NEWFOUNDLAND – ICEBERGS GALORE.
Day 41 – We went to bed early last night, when it was still light out. Of course, that doesn’t mean much when it’s light for 16 hours a day. But we wanted to head out early this morning, so we purposely hit the sack earlier than usual. It was only supposed to be sunny until noon; we needed to get out & get pictures early. It was 44 degrees this morning at 6 a.m. and sunny.
Today’s count: 4 Moose; Double-digit Icebergs; 0 Caribou, but a whole lot of caribou droppings. First we went north through Conche & Southwest Crouse. Saw brand new Icebergs that weren’t there a couple of days ago.
Click on any picture below to see a slideshow.
Then back to Routes 433 north to the Underground Salmon Pool. About a week ago we had gone there but the road was still snowed in & we couldn’t get to the pools. This time it was clear & we parked in the lot and walked the well-maintained trail. I made it about half-way, but had to turn around & go back (going downhill hurts my knee). Rob finished the hike. The Underground Salmon Pool is the only known place in the world where salmon migrate through an underground cave. Beaver Brook is a protected salmon river allowing fly-fishing only. On my way back to the parking lot, I found a painted rock by the side of the trail. It was a piece of Rock Art associated with the Iceberg Festival which begins tomorrow. They will be having a Rock Art Scavenger Hunt, and these painted rocks have been placed in many areas for people to find.
Then we returned to the fishing towns of Croque & St. Julien’s/Grandois. The Icebergs had moved on there, too, to be replaced by others. When we went to Croque a couple of days ago, we’d gone to see the old historic buildings we read about, and, at that time didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. Today we stopped at an old sign for Croque Harbour Trail, not in Croque, the village, but on the way to St. Julien’s & Grandois. There was an old trail & stairs heading down a fair distance through dense foliage towards the old Harbour. Rob started off on the hike but soon turned around & came back – it was just too dilapidated for him to safely proceed further. So much for the old historic buildings.
We saw Moose both coming & going to the villages. There are definitely lots of Moose in this area. We were surprised we didn’t see Caribou, particularly since we saw SO many caribou droppings around the Underground Salmon Pool trail. And by the end of the morning, we’d lost count of the number of Icebergs we’d seen. During this morning trip, the sun was in & out of the clouds and the high reached 57 degrees.
We got back to the RV after 1 p.m. We were hungry, so we had lunch and visited the girls. The sun was still out, so we decided to drive south to Englee. Even though we’d just been there yesterday, these Icebergs move around & you never know what you’re going to see. Englee isn’t far from the campground, so why not. The beautiful, large Iceberg we saw yesterday was still there, but it had moved some in the bay & it was melting rapidly. This caused it to change some in appearance. A cave through the center was visible today due to the melting. As we left Englee, the sun disappeared & the clouds took over. Going to Englee & seeing this Iceberg again was the perfect ending to this part of our trip.
Ending? That’s right. We got our mail this afternoon! (Thank you for the books, Gail!) We are moving on, leaving tomorrow morning for a whole new group of experiences in a different part of Newfoundland. We’ll be heading to Cape St. Mary’s Ecological Reserve, “the most accessible sea bird colony in North America”. We’ll be traveling from northwestern NF (Moose & Icebergs) to southeastern NF’s Avalon Peninsula (to witness the nesting and fledging behaviors of Northern Gannets & many other amazing Seabirds). We can hardly wait! We just finished making two loaves of bread & getting some things done in preparation for leaving. The sky has darkened with heavy clouds; it may rain, and the wind is picking up.
Armistice RV Park: Off Route 433, just south of Bide Arm, which is a little south of Roddickton, Newfoundland; (709) 457-2413; website www.roddickton.bidearm.ca; e-mail roddickton@nf.aibn.com. This is a Town Park and the camping section is part of a larger group of Town facilities located in both Roddickton and Bide Arm. The campground is located by Route 433, but this was not a problem at all. The highway services several very small towns & there’s very little traffic. The campground is on a hill overlooking the Bide Arm Bay and the little fishing village. There is forest separating the campground from the Bay. There are four trails that run from the campground area to various locations. Armistice offers 8 campsites with 20 AMP electrical hook-ups and 3 sites without hook-ups. We stayed for eight nights. No one else camped here. It was wonderful. There are restrooms, a very small playground, picnic tables and a couple of fire pits. Water and a dump station are located close by in Bide Arm. Our site, #2, was $20 per night, Canadian currency. We would definitely stay here again.