August 3-4, 2024 – West Coast of Newfoundland



We left The Blue Canoe Campground on Saturday morning and drove Southwest to Kippens where we are staying at the Zenzville Campground. This is an area on the southwest coast that we did not see when we came up the coast the first part of July.  After getting settled in the campground we did some necessary chores around the motorhome.



Sunday morning, we drove the French Ancestors Route on the Port au Port Peninsula.  Newfoundland only gained control over the west coast in 1904.  Prior to that, it was known as the French Shore, because France had exclusive fishing right there.  Today, many French place names remain, and the area is still the hub of French Newfoundland culture.

Our first stop was at Long Point at the northern tip of the peninsula.   We hiked to the end of the point where Rex could not resist climbing to the top of this warning beacon.






The point gradually disappears into the Gulf of St. Lawrence.







            We found many unusual rocks while exploring the point.









On our hike back to the Jeep we saw this seagull eating a small flounder.






We stopped at an overlook in the town of Mainland where we ate a picnic lunch.  

After lunch we stopped at Park-Boutte du Cap in Cape St. George, where there is a traditional French bread oven.  We missed the demonstration where they baked bread but were able to get a taste of the delicious bread baked during the demonstration.





We stopped in Sheaves Cove where we found Hidden Falls.  You cannot see this beautiful waterfall until you get to the coast and look back.










We hiked to the base of the waterfall and were rewarded with this beautiful view.









The coast where the river flowed into St. George’s Bay was also spectacular.








Nancy and Tacky beside another small waterfall we found while exploring the coast.








Finding this little waterfall was a pleasant surprise.







                        It flowed off the cliffs into St. Georges Bay.


After another great day if sightseeing, we stopped at Secret Cove Brewery in Port au Port for drinks and to relax before dinner.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

June 4-6, 2009

Image
June 4, 2009 We drove Northwest of Jasper along the Yellowhead Highway to Mount Robson Provincial Park. We saw a moose along the river in the distance but wasn’t close enough to get a picture. We saw Yellowhead Lake and Moose Lake, and had a picnic lunch at the Mt. Robson Visitors Center. The scenery is spectacular – a picture of Mt. Robson. Our site at Whistler campground. June 5 We left Jasper in the sunshine and warm but the further North we got, the colder, rainier and more grey it got. As we turned north on route 40 to Grand Paririe, we started to hit a little snow. Didn’t last long but really woke us up. It stayed rainy and grey until we got to Grand Cache then it started to clear. We also got our first real windshield chip today, but a trip to WalMart and a windshield repair kit later we were fixed. The land here is somewhat hilly, swampy and covered with trees. There are some really big oil and gas complexes and some large lumber mills such as the one we saw in Grand Paririe.
Read more

August 24-26, 2009

Image
We headed towards Flathead Lake Monday morning and stopped in Kalispell to get our air conditioner repaired. It had stopped working a couple of weeks ago and August is not the time to be without an air conditioner. The RV dealer we stopped at gave us the name of the guy who does their air conditioning work. He was able to fix the air conditioner (a switch had burned out) in a couple of hours and we were on our way. We drove to Polson, MT at the south end of Flathead Lake and are going to stay here for a few days. We are staying at Eagle Nest RV, which has a cherry orchard on one side, a golf course on one side and a horse pasture on another side. It is a really nice park with lots of grass and trees. Unfortunately, we are at the end of the cherry season and we might not be able to find any fresh cherries. Tuesday morning we decided to take a drive around Flathead Lake. This is a very scenic area with lots of fruit orchards. We found a fruit stand and bought cherries, peaches, tomatoes
Read more

July 28, 2009

Image
We left Valdez this morning in rain and fog and retraced our route back up the Richardson Highway. We ran out of the fog and rain after we went over Thompson Pass and thought we would be able to see more of the scenery. Not to be, shortly we ran into more smoke. We stopped at the visitor center at Wrangell-St. Elias National Park but it was really smoky so we didn’t stay very long. The ranger there (we think he was a ranger but he looked about 15 years old!) told us that there are currently 60 fires in Alaska and the smoke here is from the fires North of here around Fairbanks. Wrangell-St. Elias National Park is the largest national park in the US at 13.2 million acres. There are only 2 short gravel roads in the park so access is limited to backpacking, hiking and flight seeing. The park is mainly wilderness and has 4 major mountain ranges in it and includes 9 of the 16 highest peaks in the US. Unfortunately, because of the smoke we were not able to see any of them. We turned off the R
Read more