"White" water rafting in Newfoundland

 

Grant "white" water rafting

For my last long week-end in Newfoundland, the May "2-4" week-end, I decided to join some of my friends on a kayaking retreat to learn more about the marvels of sea kayaking. Little did I know what the weather had in store for us that May week-end.

 

The boys in the trunk with their Go-Pro extreme sport cameras on their helmets filming the action.

 

 

Day 1 of the retreat week-end... a normal long week-end at Terra Nova Park

 

Day 2 of the week-end: it looked like we went back in time by a good 4-5 months after getting dumped with 15 cm of snow!

 

Even the snowman was psyched for kayaking

 

 

Though we couldn't go out on water the second day, we still had some interesting workshops on learning how to build and customize your own kayak and paddles.

 

Chris giving a presentation on building a Greenland style paddle. These paddles supposedly work as well as a recreational paddle, but are even better, because they put less strain on the back and shoulders.

 

Beautiful handmade kayaks! People are so talented!

I'm a city girl, so I really just know how to buy things.

 

Photos from day one out on water

 

Taking a snack break

 

Me outfitted by my wonderful caring kayaking community from Newfoundland central. I remind myself slightly of an astronaut- super protected in gear- dry top, wetsuit, neoprene booties and kayak spray skirt.

 

Freezing rain day

So school is canceled again today, this time for freezing rain. I look out the window, but it doesn't look all too bad. It seemed to me that they are really sensitive to weather here. It turns out, there are more reasons than the freezing rain for closing the school. The schools in Springdale are feeder schools for five other communities up to 30 km away and where the nearest village is still 20 km away. With freezing rain, it is too dangerous for the buses to run, so without the buses, there wouldn't be any students in school, aside from a dozen who live close enough to walk.

View from my bedroom window. 

Looking over Hall's Bay in front of our house.

Hall's Bay

Biking in Newfoundland: King's Point, Rattling Brook

Westbound at the side of the Trans Canada Highway
 outside of the visitor centre at the Springdale junction. 

Saturday was sunny, and a had high of 22 degrees Celsius (the annual maximum high here), so I decided to do some exploring on bike. I didn't really have a plan and had just made note of some of the surrounding towns that I could visit. My first stop was the Springdale visitor centre next to the Trans Canada Highway to pick up a town map, and to try out this much talked about Newfoundland meal, the jigg's dinner.

On my way out of town, I had crossed Kelly, my colleague and some of her friends coming back in town on bikes. They saw me heading out of town a little just before noon. In a way I like the small town community, because if I don't make it back after a solo ride, there is always someone who will notice. Friends back home have already urged that I purchase another cell phone; except the reality is that in between areas of civilization, one is lucky to find reception. The surrounding towns being smaller than Springdale are not serviced by any mobile phone company.  

A RV park at the centre of King's Point next to their hiking trail.
This park is large enough to service about two dozen trailers  

After the jigg's dinner, and chatting with various locals all intrigued by my presence, I decide I would only try out a short bike ride that afternoon. The nearest town is King's Point, and according to the road sign it is only 12 km away.  (Follow me on a map.) Having done some long distances before, not to mention a 30km ride on my first day biking with the women's group, I decide 12 km was doable. Little did I know that the 30 km the ladies took me on towards Little Bay was not representative of the terrain in the region, because the route towards King's Point, had two large hills! The ladies had laughed when they heard about my mistaken assumption. 

I saw a sign saying Township of King's Point,
and followed this gravel path,  only it lead me to a quarry. 

From King's Point, the tourist map had said I only needed to go another 5km before reaching Rattling Brook and the Falls, so naturally I had to go visit this place.  

At the foot of Rattling Brook Falls.

The 800 feet trail leading up to the look out for Rattling Brook Falls is as much of an attraction as the falls. 

The forest floor had such rich texture. In a way it was enchanted,
because the thick layers of moss looked so  inviting.

At the top of the trail with a view of Green Bay.

Near the very end of the town of Rattling Brook is a general store called Joshua Toms and Sons owned by a sweet old lady named Dulcie Toms who has been running the store for 50 years. (I was going to call it a corner store, because that is what we have in the cities, but in small towns, these are more appropriately called general stores, because they supply the locals with most of the necessity.) This old fashion general store full of assorted knick-knack attracted the camera crew of "Land and Sea", a CBC documentary on Newfoundland people, culture and life. http://www.cbc.ca/landandseanl/2012/07/dulcies-in-the-store.html 

Dulcie and I at the counter.
Note the display in the background.

So even though I regret not having had any time to get out of the city this summer (to get in touch with nature), this move to Newfoundland is making up for all of it. Joy's place where I am boarding at feels like being at a cottage, and just minutes out of town, I am out with the trees and birds (and moose and bear for that matter, but I have not encountered those yet!). Here are some photos from my bike ride that day.

I was never the type to take photos, because with my inherited 3.0 megapixel camera, there was always someone with a better camera than I at what ever social gathering, and always  someone with more patience to upload the photos afterwards, so I never developed the habit for taking photos. However, since I was riding solo this day, I had brought along my camera, and the beeping of my camera signaling the completion of a shot was oddly comforting, to a point I think I might now even consider it a friend. 

While stretching my feet, I serendipitous noticed
this cute little motivating phrase on the tongue of my biking shoe.
"Always lead, never follow."

   

"Snow"/ storm days

Four days into to the beginning of the school term and we already have a "snow" day, in this case a storm day in anticipation for the Leslie, the tropical storm expected to arrive 9 am this morning with gust of winds expected to reach 110km/h. Since there is no school this morning until further notice, I am seizing the opportunity to update my blog in case we are impacted and experience a power outage from the storm.

Tammy-Lynn, one of the former monitrice working in Newfoundland said that last year, her school was closed for 13 "snow" days. That is like one day of closure per month, except all crammed into second term, since there is not usually snow until after Christmas. In my entire academic career, I only remember experiencing two snow days, once in grade 6 where the mayor of Toronto mobilized the army to help clear our streets (we have a good laugh now at having been such drama queens), and another time when I was in undergrad, but that was only a cancellation of evening lectures.

More update on Leslie later...

5pm:
The storm has passed, and all is still outside. It turned out Springdale was spared, and we did not end up experiencing much damage other than a few hours of heavy rain and wind. Other places in Atlantic Canada and the Maritime were less lucky. The evening news broadcast a tally of the various damages from landslide from the heavy flow of water, washed away roadway, flooding, damage from the wind. Two towns, Badger and Triton, just around 75km away from us were really impacted by the storm. These things are hard to predict.