Mile 6747

 We leave Placentia, NL with blue skies and very pleasant, almost summerly temperatures, and follow the Rt-100, then Rt-101, and then Rt-202 to return to the TCH, to turn West.  Leaving the Avalon Peninsula brings us from the ocean barrens to the central forested areas and going further west to the transition of the Southwestern to the Northern barrens.  All day we are followed by a strong wind, and it shows us why the trees on the Rock are not that tall.  We also see that since the two weeks which have passed since we came along this stretch that the birch trees are now shining with their young green leaves and have turned the landscape from a brownish-gray to an invigorating green aura.  It's a pity that we are using this sun filled day to drive, but we want to be on the west coast for some hikes in Gros Morne N.P. before the rain moves in on Sunday for some days.

Placentia, NL Bridge and Fort Frederick Guns

Placentia Bay Northeast Arm

... looks almost like an Alpine Lake in Europe

Deer Lake, NL

 We stop for the day in Deer Lake, NL, nicely located on the south side of the Gros Morne N.P. and enjoy the last sun rays as they shine on us at the lake.

 Today we get a nice surprise as the forecasted rain is a blue sky.  We have a good breakfast as we want to take on some hikes in the Gros Morne N.P.  Unfortunately is the hike to the top of Gros Morne mountain summit closed till June 27 for wildlife reproduction and growth, so we take some smaller ones and end up at the Western Brook Pond trail.  We are lucky and can get a place on the tour boat and can enjoy the former Fjord, now turned lake and the cliff walls and waterfalls.  The 'fjord' is the creation of glacial activities some 500 million years ago, and the then pushed up rocks and sediments separating the melting glaciers from the ocean forming the lake in the 'fjord', in places some 600ft deep.  Hard to believe but true, those mountains and fjord walls, the Low Range Mountains, are part of the Appalachian Orogen stretching from Alabama in the US all the way to western Newfoundland and Labrador and are about 1.2 billion years old.  After the boots tour we see some dark clouds driving up from the Southwest, and we just make a last stop at Martin's Point near Sally's Cove, NL to pay a visit to the site where on December 11, 1919 the S.S. Ethie ran aground in a violent storm.  All passengers and crew were rescued by locals with a boson's chair and rope, and a baby was sent ashore in a mail bag.  Then it's time to run back to Deer Lake before the supermarket closes to get our groceries restocked.

Morning at the Bonne Bay Pond and the Gulf of St. Lawrence

Gros Morne N.P., Jerry's Pond and viewing the Inlet to Western Brook Pond

Coastal Lowland at Gros Morne N.P.

Western Brook Pond (Fjord), Gros Morne N.P.

Waterfalls in the Fjord

A face in the rock

Leaving Western Brook Pond, Gros Morne N.P.

.... and yes, it was a chilly afternoon

'We still don't know one thousandth of one percent of what nature has revealed to us."  -  Albert Einstein, German-born theoretical physicist, 1879-1955