St. Anthony's - Iceberg alley

We left Terra Nova Park on Tuesday and headed to Gros Morne.  A few hills to climb to get up to our campsite as the Range Mountains are on this side of the island; set up camp and planned next day visit north.

We travelled north to St Anthony; the coastline drive was beautiful as it follows all along the St. Lawrence and up.  Most of the drive was through the Park.  Once we arrive in St Anthony, it was 7C or 45F!   First thing we did was arrange for our iceberg tour.  The seas were a little rocky that day, so we did not see any whales but wow, did we see icebergs.  They took us up as close as they could to look at them as the largest part of iceberg is below the surface; the colours were amazing.

 

  They were white and had blue veins up the middle which was the pure ice. There are companies that have a license to gather iceberg ice for bottled water as well as a local bear down here called Iceberg Bear made by Quidi Vidi Breweries outside of St. John’s. They have different names for the icebergs, the smallest ones are called “bergy bits” which are the size of a small house, “growlers” are the size of a grand piano.  We saw several of all kinds. 

 

There was a chunk of ice that had broken off and the tour guide “caught” it with a net and broke it up for anyone to taste.  It was of course ice cold and no taste; we all thought it would be salty but it does not come from ocean water.

 

No Rum!!!

 

It was very cold and rather rough on the water but well worth it.  This is not something you get to see unless you get here or to Alaska and a sight not to miss.  This is one of the main reasons we came at this time of the year.  The icebergs can be moving up until August but getting smaller as they melt.

There is a website called icebergfinder.com that you can access to see where they are at any given time; the visitor centres check this all the time, but most of them also have “ambassadors” that report the information so that it is current as  on the day you are travelling.

After this tour we went for a drive up the coast and got another look from one of the bay’s that was amazing.  We had dinner at Lightkeepers restaurant which had been an actual lightkeepers home at one time and converted into a restaurant, nice view and good food.

We stayed in a very nice Bread and Breakfast (Crow’s Nest Inn) with our bedroom window overlooking the harbour and I saw a beautiful sunrise in the morning, the bay was flat, not a ripple, and the colourful houses and fishing boats.