Marble Magic

Last weekend we got our first chance to really get to see more of Newfoundland and to exit the Avalon peninsula for the first time: we were able to trick a group of our Newfie friends to take us along on their traditional skiing trip to The mountain in Newfoundland: Marble.

Just a word of warning before you scroll any further: this post is very picture heavy as it's the first travel diary-entry in this blog.

The conditions for a skiing holiday could not have been better - Deer Lake, which is close to the skiing hill, has got 560cm of snow this year - so far. Here in St. John's, we've also got our share, and this was just last week:

Our door and deck following the latest snow storm

Canada-style, it wasn't just a two-hour drive to the nearest skiing hill, but a respectable 650km trip to the other coast of the island. Drive or fly? That was our question! We ended up with a compromise - some of us took the plane to spare the little Miss E from sitting in the car for hours, and others (aka me, myself and I) took the car. Timewise, I wasn't the one who won the bet...

Thanks to my brother-in-law FK for sending me this picture!

...but after I saw the plane that had transported my husband and daughter across the island in the wind speeds typical for this part of the world, I was happier to have been on the four wheels!

18 seats and no door between the cabin and the flight deck. No cabin personnel. Puuuh.

Marble Mountain is not the only attraction on the West Coast of Newfoundland, which is also home to the UNESCO World Heritage site Gros Morne National Park. We have plans to make a longer trip there in the summer, so we wanted to get a taste of the park before making any further plans. Gros Morne is a candy store for anyone interested in geology and it has a lot of very interesting hikes and day-trip opportunities the rest of us too. It did not seem too accessible in the winter conditions, though, so we ended up taking a short walk on show-shoes to the Lobster Cove Head lighthouse, which overlooks Rocky Harbour. 

Lobster Cove Head lighthouse in Gros Morne national park

Rocky Harbour with the Tablelands - half frozen, half open in mid-March

View of the Tablelands through a very dirty car window

After Gros Morne, it was time for the really fun part of the weekend - finding our enormous cabin in Humber Valley and putting on the ski boots for the first time in a long time! Marble Mountain is not an enormous skiing centre, but reminded me of the hills I know from back in Finland. It was wonderful!

Well, they say 30 slopes, but not quite sure if that's right...

We were unbelievably lucky with the weather and had to keep on taking off layer after layer as the day went on, but luckily the snow stayed in good condition and it was pure joy to ski. Our crew of 7 adults were all on the slopes much of the day while the kiddos were taking lessons or doing crafts at the childminding centre at the bottom of the hill.

No queues in sight even though it was Saturday and the weather was perfect!

Views from the Marble Mountain

More views off the mountain towards Humber river

The lovely ladies JS, HR and HK enjoying the ride up the hill

 

The "cabin" where we stayed was luxury, Canadian style (well, I'm not sure if the Canadians considered luxury, rather than standard, but nevertheless). With five en-suite bedrooms, two sitting rooms, a large kitchen and a deck the size of our own house, it was really the biggest house I have ever been to. And there was a hot tub on the deck. You know those advertisement about skiing holidays in Canada where you see people sitting and relaxing in hot tubs after a long day on the slopes? This was it. Starry sky during the night? Check. View over the river and to the mountains? Check. Nice company, good wine and beer? Check. Although I didn't take a picture of the hot tub without people in it, I do have a picture of the tubs in one of the bathrooms, just to give you an idea.

A place to relax

 And here is a view from the deck towards Humber river:

 

Driving in Newfoundland can be very dangerous due to the moose - it is said that, as with pigs in Denmark and sheep in New Zealand, there are more moose than people on the island of Newfoundland. While I did find out that this was not technically true, there are a lot of them (120,000) and they do venture out on the highways. I saw signs for moose accidents last year (12) and this year (1 so far), but luckily the only moose I saw during my 1300km of driving on the Trans-Canada Highway, also known as T.C.H. was this one at the Marble Lodge.

The drive home was beautiful, sunny and straight, and I look forward to making the trip again next year. I hope we manage to trick our Newfie friends into taking us along again another time - you never know, as we did beat them in the unbelievably funny game of Cards Against Humanity. That just goes to show what nice people the locals are - it's impossible to make them seem like the Horrible People you have to be to win this game :-). We love it here!

Sunrise over the Trans-Canada Highway at about 570km mark.

 Once more, the picture credits should be placed where they belong: with JK.

Monday morning amazingness on the Signal Hill

Today, my dear readers, is an exceptionally beautiful day in St. John's. The sun is shining from a blue sky, there is no wind at all, and it's nicely crispy with -6 C. The time had finally come for me to hike around the Signal Hill!

The Signal Hill is the landmark of St. John's and overlooks the entry to the city's harbour, The Narrows. It's a notoriously windy place and every attempt to walk there longer than 30 minutes has been so far doomed by the wind or bad visibility. Not today!

I started walking around George's Pond towards Cuckold Cove and was happily surprised by the nice condition of the trail. I had not brought my snowshoes this time, but had my poles and my traction cleats, which have proven to be essential in this city.

Here is a small photo diary of my hike. I should mention that the Northhead trail, where I walked much of the way, is closed until 30 April, so don't tell anyone I was there! 😉

For those of you who know the area, my route was: George's Pond, Ladies' lookout, Cabot Tower, Northhead trail to The Battery, Battery to Signal Hill climb and then scrambling in the snow to the Visitor Centre. 2 hours of sun, snow and happy thoughts!

The Atlantic is gathering quite some ice around here

View towards Cuckold Cove

On the Northhead trail towards the Battery

Canadian navy leaving town with the whole crew waving onboard

At the Battery

Upwards on somebody's backyard

The last steps before the scrambling in the snow began

On power and not having any

Before the winter began for real (well, it hasn't really ever begun, but let's say snow means winter)- yes, before winter came, we received a flyer from the city of St. John's' electricity provider: what to do in case of a power outage.

This winter readiness update, as they called it, explained how the company has everything in place now to tackle the island's challenging winter conditions.

The Outage Safety Checklist has been attached to our fridge door since then, without me really looking at it.

I had expected the power to go (if it was to go at all) on a stormy night with tons of snow and blizzard conditions. This morning, sunny, almost without wind, no snow fall and temperatures close to 0, I heard that all the schools in the city were closed due to power outages. Say whaaat?

The NL Hydro says that due to technical problems and an oil leakage they were not able to produce enough electricity for the grid, which is why they had to initiate rolling outages (we cut your power for a bit to save electricity, then we cut from the suburb next to yours, etc). You get the picture. Or?

A bit of background information is necessary. Last winter was tough in Eastern Newfoundland and it was tougher for the electricity grid. Starting with rolling blackouts, the whole grid went out on Jan 4 2014, and with a hashtag of its own, #darknl, the province stayed in the dark for days. For our street the outage was apparently 7 days long. Difficult to imagine, isn't it, unless you're living in a developing country? They say that the electricity provider's generating capacity is generally low.

Until now, the blackouts I've experienced in Europe have been caused by flooded basements, falling trees or lightnings striking in the wrong places. Power outages caused by too much use and too little production tell me that there's quite a lot of work here in the province in terms of, not necessarily electricity production, but limiting electricity consumption. 

The NL households use third most electricity in Canada (after Prince Edward Island and Alberta), with an average of 111 gigajoules per household (you can check out the stats from Statistics Canada here: http://www.statcan.gc.ca/pub/11-526-s/2013002/t004-eng.htm.)

The power in our house didn't really go out today, so I can only imagine what a fun day this school-free day with nice weather has been for all the kids that got an unplanned-for day off. Poor parents, is all I can say. 

I have had another look at the power outage checklist, though, and we now have a small reserve of potable water in our basement.