The never ending saga of Newfoundland

We were in Twillingate and we decided to check the weather and if it was nice, stay one more night at Dildo Run Provincial park, and if not push on.  The forecast was calling for thunder showers later in the day so we did a couple of shorter hikes.  We did get rained on, with thunder and lightning on our last hike. Clearly, it was time to push on to Grand Falls - Windsor and take a B&B.  We are tired of camping in the rain. On a sad note we found out that a friend, Vic Alaric passed away.  He was a great man, father and had a wonderful faith.  He will be missed by many, but we know he is resting in God's arms now.  At this point we had decided that we wanted to go to Labrador, so we headed north, through Gros Morne.  We spent one night there and did a couple of hikes, one to a beautiful waterfall, and then moved on.  We went to the northern tip of Newfoundland, to a place called St Anthony's.  There we visited a Viking village that was used over 1,000 years ago.  It was quite interesting and well done.  Then we did a couple of smaller hikes.  In one we climbed 476 stairs to a look out.  From there we saw our third iceberg.  It was the biggest one yet.  So when we got down we went to a boat tour company to ask if we would see the iceberg if we took their tour. The answer, sadly, was no. It was too far away. We got up the next morning to pouring rain and high winds and headed to the ferry terminal for Labrador.  Along the way we stopped at Flower's cove and hiked 1/2 km to see some Thrombolites, which are living organisms created 65 billion to 350 million years ago.  They can only be seen in Flowers Cove Newfoundland and Western Australia. So even though we got soaking wet, even with rain gear, it was worth it.  We got to our campground, by the terminal and I just abut cried.  It was a field, surrounded by a chain link fence and the units were lined up , like a sales lot for trailers.  The only thing going for it was that it had a rec building and the bathrooms were very clean.  So we spent the rest of the day in the rec hall, reading, working the Internet and watching a bit of TV.  The next morning our ferry was scheduled to depart at 10:30.  We arrived by 9:00 and were at the front of the line( surprise, surprise),  We were watching the flags and the waves and I said to Gerry I'm not sure I want to sail in that.  The wind was so strong there were whitecaps on the water and the seagulls trying to fly into the wind were either standing still or flying backwards.  That was kind of funny to watch.  Sure enough when it came time to sail, they announced that the sailing time would be delayed, and in 2 hours, they would make a decision.  This continued all day until they decided to cancel the sailing at 7:30 pm. So we spent another day in the van.  Made lunch and supper in there. We played a lot of crib, but that wasn't much fun because Gerry had a lucky streak on and kept beating me, and laughing about it to boot! While I got a refund for the ferry, Gerry went back to Stalag 13, as I called the campground, and paid for another night..  We could have tried for Labrador the next day, but it was still quite windy and it was such a gong show, with all the people trying to cross, we decided to pass on Labrador and return to Gros Morne.
Gros Morne is the most beautiful part of the western coast.  We spent a week there hiking and sightseeing. One  hike of note is Gros Morne Mountain.  It is 16 km hike and you climb 800 metres.  It was supposed to be nice that day, but less than 1/2 hour into the hike it started to rain.  We pushed on though and the rain came and went all day, as well as the fog.  It was a tough hike, took us 7 hours and I won't lie to you, there were a  few tears on the way down.  (By me, not Gerry) But as I always tell my kids -what doesn't kill you makes you stronger.  They never believe me and when I was hiking I thought it was a load of crap as well. But  now,  I'm glad I did it. Another interesting, easy hike was  the Tablelands hike.  We had a GPS, supplied by the park, and it gave us information while we hiked. The Tablelands formed when the continental plates overlapped because of extreme pressure, millions of years ago. When the plates that were overlapped, fell back into place it left a mantle that originated in Africa. That's why the rock is so different than the surrounding rock. Our last hike in Gros Morne was to an area called the Green Gardens.  It was a 13 km hike and followed the coastline for part of the time.  We were hiking to the second camp, but we were walking along the side of a steep mountain with a narrow path.  I became increasingly uncomfortable, so I turned around and Gerry went to the next point.  While I was waiting for Gerry at the first camp the clouds became increasingly dark and it started thundering and lightning .  Sure enough we got rained on really hard on the way back.  But there was nothing to do but keep on hiking.  Me, in my raincoat, and Gerry in his garbage bag.  (Editor's note: Gerry has since allowed me to buy him a $29 rain jacket. He was advocating buying 20 extra large hefty garbage bags for $10). We did several other hikes, in between the rain, trying to make the best of it, but everything in the camper feels wet, and we have mold growing on the bottom of our
ttablecloth.  We are almost finished with Newfoundland, so stay tuned.