– Deer Lake, Newfoundland to Clarenville, Newfoundland –
Today started off pretty quiet, but it ended with a bang. As usual, we began our morning at 5am, and since it wasn’t raining, we got to go run. There aren’t many places to run in these little towns in Newfoundland. I feel like we had more luck in Labrador. Today, the trail we ran on was basically the snowmobile/4-wheeler trail, and it was made up of big, rough, rocks. When we saw it yesterday in front of the hotel, we thought it would be better than that.
Apparently the trail used to be part of the railroad here on Newfoundland, but they did away with it, and now this version of a rails-to-trail conversion covers a lot of the island. The trail is huge, but wasn’t in great shape in Deer Lake. I’m hoping it is better tomorrow, because it looks like that’s where we will be running again. Maybe the Clarenville section will be a little nicer.
We showered and packed up the house when we made it back from our run. It’s much harder to pack up in a place that big, since there are so many places to check for things you might’ve forgotten. Luckily we had four different people to look, so if we forgot anything, we clearly weren’t meant to have it. So far, we haven’t noticed anything missing.
Once back in the suburban, we bid farewell to our wonderful house and headed over to Tim Horton’s for breakfast. This is the first one we’ve visited on the trip, save for a few times that Mark has crept over to one for coffee while the rest of us were busy at a gas station. Breakfast was fine. I can’t tell if Tim Horton’s really used to be better, or if it is just my imagination. We also stopped for cooler ice before we hit the Trans-Canada highway and drove toward Clarenville.
On the way to our first stop, around 11am, we stopped at an Irving Oil Circle K gas station, where we had a break and looked around. Mom managed to find pre-packaged sandwiches for lunch for Dad and her, but they didn’t have any that Mark and I could eat. Every other one we’ve visited has had egg salad, but not this one. We have all of the ingredients to make our own egg salad sandwiches just like those (minus the tomatoes and lettuce we would have at home), but it takes too long and we don’t have any regular bread. I guess it’s just whole eggs again for us.
Not long after, we stopped at Bishop’s Falls, where we visited a trestle bridge, which was also once used for the railroad. When the tracks were removed, the bridge was left behind. It looks like mostly ATVs use it now. Mark really likes bridge, which I’m sure you’ll know if you’ve followed our other trips, so he’d picked it out already to take a look.
We took a little walk out onto the bridge and took some photos. For some reason, we expected it to be really high over the water but it wasn’t. I guess they don’t worry too much about the area flooding, or big boats getting underneath the thing. You could fall off of it into the water and be fine, though I wouldn’t recommend it.
Another hour or so down the road, we stopped in Terra Nova National Park at the visitor center. This park largely consists of hiking trails and boating opportunities, so there wasn’t too much we could do there, since we had other plans for the day.
The visitor center did have a marine observation room, where we got to touch starfish and sea anemones. It’s probably more aimed at children, but we had fun, too. FYI, the water was really, really cold. We also got to see a lobster with yellow spots, which the park employee told us was a one in thirty million mutation, which is pretty impressive. I guess they probably don’t want anyone to eat that one, especially since lobsters can live like 100 years, and just keep getting bigger as they get older. The largest lobster ever found was discovered in Nova Scotia, and weighed 44 pounds. Can you imagine?
Outside the visitor center, we looked off into the bay just as it began to rain, which would be an on and off thing for the rest of the day. From what I hear, Newfoundland is getting a little rain from the remnants of a sub-tropical storm. That doesn’t surprise me, since the rain is strangely warm. It was still almost 80 degrees in most places, despite the rain. Before the rain got too heavy, we checked out a whale skeleton. I guess this is what that critter carcass from a few days ago will look like eventually. You can see the two long bones visible in that photo in this skeleton’s head area. Cool, huh?
Our drive from Deer Lake to Clarenville, if we had taken the direct route and not spent so much time exploring, would’ve only taken 4-5 hours. Instead, we stopped about 30 kilometers from Clarenville and turned off of the Trans-Canada highway to head up toward Bonavista, which is on a little arm that sticks up out of the rest of Newfoundland.
It took about 2 hours to get up there from our starting place on the highway, which meant it was close to 4pm when we arrived. On the way, we stopped for ice cream. Mark and I had ice cream cookie sandwiches, and Mom and Dad had milkshakes. The dogs had to do without. All of Ripley’s Frosty Paws is at home.
Our goal was Dungeon Provincial Park, which is just a little ways north of Bonavista. The coast there rugged and rocky, and made up of big gray cliffs and sea stacks. It is absolutely gorgeous. It sprinkled a bit when we arrived, but it soon cleared mostly away, and we spent a lot of time looking around. I think we were in the area for at least an hour.
You can get very close to the edge of several of the cliffs, and while they have warning signs, they don’t have fences everywhere, so you approach at your own risk. I didn’t approach to closely, and Dad stayed back even farther than me, since we are both afraid of heights. He didn’t come anywhere near the edges. Mom and Mark, on the other hand, are pretty brave about it. Sometimes I can’t even look at Mark while he stands on some precipice that gives me vertigo just to imagine. Ugh.
The park is named for a pair of sea arches that look a bit like a set of prison cells. From what I understand, they were once caves, until the water washed away the backs of the caves, leaving arches. Someday, the top will collapse, and all that will remain will be sea stacks. The views out there are just breath-taking. What a gorgeous area.
In addition to the gorgeous coast, we also spotted whales in the distance. We could mostly just see black bodies surfacing, and the air and water expelled from blowholes in the distance. It looked like quite a few. Even though they were so far away, it was exhilarating to spot them. We left the area reluctantly, when we couldn’t see them anymore.
Just down the road was the Bonavista lighthouse, which sits out on a tiny finger of island even further out into the ocean. We walked out onto another set of narrow cliffs, with me fretting and clinging to Mark’s hand about half of the time. Ripley stayed back in the car this time, and of course Dad didn’t come anywhere near the cliffs. He went on over to the lighthouse.
After we’d explored this set of cliffs, we followed Dad up the hill to the lighthouse, where he’d been watching whales again. Mark took some photos of the lighthouse while the rest of us stared off into the ocean, watching for whales. We did end up seeing quite a few, and one was even pretty close. I think they were pilot whales, given their color and the shapes of their fins, but I can’t swear to that, as I’m no expert.
When we finished, we drove the hour and a half back down to Clarenville and our hotel. Once we were checked in and unpacked, it was already after 7pm, so we looked into the restaurant attached to our hotel. They didn’t really have anything vegetarian, so while Mom and Dad ordered burgers from there, Mark and I ventured out to pick up our dinner.
We ended up with subs from Quizno’s. They were fine. We got a little bowl of broccoli cheddar soup as a side, but it tasted more like queso dip with a few tiny pieces of broccoli thrown in. Oh, well. Live and learn, right? Our hotel tonight has a kitchenette again. It’s too bad, because we don’t need it today. Maybe we will get lucky and have another in a few more days, when we need it again.
Tomorrow we will get up at our usual early hour and head out for a (hopefully better) run. Our drive tomorrow only takes us to St. John’s, which is just two hours way, but we’ve got a few things to look at in the area, and we will probably putter around the city a bit. In addition, we have a little more laundry to do at our hotel in the evening. It should be a nice day. St. John’s in the biggest city in the province.
– Trip Total : 4,505 miles –
