gros morne: land of many rocks

On our way into Gros Morne National Park a couple of nights ago, the rain was letting up but the entire area was covered with fog, so we didn't get a sense of where we were. Our cabin was right on the shore of Bonne Bay, with a big window overlooking the water, and we woke up yesterday morning to a clear blue sky and bright sunlight.

We were eager to get started, so we headed out early, driving a few miles down the road to Tablelands Trail. This area is one of the only places in the world where the iron-rich rocks from the Earth's mantle (just beneath the crust) have been pushed up to the surface, and the result is a crazy orange landscape where very few plants can grow. The short trail leads to a glacial valley, where a stream runs down from the strangely flat mountains above.

Next, we parked farther along the Tablelands at the trailhead to Green Gardens, expecting to breeze through the 4.5 km path that led down to the ocean. Unfortunately there were some hills in the way, and we ended up passing up through black spruce and balsam fir forests, over not-yet-melted snow patches, and down precarious sets of wooden steps before reaching the shore.

We stopped for lunch at "lunch point" (our name), a grassy spot on the edge of a cliff, then climbed down to the beach below. We poked some mussels, spotted a waterfall, took some pictures, and got yelled at by a stray sheep before making our way (a bit more slowly) back up to the car.

We were totally not at all tired from 14 km of hiking, we just went home early to enjoy our cabin and eat some pasta.

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