June 11, 2009
We’ve moved up the road about 85 miles to Kippens, where we will explore Port Au Port Peninsula for 2 days. Right out of the campground we found an Alpaca farm with lovely yarn and hand made crafts. The gal in the store said her husband is a fisherman and all of his catch goes to Boston. The lobster fisherman are having a rough year because of the recession, only getting 2.50 per pound and on top of that the catch is down, hardly making it worth going out. Their season is over next week and some of them are pulling their traps in now.
It’s a rainy day and there is a Walmart in Stephensville where we stocked up on groceries. I’ve heard comments about Walmart being here and all their money going to the states, however there aren’t many stores to shop in and I’m sure some are very happy to have it here.
June 13
We’re on the move again, this time to Rocky Harbour in Gros Morne National Park.
We got a better deal if we stayed for the week so this will be our home until Sat the 20th.
Sadly, Diane and Bob will be leaving us after 3 days here as their time is limited and in order to see as much as possible they are heading east and not going to Labradore or St Anthonys to see the icebergs. Hopefully they will see some at Twillingate.
The lobster pound in town supplied us with fresh meat and we cooked out almost every night. The price of lobster here is 4.99 per pound, I tried the cod. They insisted we buy some pork fat and Nufie flour to fry the cod in. It was good.
We toured Corner Brook area with Diane and Bob. It is a fair size city with some industry. There is a huge paper mill there I hope we can tour on the way back through. We took scenic route 450 out along Humber Arm stopping at Blow Me Down Provincial Park for some more spectacular scenery. I’m glad we didn’t try to camp here as the sites are too tight for us. Everywhere we go we are enjoying these small fish camps with there brightly colored buildings and crab and lobster pots setting outside.
The next day, another road trip to Trout River where we saw hand knitted mittens and socks hanging on lines for sale. I might have bought some socks but they are far too heavy for Florida!
We stopped at Bakers Beach and prospected for colorful stones. Norm has a vase filled with shells from Baja California on his desk and plans to put one with Newfoundland rocks beside it. There is also a fishing camp there and we stopped to ask a fellow working on his rope if they ever sold their catch there. He said no, they had brought all the traps in yesterday and are done for the season. He ask us to stay and chat awhile as he had nothing more pressing to do. He invited us into is shed and showed us a claw from a 16 lb lobster; and took us to another shed where he had half the bones of a Minkie Whale on display, another fisherman had the other half. He then invited us into his summer home, he also has a home n Rocky Harbour, to see pictures of other big lobsters and a caribou herd in Labrador. We ask if he had ever been to Pennsylvania and he said he hasn’t been very far from home. We really enjoyed our visit with this genuine friendly native Newfoundlander.
Tomorrow we move North, I just heard from Bob and Diane and they have seen house size icebergs and one moose. We saw our first moose yesterday when we drove north to Cow Head. It was just munching on trees by the side of the road, when we moved a little closer it slowly moved into the thick woods. We also took a hike to an old light house there. We walked through the woods to the top of a mountain and deep in the woods there was a small garden. The view at the top was worth the walk!
Take care
Check out the pics
Lois

pictures from Newfoundland

Rose Blanche Light
This is a typical fishing village in Newfoundland Rose Blanche.

Norm and Mickey on our lonf hike to the Gulf of St Lawrence.

Ferry from Sydney Nova Scotia to Port aux Basques Newfoundland

The Jokers on the ferry

The view comming into Newfoundland (rymes with understand)

Frank driving on the ferry

Pictures

The air boat that Bell invented at Baddeck

The second picture is of the light house in Beddeck



































This is the lovely Lass that greeted us at the Nova Scocia Visitors Center.

2009-06-02
We spent 3 nights at Monkton New Brunswick taking in Hopewell Rocks, on the Bay of Fundy, for two days, one at low tide and one at high tide. When the tide is out you can walk on the ocean floor among large carved rocks jutting from the sand. Most of them have trees growing on top of them hence the name flower pots was given them. When the tide is in sea kayaks roam around the same rocks you were just walking around. The Bay of Fundy has the worlds highest tides. At Alma just 24 miles south of Hopewell Rocks we stopped to see the harbor where the fishing boats were setting on the bay floor and the water was about ½ mile out. When the tide comes back in they will be as high as the pier. It looked really strange to see them sitting there.
Well we made it to Nova Scotia, crossing from Monkton New Brunswick. We stopped at the information center where a Lass in a Scottish Kilt greeted us with a bagpipe serenade. She played her pipes for each new visitor as they walked from the parking lot. What a nice way to be greeted! We took the scenic drive along the coast by harbors and quaint little villages along the Strait of Northumberland, stopping at a Lobster pound in Port Howe to pick out big ones for supper that night. The sales lady there taught us lobster 101. You turn them over and under the tail, the female has two little soft round disks and the male has rigid little paddles. The male lobster has larger claws and the female has a larger tale and red roe (eggs) that take up to a year and 6 months to reach the tail. Norms was a 3 lb male and cost $19. I got a pound of Halibut and dipped it in butter. It was poor mans lobster and tasted just as yummy to me! I even had enough to enjoy it the next day. Our next stop was on Cape Breton Island where we took the northern loop of the Cabot Trail enjoying the beautiful coastline. We stopped at harbors talking to the fishermen, hoping to buy fresh lobster off the boats. We were a little late in the day as most of the boats had already come in and trucks were waiting on the docks to buy their lobsters as soon as they docked.. I believe most of the boats contract all of their catch to one buyer, but one fisherman did say if he hadn’t already sold his catch we could have bought some. Instead I found a bakery that had wonderful huckleberry pie.
Sunday we visited Alexander Graham Bells Museum in Baddeck. He lived here for 37 years in Beinn Bhreagh, his home on an island off Beddeck. His descendents still own the family home. His wife was deaf and he devoted much of his life to teaching the deaf to speak. His wife, Mabel, was one of his students. At Beinn Bhreagh he worked with many other inventers such as Glenn Curtis, on aviation, and air boats, and many other inventions to improve upon other things such as Edison’s phonograph. I found the museum especially interesting. We also drove the south eastern leg of the Cabot trail stopping at Lewisbourg where there is a recreated fort, and village similar to Williamsburg. It was cold and windy, and late in the day till we got there so no touring for us, we decided to pick that up on the way back.
Monday June 8th
We arrived at the parking lot for the ferry crossing from Sidney Nova Scotia to Port aux Basques Newfoundland at 9:00am for a 11:30 am crossing The time passed quickly, as we have the comfort of home to wait in. The crossing was smooth, taking about 6 hours. There is a cafeteria on board were we had lunch, and we had a large table for 6 to sit and play joker, the boys won all but 1. They also were showing movies and had sleeping berths you could purchase. There were quite a few trucks aboard and we spoke to one trucker who comes across three times a week with a truck full of cars.
Our first stop was the visitors center where we learned they are seeing lots of large iceburgs up north near St Anthony, so we will be heading that way.
Our first campground was J T Cheeseman Provincial Park, just about 8 miles from the ferry. It was a lovely wooded park with a nice walk to the Gulf of St Lawrence. We stayed 3 nights and explored the southern road to Rose Blanche lighthouse built of granite in 1873. It was restored in 1999 by the townspeople and a lovely guide filled us in on the lives of the lighthouse keepers.
I’ll end here so I can send this out while I have good Wifi. Hope you are all enjoying your summer.
Hugs to you all,
Lois
Flower pots at hopewell rocks

Fishing boat at Alma, When the tide comes in it will be peir height.

A baby seal on sand beach in Acadia
Anniversary Trip

We left Milton Friday morning 5-27-2009 around 11 for Newfoundland. We are traveling with Kay and Frank, dear friends from high school days, and Bob and Diane, good friends from WBCCI. We were all married 45 years ago within 2 months of each other so this is our gift to each other.
Our house was roofed on Thursday and we should come home to new siding. It should look like a new place.
We met Bob and Diane at a rest stop in NY and stopped at a Walmart in Connecticut for our first day. Saturday we continued up the east coast stopping at Freeport ME to check out LL Bean. The drive up rt 1 is just beautiful, with harbors and stunning real estate all along the way. We stopped in Ellsworth ME at an Elks Club from where we toured Arcadia National Park stopping at beautiful harbors and rocky ledges. Cadillac mountain overlooks Bar Harbor with trails around rocky cliffs and small windblown trees. It is cool and windy here, a beautiful place to visit but I’ll stay where it’s warmer. We sampled the lobsters at two spots along the way. I tasted but stuck with beef! The guys met a Lobster fisherman who offered to take them out with him when we come back to Maine later. They will have to work on the lobster boat, he puts out 800 traps but not until July and August. I hope it works out for them.
Tuesday we headed for the border and crossed into New Brunswick with no problems driving along the Bay of Fundy to Moncton and Stonehedge campground for three days.
We will check out the tides here tomorrow.