Back on the North Shore

Thursday morning we said a reluctant goodbye to Harbour Breton and headed back north on Route 360. If there had been a bit more water pressure at Deadman’s Cove campground and the dump station had been closer than a mile away in town it would have been the perfect campground. But then it would have been even harder to leave.

We saw plenty of open country on the way north, but again no moose or caribou.

Now we are at another municipal campground, George Huxter Memorial Park in Springdale. We are close to the north shore and not far off TransCanada Highway One. We ended up in their overflow area which is basically a parking lot. They had no record of the reservation I’d made in May when I was assigned site 10. At least there’s good water here and Starlink works.

And of course there is a very nice trail…

on a pretty little river, or big brook. This is Indian Brook, or Indian River, or Indian River Brook, depending on the map you check!

It’s a salmon river…

with a fish ladder (under those grates), but we’ve seen no salmon.

Yesterday it rained all morning. During a break in the afternoon we went to town and looked around.

There were some lovely views…

and some old boats. Bud got a haircut and the barber told him a guy bought this old ferry from the government and then basically abandoned it here. The town and the owner of the dock are trying to get it removed.

This is so Newfoundland I had to take a picture.

And any town that’s more than a hamlet has a Great Canadian Dollar Store.

Today was nice so we got to explore a bit more. First we went to Glass Beach, which was just that. A beach with so much beach glass that it outnumbered the gravel.

I don’t have any explanation for it; there was a poem on the sign to the little trail down about tides and currents, but it seems there should be more to it than that.

We then went to the nearby town of King’s Point where we visited their Whale Pavilion. They have the complete skeleton of a humpback whale. I couldn’t find the sign that said how it had died, but the townspeople all helped to clean the bones and configure the skeleton under the guidance of a famous animal behavior scientist. He had come to Newfoundland to study something other than whales, but ended up spending the rest of his career studying and championing whales.

While there we asked directions to the trail some folks told us about to this falls on Rattling Brook (love the name). We’re headed in the right direction.

Of course there was a beautiful and well made trail.

It first took you to a lower viewing platform.

Then after going up a lot of stairs…

and along a boardwalk carefully fastened to the hillside…

you came to the upper platform where you get a better look at this 850 foot high falls.

Here’s a close-up of where you can first see the water. It’s in two columns above this and they join and pour down here.

And here’s Rattling Brook as it flows under the road…

and out into Halls Bay.

Our last stop was Harry’s Harbour. There were some docks and some houses,

a library,

a beautiful coastline….

and, of course, a hiking trail. It was enticing, but we didn’t think Matey could handle the stones or another walk. It was a fine day anyway.