  The next step is to download the pictures from the cameras onto the iPad. We then decide which to include on the blog, then I email them to myself in order to reduce the file size of the photos. Finally I must upload them to the site, inserting them, adding captions, and re-arranging the page for the best overall appearance. Voila!

Friday August 10^th

This tee shot was worth $1,000,000 !
No problem for many in The Villages!

Norm on a beautiful fairway

Today was all about golf.  Norm had booked a tee time at a course, here in Terra Nova, that was voted one of the top in Canada.  It was a beautiful day, and we were paired up with a couple of really nice guys from St. John’s who play here often and so were very familiar with the course, which is always a great help. 

We followed behind a large group of, believe it or not, 50 guys at some corporate golf event with a $1,000,000 hole in one prize. (They would never hold that in The Villages due to the number of times a week it is done there.)  They had a logo for this event, which, depending on how you looked at it, was of a naked woman in a very vulgar position or a distant mountain range.  Now, after reading 50 Shades of Grey, my mind must be in the gutter because I thought what I was seeing was the former, but could not quite believe it and didn’t want to say anything.  After about 16 holes, I felt comfortable enough that when the fellows joining us were talking about the “wild group“that does this event, I inquired about the logo.  They laughed and confirmed by suspicions!  Men! 

Now, (phew, is it hot in here?) back to golfing.  This course had to be, in both our opinions, the most gorgeous course we had ever played.  It was either in, or beside, the National Park, and was completely devoid of any houses or buildings, with the exception of the 9^th hole snack shop.  If fact, it was so rustic, there were no bathrooms or drinking water anywhere on the course.  (We were informed that nowhere in Newfoundland golf courses would there be drinking water due to previous tampering). 

  We viewed the beautiful bays, inlets, and the rushing water down deep gorges of Salmon River on most holes!   It was simply breathtaking.  I was hoping to see a moose on the green, and was told they are there, but didn’t happen upon one today.  I’ll keep watching with my camera ready.

The round took an unusual 5 ½ hours, and as we returned to the campground to our crock pot beef stew we had made that morning, it started to sprinkle.  Perfect timing.

Saturday, August 11^th

Today we planned to drive about 1 ½ hrs to a “must-do” hike I had read about nearly 3 months ago.  This hike, The Skerwink Trail,   was rated one of the top 35 trails in North American and Europe by Travel and Leisure Magazine, so we HAD to go! 

The problem we faced was I jinxed us in the last blog by saying the weather forecasters were never correct.  Well, someone in the Canadian Weather Bureau must be reading my blog and fired a few people, because finally they got it right.  Rain.  All day.  Into the night.  Just like they had forecast!

We made the decision to wait it out.  We changed campsites and proceeded to spend the rest of the day snug, warm and dry doing computer work (finally finishing my blog entry for St. John’s) doing a little housekeeping, and finally taking the time to figure out why the new TV in the bedroom did not have video feed. We discovered the bracket had needed to be modified when they installed the new TV, and never did it.

 We spent the rest of the day just relaxing as we planned our marvelous trip, and before we knew it, another day was gone.

Sunday, August 12^th

Norm picking his fill of berries

As we awakened to a new day, we found the pouring rain had come to an end, and even though it was pretty crappy out and agreed, by hook or by crook, we were going to hike the Skerwink Trail!

It seems that no matter how hard we try to get right out the door in the morning, it is 10:00 before it really happens, (old age, maybe?) so the night before I had made the lunches, and packed the back packs with everything, I hoped, we needed.  Binoculars, check.  Camera’s with memory cards, check. Bugspray, check. Etc, etc.

   

By the time we arrived at the trailhead, the weather was perfect.  We struck out on the trail, and within 10 minutes we had stopped along the way to enjoy the wild blueberries and raspberries.  Everything I read about bears tells of them being where the berries are, so I was anxiously looking around waiting for Mommy Bear to come rushing out, standing on her hind legs, clawing the air!  I have a 6” knife in my front pouch, just in case Norm needs rescuing.  Yeah, good luck with that!

Sample of the rugged coastline

The views were incredible!  We seemed to stop every hundred yards or so because each step of the way the scenery was more beautiful than before!  This trail was not as “groomed“, more natural, and much more to our liking. Although I must say, when they strategically placed stairs and boards covered in mesh, it was appreciated.  I am sure after all that rain it would be quite treacherous on the many steep slopes and the parts of the trail that ran within a foot of the cliff, dropping hundreds of feet into the sea!  Some areas had an overhang that could be very dangerous if someone unknowingly got too close. (Like us).

 

Love to play with "micro" setting
 my camera

Bug I found - perhaps a
Jimmy Buffet bug ?

What is it with these people and stairs?

We walked on (about 4 miles with side tracks to lookouts) basking in the sun, stopping to watch what we think with our newfound knowledge were minke whales and of course the birds.  

Norm was very patient with my continuously stopping and taking pictures of everything.  (The butterfly was particularly evasive). Then the worst thing happened!  The camera broke!  Of all times!  I could no longer look through the viewfinder, and the sun was causing so much glare, the LCD camera in the back was virtually useless.  I just had to guess at my composition which was not fun at all!  Fortunately we had a backup smaller camera, which, in my “careful” planning, had not had the battery recharged, and it died.  Durrr. I will have to add "charged battery" to my check list.

As we were getting into the car we spoke with a local fellow and his extremely old dog, Annie.  He asked where we were from, where were we headed, etc.  When I inquired about finding a place to buy local fresh fish, he explained that today was the last day of a 5 day fishing season, and it was over for the next couple of months.  He then asked if we would like a package of the fish he just caught yesterday!   I really surprised Norm by saying we would absolutely love it, and happily followed him and Annie home for our “catch“of fresh fish!  We spent a half hour or more on his porch with him and his wife swapping life stories.

Town of Trinity

You can tell which way the prevailing winds are looking at the
gravestones.  

Next stop (it was already about 4PM ) was a tiny, and I mean T-I-N-Y town called Trinity not far from there which is touted as one of the “ jewels” of Newfoundland.  Many homes were built in the 1700’s and now turned into museums and inns.  We walked around and saw many people unloading their catch of cod.  Norm helped a fellow carry his load to the dock and he showed us how to clean a fish since I unfortunately never really paid attention when my dad demonstrated this gory task, and thought the skill might come in handy someday.

We hiked the top of cliffs across the harbor

We then headed to a strip of land with a lighthouse on it that we admired from our hike, and wanted to take a picture from that side of the harbor of the hike we had enjoyed so much earlier in the day.  If it were not for the directions from the fellow in Trinity, we would never have known to drive about 5 miles down a rutted, unpaved road!  We stopped and I took pictures of cod fillets lying on mesh to dry.  I had hoped who ever owned it would be there to tell us why there were no birds or flies on it!  Norm figured it to be Salt Cod, which we found is still quite popular, as it was hundreds of years ago. 

Oh, by the way, talking about ‘salt”.  When we were in St John’s we sampled the local food called “Jigger’s Dinner” it was made of something called “salt beef”, cabbage, carrots and potatoes.  Oh, my goodness.  Salt is an understatement!  I could not begin to eat it.  In the days ahead I saw Salt Beef in the supermarket, and checked out the sodium levels.  2400mg for a very small amount!   For someone who eats whole foods with no salt, trust me, it was a shock to the taste buds!

We arrived safely back at Terra Nova National Park (didn’t have a car vs. moose encounter), had a late dinner (becoming habitual) and retired for the night.