Adventures in the wilds of Newfoundland

I was inspired by the blog posts of the summer adventures of my friends this morning (Lindi in Alberta, Katelin in Oklahoma and Ashley in Ontario) so I decided to write a blog post to tell you of our own little adventures this weekend!

On Friday night we packed up our small car (Bronwen in her car seat plus the 2 of us and our hiking packs= FULL!) and drove about an hour 'up da shore' aka down the Southern Shore Highway. For those of you interested in geography around here, it basically runs along the east coast of the Avalon Peninsula- parallel to the East Coast Trail. That trail is one of the best parts of living in Newfoundland. It is basically one long coastal hike of awesome scenery... connected by a string of quaint little towns/villages/communities.

I had planned our our trip, consulting the maps and determining that 'Timber Cove Beach' near Brigus South was where we would spend the night. It looked promising... open meadow, oceanside, and not too long a hike from the car. When we are carrying everything in including Bronwen, we haven't been as ambitious.. especially since it was already 7 30 pm when we got there.

Turns out Timber Cove Beach was really swampy.. not really camping material. We went further up the trail, as it said on the map that there was a 'Herring Cove Beach' with an undeveloped access trail. This sounded like the perfect beach for us. 

I guess we should have remembered that 'undeveloped access trail' usually means 'you will never be able to find this trail, and no one else has been able to either'. But, we did find the beach- because we were looking down on it! From the top of a creek that flowed (or, trickled) very steeply down some sharp rocks to the beach. With a slippery gravel slope on the one side and boggy overgrown grass on the other. 

Well, when is is getting dark and there doesn't seem to be anywhere else to camp, what does one do but climb down and make the best of it? It was pretty steep, and probably not the greatest idea to do with a baby on my back. But, we made it.. Brian went ahead and found the best path :). 

do i look scared? because I was...

the beautiful sunset... can't see anyone; feels like we are alone in the world :)

high cliffs on 3 sides, ocean on the other

my woodsman made an awesome fire

wine for treat

Dad, your hair is so interesting...

a beautiful morning

almost made it up and out!

As you can see by the pictures, we had a lovely evening with malt vinegar and sea salt kettle chips, smokies and sourkraut, s'mores and wine. And a baby who slept pretty well in her tent. I was half awake for a lot of the night worrying about waking up to water in the tent (the waves were getting louder and closer, it seemed) but Brian assured me that we were well above the high tide mark and he was right. (of course, if a sudden storm had come, it might have been a different story- but chances were low). In the morning we had peaches and oatmeal and coffee, and did a bit more of a hike before heading home. It was a great time, and I'm glad that we can still do these things with a baby! Bronwen is a very tolerant little soul, and seems to take all this adventuring in stride... I'm hoping this is fostering a love of the outdoors in her. Either way, it's really fun to do these things as a family!