Aug 3-home at last....

Up early again, Saturday morning, glad it is the weekend so the traffic is a bit lighter going through Montreal.  The broken window latch caused a few stops on the side of the road to figure out how to keep the window from tearing off the frame as it flapped in the wind going down the highway.  Pretty scary for awhile.  I ended up wrapping a mound of duct tape around the latch to hold it in place.  So glad we had made a tool box for the trip, used a few tools during the month.  We stopped in Cornwall for breakfast and a trip to the RV store fixed the window easily enough, Rob had it done in 10 minutes.  Rob drove awhile today, I am so tired, and when he got tired, I took over again after a quick snooze.  We were home by 4 pm, so relieved, until we discovered our well pump had died while we were away, and so we had no water in the house.  So....we had to unpack the urgent stuff, then repacked some towels and such and all the dirty dishes from the trailer and off to Pickering to Grandma's house to get cleaned up.  Finally home and in bed by 10 pm, and waiting for the well guys to come in the morning.  (570 kms) 

Back home, watching the well guys pulling up the broken pump!

 Generally, it was an amazing trip.  We traveled a total of 10,044 kms. If I had to redo this summer, I would do the trip again, no doubt, but would have made a few adjustments.  Anyone who gets the opportunity to go east, take it, it is beautiful just about everywhere we went.  If we get a chance to go again, I will return to Gros Morne for another long visit, and stay at Terra Nova too, and spend less time in between now that we have seen a fair bit of the Rock.  The trip to L'Anse aux Meadows was so amazing I'm glad we did it, for not only the history, but the icebergs and whales were amazing there.  We would stay longer and do a boat tour next time.  Hope you enjoyed the blog!

Aug 2-New Brunswick to Quebec

Did a quick regroup from the hellish day yesterday, washed up dishes from cooking in the parking lot, and got on the road as soon as we could for another long drive.  Rob had to drive a fair bit today as I have been pretty much awake for the better part of the last 3 days.  We arrived at Camping Alouette near Montreal by 5 pm, dying for a swim, but there was lightning in the area so they had closed the pool.  The showers were pay as you go, pretty awful when the site was $45 a night, and that did not include WiFi, that was an extra $5.  We are definitely not on the island any more!  We did not unhook the truck from the trailer again tonight so we could make a quick departure in the morning, and had to make do for our supper as our planned food had gone bad from the extra night of travel and not cooking.  We ate hot dogs, crackers, tuna and birthday pie.  Will never stay here again, it was an open field with terrible services a good 1/2 hour from Montreal perimeter, don't know what the attraction would be to all the other campers, but it was pretty full.  When we opened one of the beds, we found mud inside it.  Oh great, something must be leaking......and Rob broke the window latch.  Will be good to get home tomorrow.  (770 kms)

Aug 1-still at the ferry docks, eventually to New Brunswick

We woke up at 5 am in the parking lot.  We were not sure if there was going to be any meals provided (complimentary that was) to us stranded passengers, and there was nothing.  Luckily we had the stove, and I cooked us a can of chili and we ate some bread, a weird breakfast, but hot and filling.  Cup of coffee and hot chocolate to wash it down, trip to the bathroom in the parking lot, and folded up the bed and got ready to board the ferry.  We left the dock by 9:30 in the thick fog, instead of 8 pm the night before.  My worry was being able to make it to our next campsite, and wanting to get there as we had booked both nights for the trip home, and didn't want to be delayed getting home.  So, we had 675 kms to travel when we disembarked at 3 pm in North Sydney.  We called ahead to Mactaquac park to let them know we would be very late, and drove and drove, stopping only for bathroom and fuel and very quick meals.  Security at the park drove us into our spot when we arrived as it was 11:30 at night, and we had a quick shower and crawled into bed by 1 am.  (675 kms, most of which were not fun)

All the crew wanted to see the damage as we passed the grounded Blue Puttees

You could just see the rocks and dirt on the bow of the Puttees where she crashed into shore

If you can make it out in the fog, there is a crooked blue fishing shack that got pushed over by the Puttees

 

July 31-to the ferry

We woke to a rainstorm again, which petered out before noon.  Breakfast in town, then on our way south to get on the ferry by 6 pm.  We had lots of time, so we decided to detour into Stephenville again and try to find the 300 million year old tree fossil that we couldn't locate on the first leg of the trip.  We finally found it marked on the side of the highway, and parked the trailer nearby to hike along the river to the fossil site.  It was pretty cool, a very big fossil section, about 12 inches in diameter, about 5 feet long, surrounded by rock, just laying in the stream.  
 

The elusive sign we were looking for

The dark grey streak is the tree fossil

Devon was thrilled to be able to hold this piece, and carefully put it right back in it's place

After checking this out, we carried on west to explore a bit more of the peninsula, but the fog rolled in and we lost the view and decided to turn back and have some lunch in town.  Once we left town, Rob got an email from Marine Atlantic, at about 2 pm, saying our ferry was cancelled.  By this point, we were about 2 hours away.  They gave us an 800 number, Rob called and was told to phone back at 6 pm, they didn't know anything yet.  Turns out the ferry Blue Puttees that we were supposed to take that evening had run aground that morning leaving Port aux Basques, stranding all occupants aboard.  They worked all day to get the ferry off the spit of land and re-docked so they could unload all those passengers, then they reboarded them on the other ferry, filled it to capacity, and left the dock by about 9 pm, leaving us behind for the night.  We were one of the few who were to have left at 8 pm that didn't make it on, because we had a trailer to sleep in.  It was understandable, but not fun spending the night in a parking lot where all night long people were driving in, talking right outside the trailer.  Hardly slept. (310 kms)

July 30-Corner Brook

Last full day scheduled on the island.  We had booked into Sandbanks Provincial Park, but from talking to quite a few people, it seemed too far from the main road for the last night before the ferry in case there were any mechanical troubles that might delay us.  (Boy we had no idea what we were in store for!) We decided to try and find something closer to the TCH, and discovered a park near Corner Brook that would do well enough.  It was beside the buildings for Marble mountain, and had only about 8 campsites and a few cabins.  The campsites had to share a single bathroom and shower for men, and another for women.  Luckily there was only one other family staying that night, so it worked out well.  We went into town to shop for a few items that had been lost or damaged, and ended up staying in town for the evening to watch another movie as it was raining like crazy again today.  We toured the mall in Corner Brook before watching Despicable Me 2, a great kids movie.  (230 kms)

July 29-Happy Birthday Devon and hiking the monster trail

Started the day by placing banners all around the trailer hoping someone would wish Devon a happy birthday, but no takers.  I feel a bit guilty about having us away most years on his birthday, but we usually manage to do something special on the day, so he does fine.  We had given him his birthday gift a couple of weeks early, a new digital camera of his own, as he has been using mine for awhile and is getting quite good at taking pictures.  I made some sandwiches for the day as we have planned to hike the Alexander Murray hiking trail today, a very ambitious plan for me with my ankle and knee always a bit of a concern on hills and steps.  When we arrived at the trailhead building, the staff warned us the trail was 8 kms, but included over 2000 steps.  OMG.  We decided to go down the road and check out the Rattling Brook Falls as I had originally just wanted to see that, but thought you needed to hike on the big trail to get there. In fact, the waterfall trail was pretty high up itself, it was about 300 steps to the top.  By the time we got to the top, our jackets were off and Rob pulled his sweater off too, despite the cool air.    The view was spectacular.
 

Rattling brook falls

Beautiful trails to the falls

View from the top of the Rattling brook falls climb-it was gorgeous.

Once we had seen that trail, we decided to at least explore part of the Alex Murray one, so drove back to the trail head.  Another guy was in there, and he said many people just go as far as Corner brook falls, and then come back, and he said -well, there's just 3 sets of steps to get there, so it's pretty easy.  Well, we could see steps climbing all the way up the mountain side from the road from about 5 kms away, and knew we were never going all the way up there, so decided to try for the falls.  We almost made it to them, but in fact the whole trail was thick with sets of steps, 10-20 at a time, and his three sets were close to 100 steps in each block.  We stopped short of the falls after seeing about 100 steps going down a cliff, knowing we would have to climb right back up them.  We were on the trail about 3 hours altogether.  We went back to the campground, and cooled off our hot bodies in the lake (which was freezing cold), then had a nice birthday dinner for Devon.  (100 km and about 700 steps)
 

We did Corner Brook falls and back, about 6 kms and LOTS of steps

Sign at the trailhead building

Map of the trail

One of the big sets of stairs

It wasn't very hot, but the shirt came off early!

The final steps snaked right up the side of the cliff-we didn't get that far-maybe next trip?

 

July 28-Baie Verte peninsula

The rain finally stopped early this morning, so we could open up the tent flaps and dry everything out.  After a few hours everything was better, so we packed up and went to explore Baie Verte peninsula.  I was hoping for another chance at whales and icebergs before we spent the rest of the time more inland.  We explored most of the available roads in the area, and even hiked on this really neat little trail of mainly boardwalks out to the ocean in Fleur-de-Lys, but no more icebergs showed themselves.  We did see a few humpbacks playing around which was very neat.  Back to the trailer for the night. (400 km)

Hiking trail over marshy bog

We walked on rocks or wood here, not much else!

Thought these were pretty

This raptor screamed at us so much, I was able to find her in the trees

Devon loved the hiking trails