We started our trip on the east coast, then crossed the country to Gros Morne national park, taking a small detour up to Twillingate to see some icebergs!
These were all stuck on shoals so the boat captain knew just how close he could go. This one has rolled over several times before it got stuck (you can tell by the rounded appearance).
Iceberg number 2. Icebergs are white because of all the little bubbles trapped within them.
Iceberg 2 seen from another side. A couple of big chunks broke off this one as we were passing, which was rather exciting!
Iceberg 3 had an inviting looking bay in the the center, but we decided not to go swimming!
On our way back past iceberg 2 our guide fished out some iceberg ice for us to try! They had to stop the engine to do it, and when they did we could hear the ice fizzing! It was extremely cool (pardon the pun).
Even the dog tried some ice (she hated the rest of the trip, but I guess her owners didn't want to leave her in the car).
We stayed that night in Grand falls- Windsor, who's main claims to fame are a paper mill and a salomid interpretation centre (that means for fish in the salmon family). They have a salmon ladder which is like a series of locks (or pools) that the fish jump up, so that they can get up larger falls than they would be able to without human intervention. We learned that in another part of the country, where they couldn't build a ladder, there is a salmon elevator!
We ended our trip on the west side of the island in
Gros Morne national park. We stayed at the lovely
Pond Road B&B, in Rocky Harbour. Donna & Jim made excellent breakfasts and were very interesting people. The first day we took the water taxi across from Norris point to Woody point to see the Tablelands (you can see them here across the water, they are the red hills with snow).
The tablelands are part of the earths mantel which was pushed up above the surface.
We were fortunate enough to get a guided tour with an awesome guide, Fred. He started his tour with a song all about the tablelands to the tune of Gilligan's Island! He is shown here explaining plate tectonics with the aid of me, another woman and a rock. You can see the difference between the tablelands on the left of the valley and the more usual (and fertile) soil on the right.
Fred showed us their proto-glacier (the snow didn't melt between years, and if that continues to happen it could happen it *could* form a glacier ; p ).
That afternoon we went seakyaking again! (If you look at the picture of the harbour you will see the kayaks pulled up on the beach.)
We were lucky because the next day the weather turned rather wet. It did clear enough in the afternoon for us to go to Western Brook pond which was a fijord before the land lifted up and cut it off from the sea. Now you have a half hour walk to get to the boat which takes you out on the pond.
This is us on the boardwalk on the way out, where we saw some moose!
I should also mention that while in Newfoundland we tried cod with scrunchions (crispy pork fat); cod tongue; fish cakes; caribou; moose (including on pizza);
toutons (like dougnuts) with and without molasas; bakeapple (cloudberries), partridgeberries (lingonberries) and blueberries; quidi vidi beers and iceberg vodka!
