The Teaser Prequel Adventure

I am turning over a new leaf (again) with my blogging and going to try and use it to keep track of all our adventures in Europe.  Actually, if you want a more accurate reason, I just have more time now and something more exciting to report on than:  "this week I went to work and Kyle went to school and our spare time was spent doing church stuff."  So, here is the first of the adventures, or what I like to call "the teaser prequel adventure".

We were frantically trying to get everything ready to move.  (I CANNOT figure out how I managed to accumulate so much stuff in only 3 1/2 years).  We'd gotten as far as we thought we could and decided that it was a shame to not go see Newfoundland since we were so close (relatively speaking).   We looked into flights, which weren't bad, but there were no available cars for rent - none at all.  In the end we decided to go the traditional route and make for the ferry.

Throwing stuff into the car and heading out towards Nova Scotia took no time at all but it occurred to us that we should make sure we could make the ferry.  Turns out that night's sailing was full as well as the next morning so we made a little detour into Halifax for the night and were able to go to the temple and Peggy's Cove.  

We drove the rest of the way to Sydney, (Nova Scotia, just to clarify) -7 hours or so - and caught the Saturday night sailing.  Unfortunately, as we were last minute there weren't any little cabins left, so we were left in the regular room.  Kyle managed to get some sleep on the floor while I tried to sleep in my seat.  It didn't work so well...I think I managed about 2 hours of the 10.

Thank goodness for Kyle, as soon as we got off the ferry he drove straight for Corner Brook arriving about 15 minutes before church started.  I dozed for most of the 3 hours.  We had a lovely time at the branch and even got to be photographers for a little branch photo after church

After church we headed north and made it all the way to a little campground in the very northern peninsula.  We saw Labrador faintly in the mist across the straight.  I suspect that might be the closest I ever get to Labrador.  

The next morning, I was told by the park ranger that I could go onto "Th' Five Hunred Stips" (as I thought I heard him say) - here is approximately the rest of the conversation:

Me:  "Umm, pardon...what is a "stip"?

Ranger (looking at me like I've just said something colossally stupid): "500 stips, like, a stip."

Me (Noticing that Kyle is killing himself laughing by this point):  "Oh, a stip....OOOOO, you mean a STEP, 500 STEPS!!"

Ranger:  "Ah course"

Me:  "Sorry... it's just you have a bit of an accent, and I'm not used to... Sorry"

Ranger:  "You're the one with the accent Miss."

(N.B.  All the spelling errors are intentional - it's me trying to spell out what a newfie accent sounds like)

Anyway, after that lovely interlude, we went to L'Anse aux Meadowes, which is the site of the earliest European settlement on the North American continent (circa 11th century) - here's the UNESCO link if you've never heard of it: http://whc.unesco.org/en/list/4

The thing I couldn't understand - why in the world didn't the Vikings just sail another 3 or 4 days south or something where it's way warmer and there are way more trees?  (Since apparently that's one of the main things they came to harvest).  I mean, we were there in August, which is the nicest time of year, and, as you see, it's pretty bleak. I guess maybe they felt it was better than Greenland, where they were stopping before...

Kyle resting on the grass covered ruin of one of the long houses

Outside a reconstructed peat long house

Both of us demonstrating Viking gender-specific activities:

Kyle inside the smelting hut

After this we took a quick trip into a little town at the very tip of the peninsula called St Anthony (home of the infamous "500 Stips" - which we were too lazy to climb incidentally) and checked out the last of the season's icebergs, climbed some rocks and enjoyed Canadian scenery.  (Which really consists, in most of Canada as rocks, trees, water, more rocks, more trees and occasionally some scrubby grass/bushes, more water and more trees and rocks):

That afternoon we drove all the way back south to Gros Morne National Park.  I am totally embarrassed to note that we did not take one single picture.  It's touted as one of most photogenic national parks and it was indeed lovely but I must admit that it didn't really seem that much different than parts of interior BC.  We camped right along this beautiful beach and noted that the water wasn't nearly as cold as in the Bay of Fundy (near Saint John) oddly enough.

We drove back to Corner Brook that night and called up one of the families that we'd met the previous Sunday - they ended up taking us out to one of there favourite picnic sites on the coasts.  Fabulous.  We had a delicious mussel boil (well - some of us ate mussels, other of us (Kyle and the kids) ate hot dogs).  The scenery was breathtaking.

Our last stop on the way home was at a little diner where Kyle got "A Mess".  This is a Newfoundland treat that one of the sisters he home taught had told him about.  It's basically poutine on steroids. French fries with the gravy and cheese curds as per normal poutine but then add in a whole bunch of greasy fried ground beef and stuffing (like turkey stuffing).  You'll notice me rubber-necking, it's like a train accident, you can't look away...

After that we headed to the ferry terminal, slept in the car until 3 am (when the ferry started to load) and then went into our little cabin, had a shower and went to sleep.  I would HIGHLY recommend the cabin option when taking the ferry overnight!!  We drove home that day back into the moving mess having had a lovely time.  It was a short trip with a ton of driving but it was great!