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

Road Trip 2014: Quebec City

For a long time I was convinced I've visited Quebec City before.  Turns out I haven't, I've just been to Montreal and Ottawa way too many times.  Anyways, on day two of our trip we drove into Quebec City in the morning and had amazing smoked meat sandwiches for lunch before heading to check out the fortifications of Quebec which was pretty neat to see.  We then roamed around old Quebec, followed a trail from one end of town to the other and overall just got a feel for the city. Quebec City was quite different from what I imagined and also very different from other places I've traveled.  I can't really describe it; but I felt like Old Quebec was very quaint and almost perfect feeling...which doesn't make much sense, but I guess you'll have to go there to find out.   Anyways, I had a really nice time in the city and I had some amazing food from baked goods to beef cheeks; it was just a shame we only had the one day!

Fortifications of Quebec

mmmmmm Beef Cheeks

Chicken xD

Old Quebec

Smoked Meat Sandwich

Old Port

-M

East Coast Road Trip

I haven't been on a proper road trip in a long time, so when my sister got into a summer camp at Memorial University in Newfoundland my parents and I jumped on the opportunity to see the East coast.  Overall the entire trip was relatively rushed and a lot of plans changed due to various circumstances.  Nevertheless it was a fun trip, a great chance to see some places in Canada and a good driving experience.  Our itinerary was as follows, but I'll probably only talk about the places where we spent a fair amount of time (which wasn't actually the case for many places).

- Toronto to Drummonville
- Drummonville to Quebec City
- Quebec City to Moncton
- Moncton to North Sydney
- Overnight ferry to Porte aux Basques
- Porte aux Basques to Rocky Harbour
- Rocky Harbour to St. John's

- St. John's to Deer Lake
- Deer Lake to Porte aux Basques
- Porte aux Basques to North Sydney via ferry
- North Sydney to Halifax
- Halifax to Edmunston
- Edmunston to Toronto (pit stop in Montreal for some bagels)

-M

Edinburgh

Last Euro-trip post!  Edinburgh was the last stop of our trip before we went back to London to catch our flight.  Edinburgh definitely did not disappoint...I am absolutely in love with Scotland!  We were very lucky to have gorgeous weather during our three days there, and we took advantage of it by going on walking tours and ghost tours.  On our first day, we did a free walking tour (free as in by donations of course) which was fantastic, the tour guide really knew what she was talking about and it was nice to learn about the city and get our bearings.  We spent the next couple days roaming around different areas of the old and new city, eating haggis, ghost tours, taking in the gorgeous sites and just having a lovely time.  We unfortunately didn't have a chance to go to the Highlands which is something I really regret; which only means I'll have to visit sometime soon! ;)  

Although Edinburgh Castle was gorgeous, many people suggested we admire it from the outside.  Most people agree that unless you're a massive Castle Fan, and know what to look at/what to look for, the inside of the castle is very poorly curated and not worth seeing unless you get a guide (which is super expensive); so we admired from the outside :)

View from Calton Hill during our Ghost Tour (we had to wait until nearly 11 for the sun to set)!

Edinburgh is wonderfully hilly 

So as most Harry Potter fans know, J.K Rowling wrote HP in the Elephant House Cafe which was super super exciting to see.  The cafes in that vicinity clearly had a fun time with it too.  Behind the cafe is a famous graveyard called Greyfriars Kirkyard which has tons of paranormal stories associated with it, along with a story about a dog who guarded his master's grave for 13 years.  Those cool stories aside, J.K. Rowling also saw the graveyard, and actually used many of the names written on the tombstones for her books.  So I got to see Tom Riddell's grave (Voldemort), along with someone named McGonagall; and there was apparently a Crookshanks somewhere (but I didn't have time to find it). 

"Scottish Currency"

Awesome mailbox

Absolutely disgusting Haggis

Greyfriar Bobby's Dog!

-M

Manchester

Manchester was quite fun...before arriving in the city we were scared it would be like Lyon where there really wasn't much to do.  Similar to Lyon, we chose to including Manchester in our itinerary as a way to lower our expenses.   We stayed in a nice Airbnb accommodation next to the university where our amazing host gave us a lot of tips and recommendations on how to spend our time.  We were about a 40 minute walk to town but spent the two days visiting some really nice museums and art galleries.  Things were definitely cheaper in Manchester and we enjoyed pigging out on food which was priced much lower than London.  The shopping was also great and we overall had a really nice time in Manchester; two days was a perfect amount of time!

Yayyyy taxidermy

Our Airbnb host suggested we visit this old library, and it was amazing; literally felt like walking into the set of Harry Potter
As with all the other Art Galleries and Museums in the UK, the Manchester Art Gallery was gorgeous and free!

Honestly couldn't get enough of the fish & chips :)

-M