We woke to the cry of loons on our first morning at Gros Morne National Park in Newfoundland, with morning mist hanging across the hills on the far side of Bonne Bay.
We could not have asked for a prettier campsite than Lomond Campground in Gros Morne.
This is our standard camp set-up, a spacious MEC (Mountain Equipment Co-Op) 6-person cabin tent for the two of us and a Canadian Tire canopy for our kitchen and dining room.
A most comfortable camp arrangement, but with a bit of a hike up the hill to the washroom in the shelter above and behind us.
At various times during our 9-day stay at Gros Morne, we were not alone on “the beach” at Lomond.
The iconic Canadian sound of loons greeted us most mornings and evenings, but we also saw minke whales right from our campsite. Only in Newfoundland!
Lomond Campground in Gros Morne might be the only campsite in Canada from where whales can be sighted.
Beautiful Bonne Bay (Lomond Campground at the south end) was our home for nine days. The photo shows Tablelands at left and Woody Point on the right.
Big hills and big valleys dominate the scenery in Western Newfoundland, forest-covered for the most part, almost always with a pond (lake) or arm (bay) in every vista.
Be sure to visit the Parks Canada Discovery Centre from where the above photo was taken. All sorts of information available there, and the café serves a to-die-for chocolate brownie made locally.
There are so many trails in Gros Morne—from the long and challenging to the short and easy—that one could spend several weeks in the park hiking one per day. We generally did the easy ones, starting with Southeast Brook Falls.
Even the easy hikes in Gros Morne have their rewards!
The splash of colour one encounters during a Gros Morne hike is almost always the flowering plant called iris. It takes its name from the Greek word for a rainbow.
Not all Gros Morne hikes are in forests. The Coastal Trail runs along the Atlantic Ocean, near famed Western Brook Pond.
Our favourite restaurants in Woody Point—Old Loft Restaurant and Merchant Warehouse at left—add colour to the waterfront, and dish up tasty seafood.
Fishing still is a thriving business in Newfoundland. Here, a trawler departs Trout River.
The purse seiner Margaret Elizabeth departs her berth in Woody Point. Often, she never has to leave Bonne Bay to fill her hold with herring.
More posts from our Newfoundland adventure in 2019 will follow. Keep an eye on Down East in the navigation bar at the top.