A week in Newfoundland - part 5 - Gros Morne NP
It was a little over 400 km from Twillingate to Rocky Harbour, so we needed to leave early. Our host at the B&B in Twillingate made a lovely breakfast for us before we left, complete with homemade jam, bread, eggs, and toutons, fried dough, served with molasses.
One of my top priorities (and the reason for my original interest in going to Newfoundland) for Gros Morne NP was a tour of Western Brook Pond, an inland fjord, just north of Rocky Harbour. I had booked a 3:00 tour with Bontours, the latest available in advance, (they will do a 4:00 and 5:00, if the 3:00 sells out), and knowing that road travel is not always speedy, I figured leaving around 7:00am would give us enough time.
The drive went very smoothly all the way to Deer Lake, where we stopped for some groceries and gas and then continued on to Rocky Harbour. From Deer Lake, the road got much hillier and there were a lot of trucks on the road, so travel was a bit slower, but we made it to Rocky Harbour around lunchtime and stopped at Fisherman's Landing for steamed mussels and pea soup with a huge dumpling in the middle of it.
Thinking we had plenty of time, we went to pick up our boat tour tickets around 1:00, the girl at the desk very insistently, told us to "leave now", because of the construction throughout the 30km between us and the trailhead to the inland fjord. It turns out they were replacing every culvert in the National Park in the summer of 2016, and there were a lot of culverts...
However after a short delay, we were able to get there in time and we hiked the 3km trail to the boat tour dock.
The boat tour, was my favorite kind of boat ride - very calm. We started at the western end of the pond, where you can see the towering cliffs of the fjord to the east. The tour lasted about 2 hours and went to the far end of the lake and back, giving us great views of the massive cliffs and periodic waterfalls and lots of information from the guide.
The clouds had been getting thicker and thicker all afternoon and just as we got off the boat, it started to rain, so we hiked back to our car in the rain and drove back through the construction to our cottage in Rocky Harbour. The cottage was moderately well equipped, with a pretty cramped kitchen.
The next morning, was pretty overcast, but not as rainy as I was expecting, so we drove to the southern part of the park, to explore the Tablelands. The Tablelands is an odd area, where the earth's mantle has been exposed, and it looks the way I would expect mars to look. On the way there, we passed The Discovery Centre, so we stopped and took a look at the interesting displays on geology and natural history.
There is a pretty easy, although slightly uphill 4km trail, that goes a short way into the valley.
After exploring the Tablelands, we drove back north past Rocky Harbour to Green Point. If you catch it at the right moment, there is a guided walk, but we missed the right time, so we explored on our own. Green Point, is pretty fascinating, if you like rocks. It was recently designated the boundary between the Cambrian and Ordovician Periods.
The rock layers were really interesting and I might have found a couple of fossils, but it was a hard to tell.
Further north is Broom Point, where there are tours that talk about the history of the Mudge Family and fishing from the area. The tour includes the summer home of the Mudge's and fishing equipment.
Our final stop for the day was The Arches Provincial Park. A small park, with a series of three sea arches, located just north of the northern border of Gros Morne NP.
