A Little of This and That

We stayed up in the L'Anse aux Meadows area of the Great Northern Peninsula of Newfoundland for a few days waiting for the clouds to part at the same time that the ice came in. We had one day of reasonable light but found it hard to get close enough to any icebergs to get the shots we wanted. So instead Ron shot what he found.

Low-tide Reflection - Click for larger

If this is your house in Quirpon, NL we need to talk.

My Fantasy place - Click for larger

I want your house! When we first found this house back in 2007 there was an iceberg stuck in the bay in front of it then too. It's a view I could look at all day long.

But we didn't. Instead we drove over to Ship Cove via Raleigh

Clothesline and poppies - Click for larger

in hopes of finding a better vantage point for the icebergs. The view in Ship Cove of icebergs in the Strait of Belle Isle was actually better than it was at L'Anse aux Meadows but still not quite what we were looking for.

Iceberg - Click for larger

See "Don't Be Shy" for Ron's take on our pursuit of icebergs in Iceberg Alley.

My Mom asked why I was wearing a glove in the picture on his blog "Because it was cold!", I answered.

So after Ship Cove we decided to see if we could find some caribou. We did. Two in fact. Two very ragged looking ones hanging out on the parking lot of the St. Anthony airport. They seemed to not appreciate us looking at them and wandered off.

Caribou - Click for larger

With that we gave up and went back to shooting the iceberg in front of my favourite house at last light.

Iceberg - Click for larger

There was actually nice light on it.

The next day we stopped to shoot icebergs one last time from shore on our way back to Gros Morne National Park. And if you read Ron's blog listed above you'll know that we finally found someone with a boat willing to take us out!

Iceberg - Click for larger

The light wasn't great but we were really close to those icebergs.

Back in Gros Morne National Park we once again faced rain and no light - especially at first or last light - the times of the day when it is usually good for taking pictures. Instead we got some sleep, played some cribbage, and even laid on a pebbly beach during full noon sun. So what if we still had on long pants and sweaters. The middle of the day was the only time of the day it seems when we would really see sunshine in Gros Morne National Park. Oh well. But here is a picture of the mountain that gave the park its name:

Gros Morne - Click for larger

Sanctuary

It's a place you feel safe. That is indeed how I feel when I climb into bed in our van when camping. Safe. I close the sliding side door and kind of sigh, shutting out the noisy nearby campers, the smoky campfires, the rain, the bugs, and the bears...
(see our blog postings from last summer re building a bed in the van: Ron's and mine)
Last year when we camped in grizzly country it was nice to get up close to a grizzly during the day yet not worry about them being around while sleeping.

Grizzly - Click for larger

But sleeping in the van is actually more than sanctuary to me. It is cozy. And warm. Somehow that double air mattress advertised as queen-sized actually feels more spacious and comfortable with the two of us in it than most motels’ double beds that are really physically wider. In a motel we are closed off from the outside world. We can't see a moose walk past;

Moose - Click for larger

tell when the light is good; or, if it is our van's alarm going off. But inside the van its tinted windows offer great 360-degree views of our surroundings. And we see lots of beautiful views in our travels.

Tombstone Viewpoint - Click for larger

Sure sleeping in the van has some drawbacks. I still can't get dressed standing up; I still have to go outside to walk to the dining tent or the bathroom; the windows need to be open a little for ventilation; and so we have to attach screens. If it is raining we either need to close the windows or put up a tarp covering them. Yet still we would rather sleep in our van if there is a nice scene or something else we want to photograph nearby.

Piping Plover - Click for larger

Already on our travels this year we've seen some beautiful scenery. In Gros Morne National Park the Long Range Mountains, The Tablelands, the forests, the bays on the Atlantic and inland freshwater fjords and ponds (lakes to us from ‘away’) all make for stunning vistas.

The Tablelands - Click for larger

We camped quite comfortably for a couple of days at Lomond with views of the mountains across Bonne Bay. The weather was sunny and pleasant on the first day. The second day was cloudy and muggy and not great for photographing scenery. About 9:30 in the evening it started to lightly rain - no problem we had a brand new tarp that we hung over the van that was so big we could stand outside the doors and not get wet. The rain became heavier but still we stayed dry and cozy in our van. As dawn approached a little after 4am the wind picked up and the occasional big gust violently whipped the tarp around on its ropes startling us in and out of sleep. At 6:30 another angry gust tore the grommet right off one corner of the tarp and broke a peg holding down another. That's when we knew it was time to get up and take it down before the wind blew the tarp or our dining tent away. The winds can be fierce in Newfoundland! So we moved on. Unfortunately there isn’t always a campground near where we want to be. Or like today not only is it raining but the temperature has dropped so low that would make hanging out in the dining tent during the day quite miserable. So we found a motel and hunkered down for a couple of days. Our bodies never quite appreciate motel beds though – they always are either too soft or too hard. The air mattress in the van? It’s always just right!

Iceberg Alley - Click for larger

Life's a Beach?

After having practically a heat wave at Thanksgiving the weather has since returned to more seasonal fall temperatures. This means we've broken down and are actually turning on the furnace - even during the day - not just in the evenings when we are being couch potatoes. That was when it hit me that summer really was over. What alarmed me about that though was that I hadn't been swimming even once! This is the first time in my life (and I'm no spring chicken) this has ever happened.

So what did happen? Why didn't I go swimming this year?

We hit the road shortly after summer arrived. Our first main stop was the historic old city of Quebec. It was hot. Really hot. A swim would have felt good after climbing all those hills and steps around the old city. Above right: Staircase at the Rue du Petit-Chaplain)

But where do you swim in this busy city on the edge of the St. Lawrence River? As you can see from this picture (left) I wasn't even bright enough to wear shorts all the time let alone something more appropriate for swimming. But diving off this dock with ferries and other boats nearby would not have been safe. And we were too busy touring the city, sampling the food, and shooting to look for public beaches or even a pool in our hotel. After Quebec City we headed off to New Brunswick's Kouchibouguac National Park. There we would take the boardwalk across the lagoon to Kelly's Beach and the dunes on the Barrier Islands in the Atlantic (below). Ron did go in swimming, but I found the wind too strong and cool for me to swim let alone to expose much skin and risk a sand blasting. From Kouch we moved on to Inverness, Nova Scotia. Yes, that's another beach on the Atlantic and we've even swam there before. But this time both the water and the air were still too cool for even Ron to swim, although we did have to wade across a small cold stream to get this picture below. Further North we would camp in Cape Breton Highlands National Park on a cliff overlooking a rugged beach like this one below: Still, it's not a good spot for a dip. Newfoundland being an island means it is of course surrounded by water. However it is in the North Atlantic, its beaches are mostly rugged, and although the weather is sometimes warm or even hot it is almost always windy. The thought of swimming didn't really cross our minds once we were beyond the lovely sand beach at J.T. Cheeseman Provincial Park. Since photographing the Endangered piping plover is one of our pet projects (we are practically plover stalkers) we spent a day at the park checking the beach for nesting plovers. We didn't find any though, perhaps because we could barely open our eyes against the sand-blasting wind. If we had found some would we really want to take out a camera and big lens and risk giving it a sanding? Probably not. Later, when the wind finally died down enough to get this picture below it was much too chilly to even contemplate swimming. Besides when the light is good we are supposed to be shooting right? So we would photograph many rugged beaches in Newfoundland:

Right: Cape Ray, Newfoundland ->

Above and Below: Green Gardens, Gros Morne National Park, NL

<- class="750495913-17102007" span="">The Arches Provincial Park, Newfoundland Sometimes the problem wasn't just that the landscape was rugged, but that there were icebergs and bergy bits nearby. That would make any swimming more like a polar bear dip.

Below: Icebergs and bergy bits off the shore of Straitsview, near L'Anse aux Meadows, NL

In Labrador there were many potential beautiful swimming spots like these below:

Above & Below: Port Hope Simpson, Labrador, NL

Above: Near Cartwright, Labrador, NL

But they didn't entice us to swim because we were already wearing what Ron calls "Labrador Evening wear". (See image right)

But even if there hadn't been any bugs, to swim in water with icebergs like this one below:

would really require a nice layer of blubber like this minke whale below. On our way home we stopped along the Bay of Fundy to shoot the huge flocks of shorebirds that gather on the Bay's shores on their way south. I must admit taking a mud bath was tempting! But only Ron's sandals really got to test it out.

Once we were back in our home town there were still plenty of warm days when a swim would have been nice. We live near a nice looking long beach along the Scarborough Bluffs (below) and will occasionally even eat a picnic lunch there. But swim? No. Unfortunately out of the 10 Toronto beaches it is one of the two that still regularly close because of high bacterial counts. Perhaps the erosion of the clay bluffs cause silting into the water and is contributing to the problem.

I hear that the weather over the next few days is supposed to be around 20C, or "beach weather" as Ron would call it. So what do you think? Should I find a nice lake somewhere and take the plunge just to break this non-swimming record? I just might - but first let me go find my wet suit.