NL 2014 Adventure: Day 9 – July 12th – Catamaran Campground near Badger, NL

Day 9 – July 12^th – Catamaran Campground near Badger, NL

Not the stairway to heaven but it sure seemed like it!

Today we drove to Kings Point to do the Alexander Murray Trail Hike, which is about an hour north west of where we were camped.

We arrived at the trail head at about 8:45, before anything opened up. They had very good intructions and a sign in/out booth. Our first lesson was not to believe the mileage charts. It was NOT 8 kms, it was just over 10!! Now 2 kms does not seem like much, but at the end of the day after climbing and descending over 2,200 stairs plus the pathways etc. it can seem like a long distance.

Our Quest!!

Outhouse, Seatbelt Required!

The old stairs.

The hike was excellent, I must admit I was getting pretty tired by the time we got back to the truck. We saw what looked to be moose tracks and deer dung, but no live animals which is OK. The view from the top was awesome, in the distance we could see some of the many icebergs in the area. We saw two outhouses along the way, the first one seemed to be fairly functional but the second was on such an angle leaning forward, a person would require a seat belt to stay in the outhouse!!

We feel sorry for the people that built the stairs. They were up the side of very steep hills across some pretty inhospitable terrain.

After the hike we went for a nice lunch at the “By the Sea” Restaurant. It overlooked the bay and the meal was excellent. Following lunch we decided to drive 12 kms to the small town of Harry’s Harbour where there were a few icebergs. While chatting with locals on the beach we heard a cracking explosive type of noise! It was one of the bergs “splitting” or “cracking”, it sure got ones attention!!

View from "By the Sea" Restaurant

We met a fine gentleman named “Harry Upward”; no, the town was not named after him. He was a past fisherman that now carves and builds small crafty type items as well as walking the beach looking for “lucky rocks”. What are lucky rocks you ask? Well, these are small stones that have different minerals inside them and as time, tumbling and water and erosion takes place it wears away the minerals to leave small holes that go right through the rocks, and that is a “Lucky Rock”. He also showed us a bow drill, which is a ingenious invention that they used back before power to drill holes in wood. He also showed us (or actually had Mike demonstrate) how a bucket hoop worked and it was great. It keeps ya from drippin' water in yer boots bye!! Harry was quite the character and story teller, a real pleasure to meet him.

As we were both starting to fade from our little stroll and lunch it was time to bid farewell to Harry’s Harbour and Kings Point and we made our way back to the campground.

A great day all-in-all!!