Jasper Nights

Boy, are Jasper nights cold!

The temperature dropped to 2C here last night, and it is supposed to approach 0 or maybe even go below! We had to camp in an overflow site since every site in the park was booked (it is the long weekend, after all!). It wasn't too bad, though. It was softer than most National Park sites. :)

Regardless, we have done plenty of hiking and sightseeing in this area the last couple of days:


Angel Glacier, Jasper.


Waterfall, Maligne Canyon, Jasper.


Athabasca Falls.

Interestingly, the animals up here like to graze right at the side of the road. On the shoulder. Weeds growing from the shoulder. And everybody slows down (naturally) but most people stop to take pictures (guilty). We saw mountain goats, and this herd of elk that graze in the vicinity of Jasper. Really cool. :)

No more photos today. This computer takes way too long.

Till next time.

Edmonton

We arrived in Edmonton Wednesday night and have spent a few days with my brother. We spent a long time in West Edmonton Mall yesterday shopping, sightseeing, etc. We saw the ice rink, the amusement park, casino, bingo hall and wave pool, as well as the sea lion show. There is a lot to do there, and it is easy to get "malled out". :)

Here are a few photos from previous days.


Lunch at Kakabeka Falls

Winnipeg Legislature

Donation to the Trail

West Edmonton Mall

Visiting the Battlefords

After an abbreviated stay in Winnipeg, our tour continued with a visit to Riding Mountain National Park near Dauphin. This was located near the town of Wasagaming, a cute little tourist town on a lake at the entrance to the park. We stayed until this morning, when we decided to head back out on the road to Saskatoon and beyond.

Sunday and Monday were beautiful days. Unfortunately, our luck ended and we went through a large area of rain. We made it to North Battleford, on the other side of the rain, where the temperature is at least 10C lower at a chilly 10C (it was 21C when we came through Yorkton). It will be a cool 6C overnight. We should be in Edmonton tomorrow afternoon.

Note: I have visited Saskatchewan twice, once in 1995 and again this year. Both times while I was in the province, a tornado hit a community within a couple hundred km of my location. Today it was up near Prince Albert. Last time was further south. The odds were better last time, since it took us a while to get across on bikes. This time, we were here barely an hour. :)

Oh, while in Winnipeg, we went to a Trans Canada Trail kiosk. After some searching, we found the name "Denis DesRosiers". I wonder how many other provinces I would find that name. :D

Days 1-2 - Drive, Drive, Drive

It is early Monday morning (well, not THAT early) and we are just getting going after two days of driving. Saturday we left Toronto at around 9am and drove for about 11 hours to get to Otanga Provincial Park about 100km west of Wawa. We were trying for a national park, but that would have been at least another hour and a half, so we settled for a quiet campground on a small lake. Saturday was a weird day. We had sun for a good part of the day, but then after about Nairn Centre to almost Sault Ste Marie, it poured rain. We drove through several thunderstorm cells and saw plenty of lightning, including a really big strike in Spanish. It cleared up after that and we haven't seen too many clouds since.

Yesterday, we found out my friend Jeff's work schedule, so we decided to try for Winnipeg. The time zones helped us out in that regard, giving us an extra hour of daylight to drive. We left our campground at 815am and arrived in Winnipeg at 10pm, which is was a little less than 15 hours given the time change. Our only stop was lunch at Kakabeka Falls PP outside of Thunder Bay. Fortunately, our stay at Otanga gave us free access, so we took advantage.

Not too many photos yet, and the camera is downstairs at the bottom of my bag, so maybe I'll post a pic or two later. :)

But for now, off for breakfast in Winnipeg!

Last batch of pics (for now)

Here is one last batch of photos before we head back on the road towards western Canada.

Birchy Head, Newfoundland.

Birchy Head, with Tablelands in the background.

Foggy view from Signal Hill

Meandering stream. I just had to put one in there. :)

Gambo, NFLD about one week after a major flood.

Walking along Halifax Harbour.

Kouchibouguac National Park, New Brunswick.

Rocky coast of Gaspe.

Indian Head, Gaspe Peninsula.

Like Chuck Norris punched a hole in the earth to form Norris Cove, so did Denis clap his hands together to create Cape Des Rosiers. Or something like that.

Waterfall to nowhere. Actually, it is going directly into the gravel. Groundwater recharge at its fastest!

Waterfall in Forillon National Park.

Town along Gaspe.

Walking around Old Montreal.

That's a brief photo summary of our trip to the east coast. Stay tuned for our next episode, which will be somewhere west of here.

More pics

In line waiting for the ferry to Newfoundland. I think we are fourth from the end of the long line.

Table mountains in Newfoundland.

This photo should be self explanatory.

Broom Point, Gros Morne National Park. At least I think it was Broom Point. There were three other rocky "prongs" sticking out into the water. A geologist's dream.

Just how cool is this Breccia dike? VERY COOL.

Bogs along the beach.

Receding downpour. Believe me, it rained HARD.

Ever seen oceanic crust? Now you have seen a photo of some. This was apparently thrust up onto the continent and left there. It was kind of eerie seeing these orange mountains with nothing growing on them in the middle of the other forested peaks. The reason is that the rocks that these are made of come from down near the top of the mantle and have very high concentrations of iron and manganese (and magnesium? I forget), such that very little can grow on them.

More later!

Some Photos - Overnight Hike in Cape Breton

Since I promised it earlier, I figure I should post a few photos from the last half of the trip, since I wasn't able to post a whole lot at the time. These will be of our overnight hike in Cape Breton Highlands

Fisherman's Cove from the Highway prior to our Overnight Hike


Loaded up and Ready to Hike!


Fisherman's Cove


What we slept on. Note the 2-person hiking tent that was shorter than the advertised 7 feet. This was the only night we used this tent.

Bald eagle sunning across the bay (I'm surprised my camera took this good a photo)

Uphill from our campsite. The structure is where we hung our food. Just to the left and back into the bush a bit is where we saw the glowing eyes later that evening.

Sunset over Fisherman's Cove

I will post more photos later this week.

Respite

We are taking a well deserved break after 31 days of vacationing out east. We spent today wandering around Montreal after visiting a friend from the University of Waterloo.

We spent a night on an organic farm and helped out with chores before dinner. The eight kids that were running around were a handful, but they seemed to like playing a lot, so I got to twirl a whole bunch of them around. My french isn't bad, but it wasn't great either. :)

We then drove to Montreal, which was about 7 hours from the farm, then back to T. Dot for a few days. We will be heading out west sometime next week.

Now that I am home for a few days, I will have time to upload some photos and hopefully tell some stories that I may have missed.

Looks like...

this computer deactivated the ability to download photos after two. Looks like I will have to try again later.

Sorry.

FYI, we are in Campbellton NB and are heading towards Gaspe and Forillion National Park. It rained for a good portion of our drive through NB, but it is partly cloudy today. Or partly sunny. Actually, it is just cloudy.

Time is up! I will post again later.

Photos, maybe, please???

We finally found a public computer that will allow me to download photos. Now I only have to wait another 20 minutes for them.... done! Well, mostly. The camera batteries died after downloading 550 of about 600 photos, so here are a few.

Driving in the Cape Breton Highlands

A waterfall in Cape Breton Highlands NP (I would need to consult my journal to remember how this one is spelled...)

Hmm.... for some reason, the website wont let me post any more photos. This is absurd. And those Cape Breton ones are a couple weeks old. Good grief! Maybe next time!

The Yard Sale Route

Another non-photo PC. :(

We spent the last couple days at Kajikmujic National Park. At least, that is how I think it is spelled. :) We canoed around all day yesterday and got caught in a couple of squalls, but had a nice picnic lunch and a short portage. The deer were rather bold in this park. I came back to the site to see one strolling across our campsite. Another helped itself to our neighbour's food in the middle of the night before being spooked across our site again. Oh well.

Today we drove the north coast of Nova Scotia along the Bay of Fundy along the Glooscap Route. However, it seems that every other house was having a yard sale this weekend. There were literally 30-40 yard sales along this stretch of highway, which made driving interesting, particularly where people decided to park around blind corners.

We will be spending tonight in another National Park that I can't pronounce. :)

Rough seas, sunny weather

In that order.

Our ferry left 6 hours late last night, getting us into North Sydney by 1130. The ferry ride was pretty rough, with waves of about 1-2m and the boat swaying back and forth. Luckily, it was not as bad as the night before, when the waves were over 3m.

We made it to our campsite by midnight and were soon sound asleep. We only travelled 7.8km yesterday.

Today we are driving the south coast of Nova Scotia and heading for Halifax. It is sunny here today, which is to my liking. I haven't seen this much sun in almost two weeks.

No photos again today. I wasn't expecting to find internet here, so just a quick post and on my way.

Weather Delay

We are sitting in the public library in Port-aux-Basques Newfoundland waiting for our ferry. Originally scheduled to leave at 11am, it was pushed back to 1pm and now after 4pm because of high seas. Apparently the waves were over 10 feet high last night on the crossing, as told by a couple who took yesterday's ferry.

Unfortunately, like the last public library in NFLD, this one also doesn't allow downloading of photos to the computer, so once again I am unable to post some of my breathtaking photos until next time.

During our trip to St. John's, we went to Signal Hill and the Johnson Geo-Center, a must see for geology nerds such as myself. We spent several hours there, including a look at the Titanic exhibit, which told a story that was seldom told. Well, since I have not seen that soppy version of the movie with Leonardo, I really can't say that authoritatively.

We drove the south peninsula of Avalon over a couple of days. I would recommend the Irish Loop - very scenic, lots of beautiful towns and long stretches of desolate appearing flatlands with few trees but many little lakes, some caribou and at least one large moose with a big rack of antlers!

I would not recommend the Cape Shore route. I was too busy avoiding potholes in the road to enjoy the scenery.

We drove back west and stopped at Baie Verte to see a 1600 year old soapstone quarry and a miners museum. The trip was well worth it, but again, the highway to Fleur de Lys in the north was rutted and potholed, making the trip rather stressful for my car.

With winds approaching 70km/h last night, we decided it would be best to stay in town rather than try our luck in a nearby campground. We ended up staying at another quaint bed and breakfast a 2-minute drive from the ferry. We got there at 9am and figured that staying would be not too bad for a 1pm departure, but once they said the ferry would actually be arriving at 330 and leaving when boarded, we decided to hoof it into town. It should be an interesting trip, since the seas appear to be a lot rougher than when we crossed a week ago.

I will try to post some photos in Nova Scotia.

A Week of Wet Weather

It has been quite a week, which included no internet or cell phone service (bad uncle Ted!). In our last installment, our intrepid adventurers were in Moncton resting up and getting ready to head even further east. After our first oil change, we headed off in the direction of Cape Breton and the highlands, where we decided to do our first overnight hike. It was a fairly short route (45 minutes in), but it was pretty steep (335m), and we had our hiking packs ready to go! We arrived at an isolated bay called Fisherman's Cove, seeing a moose munching on foliage along the way. After setting up camp in the open by the shore, eating dinner by the beach (stones) and watching the sun set, we went up to the forest to use "the facilities". My light flashed into the forest and reflected back at me. "Oh look. Reflective strips." I said, thinking there was a camping sign. But then I remembered there weren't any signs out here, and Rasheeda said, "Uh, those aren't reflective strips." One of the eyes closed and we decided prudently to walk back to our tent. We suspect it was a moose, since the eyes were about a foot apart, but I was worried enough because it was very close to where we had seen some bear scat earlier in the day, so....

After a restless night, we headed back up the mountain and took an hour and a half to get to the car. We continued along the Highlands, stopping for hikes of various lengths and taking in the sights before heading to North Sydney. This RV site, let me tell you, had amenities! Not only showers (which you had to pay for), but also jacuzzi tubs (which were free). Guess which one we used. :)

The next morning we ferried across to Newfoundland in the fog and headed up to Gros Morne National Park. Along the way about a half hour outside of Corner Brook, we went through this torrential downpour that was beyond belief. I had to slow down and put on my hazards - and this lasted for a good twenty minutes. Not only that, but there are ruts in the highway from the weight of the transports that drive the route, and these were full of water. I hydroplaned a couple of times even at my slow speeds. And of course, there were plenty of folks who really didn't care and kept up at 110km/h.

We spent two days in Gros Morne, again hiking and taking in the sights. It is a beautiful park, but it was shrouded in clouds and mist, and the second day we sat through a thunderstorm at the visitor centre and then a thunderstorm just missed us to the west that night. The landscape along the coast is quite a bit different than what we are used to, with few trees, and a lot of bogs and flat areas making things look a little barren (sorry, no photos this time - this is a Mac and I don't really have the leisure to figure things out - I'll post next time). We saw another moose chewing leaves at the side of the road too.

From Gros Morne, we drove in the drizzle to Terra Nova National Park where we stayed the night and planned to do some more outdoors stuff, but the rain kind of put a damper on that so we headed to St. John's instead. We wandered around downtown for a while, which was busy and fascinating, and (un)fortunately for us, it was the weekend of the George Street Festival, a time of music and merriment. Unfortunately because every hotel and campground was booked for about 50km from St. John's. Luckily, we found this nice Bed and Breakfast in Paradise that we stayed at, and thus I was able to blog (the public library had banned the site - go figure). We are off around St. John's and Avalon for the next couple days before heading back to Nova Scotia on Tuesday.

More later - including photos!