July 4: PEI

Ok, so PEI is my favorite province so far this trip!  Maybe it’s because the sun has been shining but I think there is more to it than that.  We started out our day by checking out Greenwich National Park which has a beautiful white sand beach that we had all to ourselves!  

We took a nice morning stroll, listening to the "singing sand" as it squished between our toes.   We also made sure to take my belly shot because today I am 25 weeks prego!

  

Last week according to “the bump” website the baby was about a pound.  This week, it could be close to 1.5 pounds meaning it’s grew half it's size in one week…And I can feel it!  It’s been getting harder and harder to get up or get out of the tent!  I have managed to fall into the tent a few times as I lose my balance and unfortunately for Carl, one of those falls was on him in the middle of the night when I had to crawl over him to get out and pee! 

Carl wanted his photo taken too... 

After our lovely stroll it was off to Charlottetown.  Charlottetown has a nice downtown right on the water with several stores and restaurants, many of them catering to the "Anne of Green Gable" fans, me of course being one of them... 

...And Carl following suit.

I remember watching "Anne of Green Gables" and "Road to Avonlea" as a kid so this brought back many memories for me.  Cavendish (which we visited next) is where the author of the books grew up and did most of her writing.  All of her novels except one, were based in the area of Cavendish.  

After walking around town we decided to splurge and get a lobster lunch!  This was both mine and Carl’s first time trying lobster (the McLobster doesn’t count) and we enjoyed it! 

From Charlottetown we headed to Cavendish to see the Anne’s house, Lover’s Lane and the area that Anne of Green Gables was set in.   

After that, one last stop in PEI was in Darnley to see the contrast between the white sand beach and the red sand beach (east has more white sand while west has red sand).  It was gorgeous!  

If we had more time, we would have loved to stay longer in PEI and spent more time on the beaches!  I loved just driving through the rolling green hills of PEI, passing potato fields and farmland, seeing the rich red soil that looked much like the soil in Uganda.  PEI has a calmness to it, a relaxed feel that we were much in need of!  We were sad to leave but this evening we took the 13km Confederation Bridge over to New Brunswick.  We are currently just outside of Moncton and plan to bomb through the rest of New Brunswick to make it to our final destination, Quebec City!

July 2/3: St. John's to PEI

July 2

Today was a driving day!  We left St. John’s by 10am and drove across Newfoundland for the second time!  We’re thankful we weren’t counting on the ferry leaving from St. John’s as it, like our first ferry had also been cancelled!  On our way, we passed a beautiful wooden house and we couldn't believe that the owners actually had it up for sale!

After about 10 hours of driving we are now waiting for our midnight ferry back to Nova Scotia.  In all our driving today the most exciting thing that happened was Carl hit a bird…It’s his THIRD one this trip!  We must be attracting them to our windshield or something???  And in all of our driving in Newfoundland, which we figure has been over 24 hours, we never saw a moose!  Not a one!  Everyone we spoke to before we came out here guaranteed us that we would see a moose – moose fail!  We were also a little disappointed that we didn’t get to see any ice bergs.  Apparently this year they came early in May and early June.  Ahhh well…

Making soup for dinner at the ferry terminal - it was cold and foggy!

Carl eating the soup - yup, right out of the pot we shared!

July 3

We survived the red-eye ferry!  We didn’t get much sleep but that didn’t stop us from having what I think is one of our best days yet.  We drove from Sydney, Nova Scotia to PEI.  On the way, we stopped at a little lighthouse at Cape George and went for a short walk. 

We then headed on to Melmerby Provincial park to enjoy some beach time!  The weather was beautiful!  The water in this area is the warmest water North of the Carolina’s…I guess it hasn’t fully warmed up yet because it was still pretty chilly.  But we enjoyed our time relaxing.  I’m not sure if the baby loved or hated being in the sun but it was moving quite a bit so we also spent some time just watching my stomach jump around with each of the baby’s movements.  

From there we hopped on yet another ferry to PEI.  This one was only about an hour and it was warm enough to stay outside the whole time and enjoy the view!  

PEI at first glance is gorgeous.  It’s quite flat but the red rocky shoreline and lighthouse that greet you on your way in on the ferry are enough to awe you.

June 30/July 1: Terra Nova to St.John's

Today the destination was St. John’s!  Since we were a little ahead of schedule due to leaving Gros Morne early, we decided to take a few detours along our route to check out what else Newfoundland had in store.  Our first stop was a little town called Trinity.

  

According to our Lonely Planet guide, “Trinity was first visited by Portuguese explorer Corte-Real in 1500 and established as a town in 1580, Trinity is one of the oldest settlements on the continent.” 

 

From there we headed to Bonavista.  “‘O buona vista!’ (‘Oh, happy sight!’), shouted John Cabot upon spying the New World from his boat on June 24, 1497. Or so the story goes. From all descriptions, this pretty spot (population 4000) is where he first set foot in the Americas” (Lonely Planet).  We stopped by the lighthouse for lunch, to soak in some sun and enjoy the beautiful view! 

And if whales and moose and all the wildlife we are wanting to see aren’t going to come to us, then we are going to have to go to them!  Sooo, next stop, Elliston where there is a Puffin colony! 

Elliston is also known as the root cellar capital of the world.  We passed many root cellars, the oldest surviving one dating back to 1839, newer ones being about 60 years old.  They were built to keep things cool in the summer and cold in the winter but not frozen.  Some are still in use today!

Then the clouds once again rolled in and we drove through some thick fog and big downpours BUT I think we have finally outrun the rain!  We arrived in St. John’s, set up camp and headed downtown for dinner and to start our exploration of the city!

July 1

It was so nice to be able to sleep in today and know that we didn’t have to get up, pack up and get on the road!  We spent the day walking around downtown St. John’s in 31 degree weather!  It was beautiful, maybe a little too hot (you can never please a pregnant woman)!  Downtown is not very big so it didn’t take long to explore.  To fill up the rest of our day we went to Signal Hill and did a little boat cruise to do some whale watching!  Signal Hill was the reception point of the first transatlantic wireless signal by Guglielmo Marconi in 1901, as well as the site of harbor defences for St. John's from the 18th century to the Second World War.  

The view of St.John's from Signal Hill

Atop Signal Hill we saw that we were 5031km from Vancouver!  Of all the places listed, we were the farthest from home...Ok except for maybe Kabul BUT we were way closer to Paris than we were were to Vancouver!

On our whale tour we saw some Minke whales!  

Yeah ok so I stole this photo from the Internet – mine just aren’t as good.  

We passed Cape Spear, the most easterly point of land in North America

My favourite part of Newfoundland was the colourful houses that lined the streets!

And here is a random sign that to me looks like a guy riding a unicycle and trying to juggle?

Since it was Canada Day, we decided to go to Quidi Vidi Lake in St. John’s and enjoy some live music and fireworks!

June 29: Gros Morne to Terra Nova National Park

We had a dry night last night and decided to get up early to take advantage of the small amount of time we did have in Gros Morne.  The plan was to do a few short hikes making our way to the northern part of the park and then going on a small boat cruise through massive rocks cascading over the water.  We started out in the little tiny town of Trout Lake walking along the boardwalk, seeing some newfie’s and hearing them talk in their funny accents.  

Lobster traps lined the wharf

We then started a hike up the side of a hill to get a view of the town and the ocean.  Part way through our hike it started to downpour.  We had our rain jackets but even that wasn’t keeping us dry…So we turned around and headed back to the car, soaking wet by the time we reached it.  As we kept driving, we would reach another hike we had planned but it was still pouring so we decided to keep moving – no point in getting wet and not even getting a view with all the fog that had crept in.  We reached the northern part of our desitination and it was looking more clear.  It had stopped raining so we started the 30 minute trek to the boat cruise.  Part way through the walk we saw where the boat would leave from, it was beautiful – massive rock cliffs that the boat would sail inbetween.  I said to Carl “better get a picture now before we can’t see it anymore (due to fog)”.  

Sure enough, before we even reached the boat launch, the downpour began and the fog rolled in.  The massive rock cliffs we had just seen, disappeared behind the fog.  Right before the boat was set to leave, we made the decision to skip it.  Again, no point in shelling out $120 just to see fog.  It was turning out to be a pretty disapointing day.  The original plan was to stay another night in Gros Morne, however the rain was expected to keep up so we decided just to head out and make our way towards St.John’s.  We are currently about 2 hours from St.John’s staying at at Terra Nova National Park.  It’s a huge park and we are seriously the only people we’ve seen so far that are staying in a tent.  EVERYONE has a trailer, a truck (mostly massive Ford’s) and about every fourth person has a satellite dish set up!  It’s crazy!  I don’t feel so ridiculous sitting at our picnic table with the laptop now…This is the second campground where people have actually commented on the fact that we are staying in a tent.  I am shocked.

On another note, something else we have noticed this whole trip is that the only other people we have run into doing the same sort of trip as us (the maritimes) are our parents age or older.  Are we to young for this?  We have met several couples along the way (and run into them again a few times) but one couple we have run into a few times gave us a glimpse into our future today….This morning, she was sitting at a picnic table uploading her photos of their trip and blogging about it while he was packing up their car and bikes.  I was helping her get her photo’s on her blog while Carl was talking to him about their bike trip through the Cabot Trail and across America (Carl’s dream is to do a bike trip like that).  It was kind of funny to see some similarities…Well the bugs are starting to get really bad so it’s about time to pack it in for another night!     

June 27-28: Sydney, NS to Gros Morne National Park, Nfld

June 27

Oooh the ferry, how I hate having to rely on other transportation systems to get me where I need to be.  Let me back up a bit – last night was the stormiest night we’ve had so far.  I’m surprised our tarp  didn’t rip right off and blow away.  Along with the wind was a torrential down pour, luckily because our tarp held in place, we managed to stay somewhat dry.  Ok, now back to the ferry…We got up early this morning to make sure we got to the ferry on time but found out that our ferry has actually been delayed by about 4 hours!   So now, not only are we taking a different ferry, we have to wait even longer.  On the bright side, they have refunded our money and this ferry trip is free!!!  After talking to our neighbours at our campsite (who are actually from Belleville, about 45minutes away from Kingston), we learned that the ferry is in fact never reliable!  They’ve done this trip a few times and one time were delayed 4 days!!!  I was almost considering saying the heck with Newfoundland altogether but Carl talked me back into my senses and so away we went!

My 24 week picture taken on the ferry

 

June 28

After the 6 hour ferry ride, we changed our watches ahead by 30 minutes (we are now currently 4.5 hours ahead of Vancouver time) and arrived in Newfoundland at about 9:30pm and found a campsite.  Before the ferry even docked, we were amazed at the sight of Newfoundland and it’s beauty.  Waves crashed up against the rocky shore, brightly colored houses dotted the ocean front and as we drove farther into the island we saw tree covered mountains and open fields with wild flowers that made it feel like we were driving in the alpine.  I’m already glad we made the decision to still come to Newfoundland!  

A view from the ferry

It drizzled throughout the night and besides the fact that Carl spilled his water bottle inside the tent, we once again managed to stay dry!

The waterfall behind our campsite.  Apparently, the day before you could walk across this
waterfall but from all the rain they had gotten that day, the water level rose significantly.

Staying dry during breakfast with a garbage bag as our table cloth
and 2 plastic grocery bags to sit on!

It took about 4 hours to get to Gros Morne today and it seemed that when we stopped, it was sunny but once we started driving, we would hit the rain again – we were rain chasers!  Here are some photo op's from along the way:

This is Moose Number Three we've seen!!!

We arrived at Gros Morne and the sun was shining and I am thrilled to report that at 9:30pm, it’s still extrememly light, warm and there are clear skies!!!  Thank you Jesus!  After setting up camp, we went on a short hike to see if we could get some good views, which we did.  

A cariboo Momma with her caribou baby

We are currently camped at Trout River by the Tablelands.  The Tablelands “are made of rock that comes from deep within the earth’s crust.  Nowhere in the world is such material as easily accessed as in Gros Morne (it’s usually only found at the unfathomable ocean depths)” says Lonely Planet.  We have a full day planned for tomorrow and so far the forecast is rain!  We're hoping that changes but we'll have to wait until tomorrow to see!