A banquet for the eyes
Other than a short detour to purchase some tour tickets, today was spent within the boundaries of the local National Park. With over three hundred new photos added to my hard drive, I’ve decided to not post any this evening.
Why? Because I haven’t figured out how to correlate my static, digitized images with what I’ve seen. We’re in a park that has been chosen as a World Heritage site by UNESCO. A park that has received special coverage from National Geographic. I don’t feel up to the standard. Maybe after I’ve had a few days to reflect…
The Gros Morne park straddles an escarpment and the ocean. Altitudes jump from MSL to 700+ metres. The vegetation is dense, and around every corner there’s something new to admire. Landscape wise. There are few “exhibits” in the usual park sense.
I’ve hiked along a salmon stream until it reached a full-size sandy beach. I’ve gone down a staircase and ended up in the remains of a shipwreck. I’ve bordered a bog where others have left their half-buried walking sticks as a sign of passage.
I even walked (very quickly) three km to catch a boat. That counts as lack of planning, but I did arrive before sailing time, and I did spend better than two hours sailing beside the highest cliffs I’ve ever seen. Grandiose scenery; something straight out of a Middle Earth tale.
And at the end of the day, as we headed off to the motel, we noticed a car pull over ahead of us. Flashes from their windows. And so we pulled in behind them, and became aware of three moose just across the road from us. We’d been warned, but Momma and the two calves were completely at ease with our astonishment. Oblivious.
Which leaves me to conclude that if they no longer care, they’ve won.
