Sonya's Blog - Day 94 - Our Last Day in Newfoundland

Sonya’s Blog - Day 94 - September 24th - Our last day in Newfoundland

Today is our last day in Newfoundland, we have to be in Port aux Basque by tonight to catch our ferry back to Sydney. The ferry doesn’t leave until 11:45 PM, but we will need to be there much earlier than that. I would like to be there before it gets dark, just to be safe. It is going to be about 4 hour drive, but we want to hike the Tablelands today as well. The Tablelands is one of the main reasons that Gros Morne was made a National Park. It is about a 10 minute water taxi ride from Norris Point, but a much longer drive as we have to travel up one side of Bonne Bay and then travel up the other side (a huge V to get around the water). We thought about taking the water taxi, but it is pedestrian only and we needed our truck to get to Port aux Basques. We packed up and checked out of our cabin. Of course nobody was in the office when we left, but we found a mail slot and stuck the key in there. Hopefully everything will be okay.

We had traveled a bit when there was a wonderful lookout over Bonne Bay with Norris Point in the distance, plus they had some red chairs. Check out our pics! They had some interesting information there about Bonne Bay and it’s unique make-up, it is one of the most diverse marine ecosystems in Eastern Canada. Due to how the fjords were created by glaciers there is not compete mixing of the water with the Gulf of St. Lawrence. It causes the water to stay in layers, with the depths being really cold (Arctic temperatures), then the next layer is salt water, which is a mixed arctic and temperate zone, then the temperate zone and then at the very top a freshwater zone. Due to these layers they have different species living at different levels, which is what makes it so unique.

Off to the Tablelands and the Discovery Centre. We first went to visit the Discovery Centre which had a lot of information on Gros Morne park and it’s geological features. It also featured a display of 10 UNESCO World Heritage Sites in Canada, and we have been to many of them since 5 are in Alberta and we have been to 4 (Waterton, Dinosaur Provincial Park, Head Smashed in Buffalo Jump, Canadian Rocky Mountain Parks). We have also visited the Historic District of Old Quebec and the Rideau Canal. We are planning on visiting 2 more when we get back to Nova Scotia (Louisbourg and Lunenburg), so that is pretty good. Gros Morne is also a World Heritage Site. The Discovery Centre was great and the kids read a lot and hopefully learned something new.

We headed off to the trail which was 2.4 KM one way, but it looked like it was straight up. We only have time to do this one trail, which is a look-out point to the Tablelands. To hike the Tablelands we needed a full day and we simply did not have it, so to the lookout. It is supposed to be very cool, but they are way up there, hence the long hikes. The Tablelands are thought to be the result of the plates colliding hundreds of millions of years ago. That enormous collision caused the Earth’s mantle to be pushed up to the surface of the and today that area is The Tablelands. The ultramafic rock that makes up the Tablelands is called Peridotite and it lacks the nutrients required to sustain life. It is also very high in iron which is why it looks red. It’s all cool, so we headed up to have a good look see. The hike was quite muddy during the first part and quite steep in areas. We then came upon boardwalks as it was a marshy meadow area. At this point we could see the red chairs at the top of the mountain that provided the lookout. At the end of the boardwalk the hike became very steep, but they had stairs built into the side of the mountain, which made it much easier. Natasha was having a rest on the boardwalk so Isaac and I raced to the top. I went all out, because I thought we would be at the chairs at the top of the stairs! Nope!

There was some more steep climbing after that, which was hard going. Isaac beat me to the top and sat in the chairs first, he was pretty proudy pants of himself. Isaac and I sat in the chairs and had a good view of the Tablelands. A little while later Blake showed up, Natasha wanted nothing to do with climbing up those stairs. We got some great pictures and had a good look around and then headed back down. We picked up Natasha and were down the mountain quite quickly. We hopped in the truck and headed to the town of Woody Point (which is about 2 minutes away) to have some lunch. We found a little cafe, grabbed some lunch and got back on the road. If everything went well we were going to be in Port aux Basques by supper time, which would be perfect.

The drive was pretty uneventful and we made it to Port aux Basque for supper time as planned. We stopped at the Visitor’s Centre to ask where a good family restaurant was and we headed of to Alma’s (the picture below is our last one in Newfoundland from the Visitor's Centre, with Port aux Basque in the background). The food was okay, but the most interesting part was when a guy came up and talked to us. He had just finished his meal and he came over to say hi on his way out. He was from Newfoundland, his name was Bob Allen, and had worked for Marine Atlantic for 45 years and lived in the town. He asked where we were from and we had a lovely little chat with him and he told us stories of his days in Marine Atlantic. His wife called to him and said it was time to go so we said our goodbye’s and then our food came.

After supper we headed over to the ferry terminal to get checked in. We thought about getting drinks from Tim Horton’s, but the line up was crazy and it had a tiny, little parking lot that our huge truck would have a hard time fitting into with all the other people. We got all checked in and went into the ferry terminal to wait for boarding. I thought I would get some blogs uploaded because Sydney had really good wifi, but Port aux Basque did not, so no uploading and catching up for us. The ferry was not until 11:45 and we were worried that they wouldn’t load us until an hour before, however at 9 PM they called us all to our cars and started loading shortly after that. This worked out really well for us because it allowed us to get to bed before it was too late. We were in our room by 9:45 and getting ready for bed. I was hoping I would be asleep before the boat disembarked and would sleep all the way through. Wishful thinking I know!

Sonya