A Father's Day hike

We decided to stay around the provincial park on Sunday, Father's Day -- it looked a little brighter than previous days had been, but the clouds were still pretty low and since the temperature was at the dew point, we figured it would still not be a good view at Long Point.

We had seen a sign for a trail when we walked around the campground on Saturday, so we walked over to the bathhouse area and decided to take a hike...

The sign indicated 2km (about a mile and a half, I figured) to a viewpoint

So we decided to go!

The trail was muddy in spots...

... and there were boardwalks across other damp places.

Carl stopped to watch and listen to a brook merrily singing on its way...

I asked him whether he was enjoying the sound or contemplating how much energy could be generated with the water flow... he laughed because I had figured out the exact things going through his mind while standing there!

Hmmm... why haven't they cut this tree off the boardwalk?

As we came near the end, we found steps heading up -- shades of memory from Tracey Trail in Labrador a few days ago!

The moss on the ground along the sides of the trail  reminded us of the old variegated gold shag carpeting of many decades ago -- we surmised that when that carpeting had been removed from homes, it was brought here and laid down and still has not disintegrated!

The view from the top was worth the walk! So peaceful and quiet though sometimes the lonely cry of a loon broke the quiet. So many small islands within our view. We were thinking that in the wintertime, some of these islands would be accessible by walking over the ice from the other land areas around -- and even the other peninsulas, which were a long drive away by land, could be a short journey in the winter.

The path was crisscrossed by lots of tree roots -- we have read that the soil is not very deep here on "the rock" as Newfoundland is sometimes called -- this tree's roots were around a few rather sizeable rocks and were not at all deep into soil. This uprooted tree shows one prominent large rock near the top of the root mound, but others are in there too.

When we got back to Gracie, Carl shut his eyes for a few minutes, and Miss Kitty set about to steal some of his body warmth! He says that she is so light that he doesn't even notice her getting on top of him while he naps.

Carl got to talk with all of his children on Sunday -- it was such a nice day!