Newfoundland6

Knowing we had to backtrack in order to pick up the TransCan, we detoured off of Hwy 430 and took Hwy 432 to Plum Point instead.  It gave us a good view of the interior of the Northern Peninsula, thickly forested with Douglas Fir and White Pine.  Along the way, we spotted several garden plots.  Newfoundland is so rocky that residents search out a narrow space along the road with fertile soil and plant a garden.  We were there in June, a bit like April in Indiana, so gardens were being turned (by hand) and row hills were established for root crops.

Along with the garden plots, there were many log "yards".  Some contained piles of split logs while others were neatly stacked in rows.  We assumed that snowmobiles pulling wooden sleds were used to haul the timber back near the road for cutting.

The long stretch of highway apparently didn't hold Missy Moo's interest, so a little vocabulary lesson might be in order:

Tuckamore - most of the hikes we have taken in search of geocaches have taken us across an area called tuckamore, an area of low-lying bushes and trees,often twisted and stunted by the constant winds.  Tuckamore contains many plants that produce edible berries important to thousands of migratory birds and a staple in every larder such as bakeapple, partridgeberry, wild blueberry, squashberry and crowberry.

Tickle - A tickle is a narrow salt-water strait as an entrance to a harbor, considered treacherous because of its narrrowness and/or the tides.

 

 

 

It was almost a two-day trip back down the Northern Peninsula and then taking the TransCan until we came to Hwy 340 which would take us to Twillingate. Even though we were determined to explore every peninsula, we did bypass Baie Verte Peninsula.  We could, however, add two moose and one coyote to our animal count.

Just before arriving in Twillingate, we spotted a large iceberg in a cove to our right. We turned around and took a road in that direction in hopes of seeing it close by, but the road ended in a cluster of homes and the rocky hills blocked our view.  After crossing a bridge, we turned right again and did find ourselves across from the iceberg, but still not as close as we wanted.  Driving through  Twillingate, we took note of several tour companies offering whale watching and iceberg viewing. The next day we hoped to see that iceberg up close. The fun was just beginning.