Maritimes - Day 15

Newfoundland doesn't look exactly like any of the other provinces in Canada.  Super steep large rock hills, kind of like the mountains but without the mountains, but unlike the Rockies, every inch of everything is covered in trees.  It is quite beautiful.

We spent the night on the ferry, which was OK.  Not a great night's sleep, but we all got some sleep.  Upon arrival in Newfoundland, we were one of the first cars off the ship, but it was quite foggy, and we ended up stopping at a nearby Tim Horton's.  Of course we were just the first of many cars stopping at this particular Tim Horton's, but we had time to get out, buy breakfast and sit down for a bit.  Then it was off to the tourist information center, where I picked up a bunch of brochures while we waited for the fog to lift.  However, at the information center I was told that the fog only lasted for about 10 minutes of the drive, so we took off to Cornerbook, our first stop.  The fog did disappear quickly, and for the most part we were alone on a fairly empty highway surrounded by big hills covered in trees.

At Cornerbook, we stopped at a small railway museum (just to annoy my children), which had all the engines and passenger cars from the Newfoundland Railway that ran from St. John's to Port aux Basques on narrow gauge tracks.  Then it was off to the Captain Cook historic site, where we stopped for lunch and checked out the views.  Cornerbook is built on the side of a rock, and the roads can be insanely steep.  Finally we went to a grocery store before heading to Deer Lake, where we are spending the night in a massive (and expensive) Airbnb home.

Before checking in, one of the tourist brochures had told us about a small provincial park near Deer Lake, where in July and August you could watch the salmon jumping up the waterfall, so we headed that way.  The road was fairly rural and ended up as gravel before we finally arrived at the park.  A daily pass was $10, just like home, but the guy running the booth told me to just park by the entrance and walk in, as it was a fairly short walk, so we did that.  The park was absolutely full of frogs - we saw a couple on the road that had been run over and once you got in the forest, there always seemed to be one jumping off the path in front of you.  At the falls, we quickly noticed a salmon trying to jump up the falls, and then a bunch more.  We spent about 20 minutes or so watching, and all the kids were pretty excited about it.  We took a couple of videos so that we could get pictures of the salmon jumping.

Can you find the salmon?

Then it was to the house and supper and relaxing.  Tomorrow is another big travel day, as Newfoundland isn't a small island and we need to get to the other side.