The Southwest coast

On Wednesday, we drove to J.T. Cheeseman Provincial Park. It was about a 4 hour driving-time trip (took us about 7 hours) with a stop at Walmart in Corner Brook along the way.

After we got Miss Doozie settled in at the park (50A electric, the dump station is just a little ways down the road we will use to exit, no water hookup and the fresh water taps indicate that there is a boil warning on the drinking water), we drove the Jeep down to the beach that is part of this park. It isn’t really a swimming beach, though it has nice sand – there are warnings that the currents are dangerous. It is also home to the Piping Plover, so you are not supposed to walk on the beach except near the water to avoid disturbing the birds.

It was nearly sunset, so we enjoyed the sunset and the Cape Ray lighthouse.

Beautiful colors to the sunset

Dwayne is ready with his electronic bus swatter if any mosquitos or midges attack.

Got one picture with the light on in the light house.

This morning, we drove into Port aux Basques to visit the Visitor’s Center and see what we should see in this area. We also wanted to make sure we knew the route to the Marine Atlantic ferry terminal for our trip on Saturday morning.

The lady in the Visitor’s Center recommended a drive along the southern coastline to the “end of the road” at Rose Blanche.

What a lovely drive… we remarked that we’ve gotten so used to bodies of water around every turn that they don’t inspire us to words of admiration any more, but they are still beautiful.

Rose Blanche (and we think its sister towns of Harbour Le Cou and Diamond Cove) was having its “Welcome home” year in 2016. I think I wrote about this when we visited Dennie and Jim in New Hampshire – it seems that a lot of towns have a designated time each year, or once every several years, when they encourage former residents or children of residents to return to the town where they grew up. We’ve seen flags across the streets of several towns across Newfoundland signifying that they are welcoming folks back home this year.

At the end of one street in town, looking across a bay at another part of the town.

Flags up welcoming folks home.

More flags - they aren't very high off the street - glad we're not driving Miss Doozie (also because the streets are VERY narrow and VERY steep up and down!).

Another view of Rose Blanche

Looking out towards the open sea - houses all along the harbor area.

We drove to where the lighthouse area was and could look back on the town that we had just come from.

The area right there in the middle is where we had seen all the flags welcoming family home.

Dwayne is getting some good pictures too!

As we started back towards Port aux Basques, we stopped off to take a walk to see Barachois Falls. Along the walkway, we saw many examples of the Pitcher Plant in bloom – this is the plant that Newfoundland & Labrador have on their license plates.

Pitcher plant - the leaves gather water and attract bugs that the plant eventually uses for food!

Pitcher plant

Barachois Falls - about 1/2 mile walk to get to near the base of it.

The water in the falls was brownish, indicating source from peat bogs, we think.