Gros Morne

On Thursday we left Stephenville and started working our way up towards Deer Lake.  I thought for sure there would be a gas station somewhere along the way, so didn’t worry too much.  I was wrong about there being a gas station.  We did make it to Deer Lake, well into the reserve according to the gauge.  I put 54 litres in a 60 litre tank.  Not a great idea to run that low on fuel.  Oh well.  The van gets absolute crap mileage, but it still holds us around 90-95 kph on the highway.  Found a nice spot on the shore of Deer Lake for lunch at Joe Butts Lookout (no, I’m not making this up).  There was a café on the beach with nice deck and they had no problem with us having our own lunch there.  It was high school graduation day and while we were sitting there enjoying the view and the sun, a very well dressed young couple showed up for pictures.  They both worked at the café and the owners told us they’d known each other since kindergarten and were both local hockey stars.  The young lady had spent her last year of high school in New Brunswick at a “hockey school”.

Made our way up to Gros Morne, stopped at the visitor centre to get some ideas for hikes etc., then off to our campsite at Green Point.  The site we reserved was our second choice, but after seeing where our first choice was, we’re much happier here.  Still on the ocean, but with some privacy.  There are a couple of chairs that they set up for each site and a cleared view out over the ocean facing directly west.  Great sunset pictures and we can listen to the waves rolling in, actually, just like home.

Our first full day in the park we was fantastic.  We pre-booked a boat tour on Western Brook Pond, about 15 minutes up the road from Green Point.  Western Brook Pond was once a fiord but but cut off from the ocean about 9000 years ago.  So while it looks like a fiord because it’s now all fresh water, it’s a pond.  It’s a bloody big pond, 12 km long, 3 km at its widest point at the entrance and around 200 meters deep.  Soaring cliffs with the tallest being over 700 meters, about 150 meters taller than the CN Tower in Toronto (one of the taller set structures on the world).  We had a perfect day, sunshine and no wind (rare in the pond!).  Our tour guides were fantastic, lots of information about the geology and the history.  We were there for best time to see the abundance of waterfalls, with the tallest water in Canada.  Absolutely stunning.  To get to the boat tour, you have a 3 km walk through a bog.  Great trail, wide and gently rolling.  You can pay to get a seat on one of the golf carts that ferry people back and forth, but the walk was much nicer!

Our last stop off the day (after lunch in Sally’s Cove), was a short visit to the wreck of the SS Ethie in 1919. There are still remanents on the beach of the ship that couldn’t survive the gales and sea state on the day of the wreck. Everyone made it safely off the ship including a baby that was taken off in a mailbag!