L'Anse au Meadows & Quirpon Island

This morning breakfast at 7:30 and then we head off to L'anse aux Meadows. We got there around 8:30 and the park only opens at 9:00 so we started off with a 2km hike around the area. Some beautiful views of the water. We also finally saw our first moose on our walk! It didn't stick around when it saw us, and Andre had the wrong lens on his camera, so probably no good proof.

Bologna for Breakfast

L'anse aux Meadows hike

We saw a moose!  The only one this trip

We ended the walk at a Norse village that has been recreated. When we went in 2 of the staff were in costume and told us there was a tour starting off at 10AM so we did the walk up the hill to the interpretation centre and joined up with the tour. Again we were really surprised how many people were there, probably about 50 of us were on the tour. The tour guide is from here, and had some great stories of the area and how it was discovered and developed. He was part of one of the excavation teams with parks Canada years ago. As a child he used to play on the site, and his mother remembers playing there as well. They thought it was where the Indians had lived, but it has now been proven that this is where the Norse may have first landed 1000 years ago.

There is a small recreated village that has been done near to where the original village would have been. Interesting to see the huts made out of peat sod. Staff in period costume were on-site and demonstrating how things used to be, We both really enjoyed our morning here.

Next off we went just down the road to find something for lunch. The restaurant we wanted to try is only open for supper at this time of year, so basically the only other option is a few miles away where we ate dinner yesterday. We did see a sign for crafts and jams do decided to pull into a little shed beside a house to find she had home made bread. Talked her into going into her home, slicing the bread for us and putting some butter on it, lunch done. We also bought a muffin and some cinnamon buns, she tried to get us to buy some pie just out of the oven, but that would have been tough to eat. I also bought a cute hat that she had crocheted, thought it may come in useful later today.

Our lunch restaurant lol

From here we drove a little and pulled into a spot on the water and ate our “lunch”. Oh my, so much butter, we should have told her to take it easy on the butter.

Next stop is Norstead, a little town very close to L'Anse aux Meadows, that is like L'Anse aux Meadows disney. Not sure that I would recommend going here, but there was a nice replica ship here that Andre enjoyed seeing, I could have stayed in the car. But I did like where the women were weaving and doing needle work. They showed me how they knit the Viking hats, Andre now owns one of these. They knit with one needle and use knots, very cool. It would be fun to try, didn't look too difficult.

After our little tour here we saw that there was a nice hike up a cliff face at the end of the park, so of course we had to do this. Again some amazing views from the top, made the price of admission worth it, and since this is the only admission we have paid this entire trip we won't complain.

Norstead

Nice fire on a chilly day

Hike behind Norstead, gorgeous

Our new tuques, When did we get so old. No selfie awards for us.

Andre in his new Viking hat, me in my new crochet hat

Next we have some time to kill before we are to be at the wharf for our 4PM departure to sleep on Quirpon Island in a lighthouse. We had passed by some tiny villages on the way here, so did some backtracking to go and take some pictures. We visited St. Lumaire, which is maybe the cutest town we have seen yet. Such a pretty cove. Andre was happy because a fishing boat was just coming in while we were there so he got to go and visit some fisherman again.

St. Lumaire



St. Lumaire

We also visited the village of Quirpon, Andre said we didn't see downtown the other day so he wanted to go there, still haven't found downtown lol.

We were still an hour early but decided to go to the wharf anyway and were very lucky to find the guy that takes guests to the Island there. He asked if we wanted to hike in or boat in, we chose to hike in so he said he could take us right now. We were very excited, we'll get to the Island one hour earlier and it is actually really nice out now. Only 9 degrees, but it is sunny and we'll be doing a 5.5km hike so we will be warm.

Angus, the driver, takes us on a 5 minute boat ride with his dog and drops us off with some directions on how to find the lighthouse. Say left of the hydro lines and look for the red markers. It is a great setup, if you hike in you leave your luggage with them and they bring it up to the house for you with the rest of the guests by boat.

Angus and his dog leave us on the Island to hike to the lighthouse

This was a fantastic hike, it took us a little over 2 hours, with many stops for pictures. We didn't see anyone on the hike except for a guy that was working on the trial and his ATV had broken down, we told him we would send beer when we got to the lighthouse.

Quirpon Island hike views

If it is too rough to boat in they will bring you out by ATV

View point, with water and granola bars in a cooler for us! Along with some red chairs of course

We see the other guests arriving by zodiac go by

What a beautiful spot this is. There is a main light keeper's house, and a smaller house that both hold guests. I think there are 20 of us here, it is a full house, and no one else is on the Island which is about 8KM long.

We brought over a bottle of wine with us, enjoyed a glass before supper out on the rocks watching the surf, there are some gorgeous coves here and great breakers.

Main house

We have just returned from supper, a great roast beef dinner, not my favourite meal, but after all our walking today, and bread for lunch I was very happy to eat. There is a younger couple here that have biked from Deer Lake, we had seen them on the road earlier this week and laughed because it looked like she was carrying everything, turns out he is just using front bags and she is using back ones. They are really nice, fun to speak with them at dinner tonight. They are loving the trip, except for the wind, which is really crazy, I can't imagine dealing with that and the hills.