Western Brook Pond

Newfoundland

My time in Nfld has been great. I'm leaving tonight on the ferry to go back to Nova Scotia, and then the long haul to the west. The people here have been so nice, well just last night we pulled into a trailor park (completly empty), to get a spot for the night with a hot shower. I ended up sitting the living room with this newfy drinking his beer and listening to all his storys. They've got a real problem with cayotes, apparently they came across on the ice and have populated the island making the people uneasy. They're killing hair and carabo, which is a good sorce of winter meet for these folks. So they kill the cayotes whenever they can for a bounty of $25. It's pretty amazing how high these people keep there spirits even after what the factories and government have done to the fishing industry. Guess it's oil and tourism now.

Durring my time here I've seen a lot of wild life. More moose then I can count, but you see a lot of them on the side of the road this time of year. Seen whales on numerous ocations which is always really cool. I've also managed to see puffins, seals, foxes, eagles, and sheep. Yes sheep.

By far the highlight of nfld for me has been the Western Brook Pond. It's another spot in Gross Moorne. You can get boat tours in this pond and it takes you through a big fjord. Or you can hike in to the base of the fjord and camp in a little bay, -or a byte as the newfy's call it-. It's a realtivly easy 8km hike in, with only one river crossing, but they have a cable up for it. Once at the camp we met and had a fire with a young german couple, and 2 auzzies hitchhiking around nf. It was an interesting night of story telling. They had told us that they hiked up to the top of the fjord, and it was the most buitiful sight they'd ever seen. Intrieged the next mourning we set off leaving our camp set up on the beech, to get to the top of the fjord. It took roughly 3 hours i figure of steep terrian, following dry creek beds, and moose trails. For such a big animal they can go through some thick shit. Once to the top though, the view was breath taking, it was like nothing i've ever seen. Words can't describe this place, so hopfully the pictures will do some justice to what im saying. The cliffs im standing on in them are 2400ft high. Intence.

Anyways im off too dawson city, and the demster highway, where i'll see the buefort sea, so I guess im going to the north coast before the west coast.

Green Gardens Pictures

The Green Gardens Trail -Gros Morne-

This is a buitiful trail in Gross Morne National Park, it a 18km hike and its up and down mountains which gets pretty grueling when you're carring heavy pack. We went in for 2 nights, we hiked in 5 km over and through the mountains, and the along the coast for anouther 10km before setting up camp. I don't think we walk over a km of flat terrian, it was really cool. We set up camp by a mouth of a river going into the Gulf of St.Larence. I was a really nice spot, the first night we had a nice big fire due to all the drift wood. The second day at about 3 in the afternoon it started raining pretty good, and it didn't stop. As it started to get dark we noticed that the river was rising at a pretty good speed. Getting closer and closer to our tent. At about 10:00 we ended up moving our tent further back on the beech where we could sleep with ease. At 12:00 in the night the river turned into a raging torrent, wiping out our fire pit, and old tent site. The only problem then was that we had to cross that river in the mourning to get out (we technically couldve gone back the way we came, but thats not really what we set out to do). By mourning time the rain had stopped and the river had calmed down a bit, making crossing doable. Due to Vern's lack of confidence with water, ended up carring both pack's and came out of it only with a little cut and bruied foot. Vern had good crossing also thanks to a big stick we found. The 5 km out were up and down mountains and they were wet with streams running down them all over the place. It was a tough, but rewarding hike, but i am looking forward to a day on the bus.

Travels to NFLD

I had a good trip up to NFLD, the sun has followed us the whole way. Stopped by the Bay of Fundy, and spent the night there. Drank wine on the funky beach till tide came in. Life on the bus is easy, and relaxing I love it. Im going to have to do some outback camping soon and get a little exersise. Oh yeah, I had a really good ferry ride over, it was sunny and i drank beer on the deck with no one in sight. The bus runs like a champ all day long, it shakes and rattles the inside all to shit, and im an constantly doing repairs on it, but that's expected on some of these roads. Starting it is a differnt story in the mourning. It's been going under 0 degrees at night, and she dosen't like to well. But yelling at it cursing, and screaming is a good way to wake up in the mourning.