2016/08 Newf'land trip - Notre Dame |
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We continued through the barrens and around the coast. We expected to see more moose, but instead we found this young woodland caribou. Most caribou 
live in the arctic; this one might have been the world’s southernmost caribou on that day.
We drove around Trepassey Bay and across another barrens area to St Vincent’s Beach. This is a dark stretch of gravel that impounds the very large saltwater Holyrood Pond. The pond gradually fills up from fresh water flowing in and eventually overflows the beach cutting what they call a gut, and the pond partly drains. Then the sea invades the pond and eventually dumps gravel over the beach restarting the whole process.
It’s also famous as a place the humpback whales come to feed on the capelin. These are small fish than come into the shallows in their millions to spawn. All over the island, Newfies rush into the water with their nets when this happens. St Vincent’s just happens to have water deep enough for the whales to join in.
None of that was happening when we were there. We found what looked like a short cut up to the Trans Canada Highway, but it turned out to be a beat-up gravel road, slow going and little traffic. This took us quite close to Argentia, terminal for another ferry route over to Nova Scotia. This could have saved us from two days of driving but it’s a 19 hour crossing. Sandie’s defence against seasickness is to eat, but it’s tough to keep that up for 19 hours.
We had a few hours of steady rain on the Trans Canada Highway, but it cleared in late afternoon. We stopped at Terra Nova’s visitor centre again, this time to fill up with fresh water from their laundry. On our way out we met a large black bear who looked to be following his nose to the garbage cans.
We camped at Notre Dame provincial park and met up with a Kamloops couple we’d last seen on Larry’s Hill in Terra Nova. On this trip we were often bumping into people we’d already met. It was a damp and cold evening so we were looking forward to cooking over a warm stove.
Saturday August 20th
Notre Dame is just a park around a quite scenic lake, a good place to bring the kids and a boat, but not much there for us. It was cloudy and cold so we were moving on.