Brigus Head - East Coast Trail

Our hike around Brigus Head began by the harbour in Brigus South. If you look closely on the right hand side you can see the our car parked down by the wharf. I would highly recommend this hike, it can be done with two cars, one at Brigus South and the other at Admiral's Cove for a 5 or 6 km hike, or, as we did, you can use one car and do the hike as a loop taking an old cart path, now used by four wheelers, to turn the hike into the 8.5 km circuit.

Brigus South

The picture above was taken on our return to Brigus South. It was cloudy with a cool breeze blowing in off of the water when we first set out on our hike around Brigus Head.

Brigus Head

We never did figure out what that object down by the water is, on our return we went for a closer look. It was made of wood and resembled a teepee to some degree; we wondered if maybe it was part of an old boat.

What is it?

The trail turned inland near what ever it is and followed the old cart path a short way before turning to the left. The trail mostly wandered through the forest with several up and down sections along the way but nothing to strenuous.

Despite being mostly in the trees, the trail stayed close to the edge of Brigus Head allowing for many scenic views along the way. Herring Cove, a pocket beach, was the first break from the forest we came across.

Herring Cove

Many other views offered themselves to us as we circumnavigated the head.

Hares Ears

It took us a while to figure out where the name "Hares Ears" came from, can you see it?

Deep Cove

View along trail

After rounding the head we came to Tar Cove where we stopped to have our lunch.

Tracey heading down to the beach at Tar Cove

And everyone pitched in to gather wood for the fire, even the ever helpful Mya.

Mya gathering fire wood

Tracey enjoying the fire

Tar Cove was the perfect spot to stop. There was a nice pebble beach and a fire pit waiting for us complete with handy logs to sit on. The other pleasant surprise was that shortly after arriving at Tar Cove the sun decided to come out from behind the clouds and shine down on us. After our lunch we explored our beach.

Tar Cove

Climbing the rocks

Mya

After out time on the beach we continued our walk around Brigus Head. There were more nice views along the way towards Admiral's Cove which completed our circuit of the Head.

After reaching Admiral's Cove we took the old cart track across to Brigus South. After a short walk we again reached the ocean.

When we made it back to Brigus South we discovered a family of ducks out for a afternoon paddle around the harbour.

Snowshoeing In Terra Nova

Our first excursion took us to the fire tower at the top of Ochre Hill.

The road to the fire tower is closed for the winter, so we hiked the 3 km along the road up to the tower. It was a mild day, but cloudy with flurries on and off throughout the hike. There was a cool wind blowing as well, especially up at the top of the hill.

We parked at the side of the highway and began our trek up the road.

We quickly realized that with the mild weather and all the climbing that we were over dressed. In fact, if you pay attention you might notice a change in clothing from the start to the end of the hike. We were about two thirds of the way in, by the start of the Ochre Hill Pond hiking trail when we took a break for a small snack.

After a brief stop, we set off steadily climbing up to the summit.

We finally reached the summit and were able to look out over the park. Tracey headed up the tower for a better view.

 

The flurries and grey cloudy skies obscured the views in the distance as can be seen in the pictures from the top.

 In the picture above you can see the road we were snowshoeing on to the summit.

 We couldn't stay long at the top as the wind was cold and strong, so we headed back down the road.

On the way out we went at a much faster pace, probably due to the fact that it was mostly down hill. In fact we had to stop and let Mya catch up as she was lagging behind at the end.

 You can see Mya off in the distance. By the time she caught up to us she was looking pretty tired.

You can also see that Mya is walking in the snow shoe tracks so that she doesn't have to walk through the deep snow like in this picture.

 In fairness to Mya though, while we were snow shoeing along the road, she was leaping in and out of the forest.

After our three hour excursion in the snow, we made it back to the car and returned to our cabin for some stuffed mushrooms, barbequed steaks and cheesecake for dessert.

The next day we just went for a short hike from the road to the Terra Nova visitors center before driving back to St. John's.

 At 3 km, this path was only half the length as the one to Ochre Hill, and rather then climbing up to a peak it led us down to the ocean where we stopped to take a few pictures.

 And while we were down by the ocean, we decided to have a little swim. Okay, only one of us actually had a swim, and they were coerced into swimming by someone throwing their frisbee into the ocean.

After retrieving the frisbee Mya had to struggle back up the bank.

Only to have her frisbee thrown out into the water once more.

It was soon time to head back to the car for our drive back to St. John's (with a brief stop in Clarenville for some Mary Brown's Chicken).

Snowshoeing - Freshwater Bay

We enjoyed yesterday's excursion so much we decided to hit the trails again today. So once again we packed our gear into the car and headed to the trail head. Unfortunately we missed it, we stopped at the wrong spot. There was a skidoo trail there which we started down but it didn't go very far. So, after much snowshoeing in circles and head scratching we managed to figure out where we went wrong. This left us with two options: we could head back to the car and drive to the proper spot, or, since we now knew where we were and where we wanted to be, we could just make our own trail across country till we met up with the path to Freshwater Bay. Naturally we went with the second option. There was nice fresh snow to tromp through, and the terrain was fairly open making for pretty easy going. There were a few patches of denser forest which we were able to work our way around. Then we came to the cliff. The sensible thing to do might have been to turn around, but we were having such a wonderful time and the cliff wasn't really that steep we decided to keep on going. So after a fun slide down the slope we were back trekking cross country. It wasn't long before the few patches of dense forest had become the norm and we were forced to do some serious bushwhacking.

You can see Tracey making her way through the forest in the picture above. The terrain here had actually opened up nicely and wasn't as steep as other sections, it made for nice snowshoeing. I wish I had some pictures of the more extreme portions of our adventure but well I kinda had other things on my mind at the time.

After our time spent getting to know the native flora, we finally made our way to the trail with the help of a local moose who had left a trail for us to follow. We unfortunately didn't get to meet the moose and offer out thanks, but that may be for the best as Mya and the moose may not have got along well together.

We finally arrived on the trail to Freshwater Bay, we could see the ocean ahead of us, and many other travelers had been down the trail leaving it well packed down, you didn't really need snowshoes for the rest of the trip to the bay. There were still obstacles ahead of us before reaching the bay. After successfully running the gauntlet of the forest, the trees made one last ditched effort to thwart us from our goal.

But we would not be thwarted, it managed to pass the tree blocking the path and complete our journey to

We took a little break down by the ocean, had our sandwiches and tried to light a little fire. After some valiant efforts we gave up on trying to light a fire, next time we will take matches with us. So after posing for our group shot (which we forgot to do yesterday) we headed back up the trail.

We followed the trail back to the road then took the short walk down the road to the car. We had had enough adventure for one day and I think Mya was getting tired. Thus ended our 3 hour, 6.25km adventure.