saturday.

map of the east coast trail; capespear to blackhead portion

yesterday was a wonderful day. it was beautiful and warm all day and we had a great time getting out and about. first off, after lounging around drinking coffee and eating croissant from the french bakery a few blocks away, we drove out to cape spear. from the parking lot there we walked south on the East Coast Trail down to Black Head. (on the map we started in the yellow area and walked down to the bottom point). it's around 4.5-5 km one direction so in a couple hours we wandered a good 8 km, maybe a bit more. we were moving pretty quickly though since we were on a tight schedule. the scenery is all the same basically: lots of boggy areas and long sweeping vistas of ocean. if it were still whale season it would be a great vantage point to watch them.

lighthouse of cape spear seen in the distance.

those brown specs in the grasses are pitcher plants

pitcher plants. the provincial flower of newfoundland, these are carnivorous.

the wind at this point was so strong that i was leaning into it and it was holding me up. it was pretty incredible, and only felt a wee bit like it was going to sweep me into the ocean.

view from along the trail

after our hiking around and around the cape, we wandered over to the annual Folk Fest being held at Bannerman park. there were some great groups from all over. this band was fantastic; i have no idea who they were or where they were from but the music was Greek and middle eastern-y. lots of fun to listen to. we enjoyed a cold beer from the beer tent and ate Indian food from the Hindu Temple Association tent. ah, nothing spells Folk Fest like Chickpea Masala, a cold Molson product and some international music.


I also stopped by all the craft tents and found a woman with a spinning wheel spinning yarn! she had beautiful sweaters for sale as well at the yarn itself. i bought a small skein and have already wound it into a ball. i really need to get a ball winder so that i can make nice cakes and not these lumpy bumpy hand rolled jobs. it does the trick though. i think this should be enough to make a hat. and if i like it, i know where i can get more! i also bought a teeny tiny little bowl from one of the potters - small enough to use as a salt cellar as i have nothing to put salt in and the box just looks wrong on the table.

hand spun 2-ply, 100% wool, 168 yards, grey and white.

all in all it was a great day.