Les 16 et 17 juin - Parc Gros Morne




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June 16th
After being awoken at around 5am by a raven cawing practically on the roof of our tent I made myself a coffee and observed the ocean from the edge of our sit. A flock of birds was fishing by diving at impressive speed from nearly 50 feet in the air into the water. First time I have seen that.
The nearest town is Rocky Harbour, about a 15 minute drive south of the campground so we made a run down to try to solve the mattress problem. Despite almost everything being closed we bought some tape and glue to try to fix the leak... but then were unable to find the leak. We finally decided to spend Sunday night at a motel in Rocky Harbour.
Meanwhile we started to visit the park. In this area there are villages that are not part of the park which is a bit of a patch-work. We visited Norris Point which has a spectacular view from the road before it descends into the village of Norris Point. Inlets, mountains and a couple of villages along the water. 

 Our walk through the forest around Berry Hill Pond was interrupted by rain... which stopped soon after and encouraged us to take the trail up Berry Hill, a short but vertical walk that permitted a more spectacular view of the surrounding area and a high heart rate and a lot of huffing and puffing.
We celebrated my birthday with a supper of steak and baked patatoes cooked on the fire at the campground before heading of to the motel for the night.
June 17th
First order of business was a new air mattress, we found nothing in Rocky Harbour so set off for Corner Brook which has a Canadian Tire. An hour and a half later we found civilization... at least 2 Tim Hortons as well as the Canadian Tire where we got a new mattress. Corner Brook was built around the pulp and paper mill which is right in the center of downtown. The odour from the mill took me back to when I worked at the pulp mill near Nanaimo. And Suzanne said it smelled like Windsor, near Sherbrooke where there is also a paper mill. 



 On the way back to our campground we visited a waterfall and a memorial for Mattie Mitchell, a native guide who helped the English to explore the west coast of Newfoundland.

Corner Brook and Grand Falls NL are engraved in my memory because of a strike in the late ‘50s that I remember hearing about in the news as a pre-ado. I read up on the strike before we visited the city... an important part of working class history. This article is very interesting.


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