August 28, 2018

    The group wakeup call came at 7 a.m. so we could be in the meeting room for the Welcome Breakfast at 7:30 to find out the details of the tour for the next 11 days. Our driver for the trip is a Newfoundlander, Pete from Parsons Bus Lines. Today started with an overcast sky and temperature 18°C but not much wind.  The buffet breakfast had a selection of bacon, sausages, scrambled eggs, a fruit plate, toast, cereal, juices, coffee and tea. There was time for a 20 minute walk after breakfast.

   There are 39 people in the group mostly Canadian and American and at least one Australian.

    Everyone was on the bus by 8:45.  The first stop was to view the narrow gauge Engine 593, built in 1921 in Philadelphia, and its passenger, luggage and freight cars, known as the Newfie Bullet. It could reach a speed of 30 miles per hour and was in service until 1969.  Then we drove through Corner Brook and passed some of the buildings which we saw yesterday including the Corner Brook Pulp and Paper factory, on the way to Captain James Cook Historical Site up on a hill. The location has a great view of the Humber Arm, Port of Corner Brook and the town of Corner Brook.  We could see the hill where we hiked yesterday on the Three Bears Trail.

   Captain James Cook was the Sailing Master of the ship Pembrokein the spring of 1759 and while stationed in Halifax met Samuel Holland. Mr. Holland taught Cook how to survey and they surveyed the St. Lawrence River to Quebec City while the British were fighting the French. Quebec City fell to the British in the fall of 1759. Later, after the signing of the Treaty of Paris in 1763, which gave the British all of Newfoundland, Cooke was Sailing Master of another ship, Grenville, which also included duties as the chief surveyor. From 1763 to 1767 from spring to fall, the ship returned to Newfoundland to survey the coast.  His skill at map making was so great, that today the satellite images of the coasts match closely to Cook’s surveys.  He later studied Astronomy to further improve his skills. In 1768 he was sent on a scientific voyage to Tahiti as captain of his own ship, Endeavour,and never returned to Newfoundland. He surveyed the coasts of New Zealand, Australia and Hawaii. 2018 is the beginning of celebrations of Cook’s 250^th anniversary of his voyages to the South Pacific.

    Next, we travelled to the fishing village of Lark’s Harbour, along the Humber Arm. There are many homes where there are piles of wood encompassing five or six cords of wood to help supplement winter heating using a wood burning stove. We could see the Bay of Islands at the entrance between Humber Arm and the Gulf of St. Lawrence. We had views of the three islands - Guernsey, Tweed, and the Pearl, named after British warships. We stopped at the fishing village of Frenchman’s Cove where two fishing boat crews were changing their fishing nets.  The fishing ships were Glenda & Jean, and Gulf Leader. The fishing boat Albert Bruce was also docked. 

  The mountains inland from the coast are called the Long Range Mountains and are the furthest east of the North American Appalachian Mountains.  The mountains at Gros Morne National Park are part of these mountains.  After a photo stop at Lark’s Harbour, where the photos included a preserved house built about 1890, the bus took a side road for a 10 minute drive to Bottle Cove for more scenic vistas before the one hour trip back to Corner Brook for the afternoon on our own.

   We left the group at the final stop, Newfoundland Emporium to shop, and found Chippers Diner, just a short walk along Broadway. Their daily special was a so-so Jambalaya and they had regular diner fare of burgers and milkshakes.  We decided to take the long way back to the Glynmill Inn along one the Corner Brook Stream trails that we had not explored. It was the medium difficulty 4 km Pipeline and Gorge Trail which bordered the forest surrounding the golf course and followed the pipeline from Deer Lake. The root and rock strewn trail was picturesque with views of the Corner Brook Stream, the town and a few meadows. You had to carefully watch your every step. The sunny afternoon temperature rose to 26°C, but we were shaded by the trees.  The trail dipped into valleys which we climbed out of and accumulated a total elevation change of over 200 meters.  We were happy to find a bench with a great view of Corner Brook about 90 minutes into our hike.  We arrived back at the Inn just after 5 having walked 8.67 winding twisting kilometers since lunch in a little over three hours.

   We dropped off our backpacks and hats then walked the 275 meters to the yellow sided Tim Hortons for a cooling Iced Cap. That gave us energy for a 25 minute walk up the hill to the highway to the Jungle Jim Eatery in the Comfort Inn for dinner. They had the same menu of salads, burgers, tacos, chicken, ribs and fish & chips as the Deer Lake location.  When we returned to the Inn we had accumulated during the day 31,139 steps or 18 km.