Terra Nova was designated as a National Park in 1957
designed to preserve the natural environment.
It is essentially a coastal forest environment with opportunities for
hiking, water activities and camping. It
has faced a number of challenges including the lack of forest fires in the last
twenty years resulting mostly older grow forest. The other big challenge has come from the introduction
of moose decades ago. These animals have
no natural predators and have flourished.
The unintended result has been the destruction of new grow forest by the
moose eating the new growth forest . The
visitor center highlights the results from an experiment closing off an area to
moose with fences. The result proved
that the area protected was developing a healthy new growth forest while all
the area around was damaged by the moose eating the new growth trees.
We did see our first moose on this trip to Canada
leaving the visitor center, but there was no picture as it was nearly on top of
us along the road and was behind us as soon as we saw it. If moose can look scared, this one did.
We dry camped in the park for two days and it is
safe to say that the campground was tight and not made for the bigger rigs in
our group. I will only say that one of
our group will certainly not forget getting their rig up close and personal
with a tree trying to get into a spot.
With many of us helping, the rig was extracted with relatively minor
damage. Larger rigs need to choose their
spot very carefully here.
We had one free day here, but the weather was less
than perfect and we did not feel like hitting the trails. Instead we opted to
see the local villages. After looking at the map several coastal towns
intrigued us simply because of their names.
The first was called Happy Adventure and the second Salvage. Very close to each other, they were sort of
the Yin and Yang of town names. First we
went to Happy Adventure and found a very nice waterfront park while looking for
a restaurant for lunch.
Since we had
not been able to find the restaurant, Ruth, who we were riding with, ran into
the street and flagged town a local pickup and asked for directions to the
restaurant we had selected. He said follow him and we went up and down hills
and ended up at a restaurant that was not what we were looking for but proved
to have great food and beer and a fantastic waterfront view.
We then headed to Salvage, which proved to be a
scenic and active fishing village. We did not see a single tourist shop.
4 comments:
That's like the National Park campground we were in last week - really small spaces - low hanging branches. Terrible for even medium sized rigs. But I love the no tourist shops.
Thanks for the heads up about the problems 35' Winnona might have in Terra Nova which was on our list of places to go this year. IF we ever get up there that is. Whenever we start interfering by introducing it never seems to go well. Mother nature really does know what she's doing. If she didn't put moose there, we now know why. Hope they figure out what to do. Have a moose hunt sounds like a good thing. Seems the moose need a predator. LOL at the town names and your luck in finding the restaurant you weren't looking for. Sure wouldn't want to be that house between the two bodies of water in a storm. Your pictures are fantastic. Loved seeing them. Such a beautiful area.
Wow, I learned quite a bit from this post, and I love your photos. :)
Aren't you glad we're still not buying film and having it developed? At least in this digital age, we can view those photos while still on the trip and not wait until we get back to see how they turned out.
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