Road Trip 2014: Gros Morne National Park - The Tablelands

After my sister's camp officially ended, we packed the car and headed back towards the ferry at Porte aux Basques so that we could hang out a bit in Nova Scotia.  Along the way we planned a trip back to Gros Morne National Park, this time focusing on the Tablelands.  The Tablelands is made up of massive rock formations which make the area appear to look like more of a desert than a park.  We joined a tour at 10am lead by a park staff who took us through the main trail and explained some things along the way.  He explained the rock formations are parts of Earth's mantle and did many demonstrations pointing out unique plant life along the way.  He also told us that the Tablelands were studied by NASA who believe this area can be compared to what astronauts have seen on Mars.  

After the tour we stopped by the visitor's center and had a picnic lunch outside before heading over to Trout River, a small fishing village.  Walking around the village itself was really neat with lobster traps literally everywhere.  The village also looked as if it was built on different levels or plateaus which is another incredible land formation created by mother nature. After spending the day at Gros Morne, we drove back to the Porte where we stayed for the night before boarding the ferry the next morning.  

View of the Tablelands as  we drove into the park 

Patch of snow in the distance!

The Tablelands - looks like the Desert

View from the Visitor's Centre

Trout River

Another view of Trout River

-M

Road Trip 2014: St. John's

Our drive from Rocky Harbour to St. John's took about 6 hours which we pretty much did in one go.  Rather than staying in a hotel, we decided this time to rent a house using my favourite site: Airbnb.  The house was perfect, with tons of character and located right at the edge of downtown St. John's which meant we could walk wherever we wanted and easily access the sights via highway.  Unfortunately somewhere between Quebec and Moncton, a tiny pebble hit our windshield. By the time we got to St. John's the small little chip turned into a very big crack, and we had to deal with that during our stay.  Lucky for us, Newfoundlanders are lovely people and the windshield replacement place was more than happy to speed things along for us. 

Between attending my sister's open house and banquet, we had a chance to visit the main attractions which was nice for me since I don't actually remember much of my last trip to St. John's . We went to Signal Hill and Cape Spear, both of which were extremely windy.  We also had some amazing seafood including cod tongue, cod cheeks and Fish & Brewis (ick).  Even just walking around downtown St. John's was really nice, and taking pictures of the Jellybean Row Houses was quite amusing.  Needless to say, I really like St. John's and Newfoundland in general which I definitely need to visit again sometime soon!  

Fish & Brewis...didn't really have any taste

Cod cheeks and fish cakes NOMMM

View from Signal Hill

Cape spear!!!

Artsy fartsy

A whale was showing off by the shore

Jellybean row houses

-M

Road Trip 2014: Gros Morne National Park - Rocky Harbour

We left Quebec and drove to New Brunswick spending the night in Moncton; a city very close to Sackville where I spent a couple weeks last summer.  From there we drove straight to Nova Scotia and boarded a ferry to Newfoundland.  Quebec to Nova Scotia was basically a straight drive with very little time to look around.  Our ferry ride was overnight, and although the ferry itself was very nice, the extremely loud snorers made it a bit uncomfortable.  After docking in Porte aux Basques we drove to Rocky Harbour; an area right outside a section of Gros Morne National park; a UNESCO site.  

The park is absolutely massive so we chose to cover one section before heading over to St. John's.  The area we chose is called Western Brook Pond which is a fjord surrounded by amazing rock walls formed by Glaciers back in the day. The trail was nice with a boardwalk in the middle of marshland and huge rock formations in the distance.  We took a boat tour with a company called "BonTours' Western Brook Pond Boat Tour" which was interesting, but in hindsight wasn't really worth the price we paid.  The tour was about two hours long in a relatively slow boat, and although we had a guide explaining stuff to us, it wasn't as interesting as other parts of the National Park.  Still, the sights were nevertheless gorgeous 

Trail through Western Brook Pond

Boat Tour

View from the Boat Tour

View of the Tablelands from Norris Point

Rocky Harbour

-M

Blast from the Past: Newfoundland

So I was looking through some of my old photos, and I was surprised to find some photos I took when I was 14 which don't look half as bad as I would expect them to look. So....here we go, a blast from the past: 
 
Once upon a time, a long long long time ago, my choir, High Park Choirs of Toronto (yes...I'm forever a choir girl) went to St. John's, Newfoundland for a music festival (Festival 500).  It was 2007, and it was my first long-ish trip away from home (apart from summer camp). We had a ridiculously fun couple of weeks meeting choirs from around the world and causing a ruckus at Memorial University.  We were introduced to some amazing adult and children's choirs such as the professional group Anuna and the Australian Children's Chorus (I think the only reason they stand out in my mind was because I couldn't get enough of their accents...).  We sang almost every day attending workshops and performing for the other choirs. 

The trip was great because we had some time to travel around Newfoundland and look at the sights (even though it rained 80% of the trip and I don't think I appreciated it as much as I should have seeing as I was 14/15).  We went whale watching, saw some of the landmarks, and visited a couple of the museums. And no, those aren't penguins...I know, I was disappointed too - I half expected them to break out into song and dance like in Happy Feet but ya....they're Puffins.
 

And there it is, I'm extremely proud of past me for taking scenic photos, rather than just photos of people doing dumb things which is literally the only thing I did from age 15 - 17.   The photos I took from our choir trip to Germany is a perfect example of this & therefore un-bloggable....*sigh*

-M