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Newfoundland: Day 2

It was such a luxury to have had a whole apartment to ourselves for the night - with access to laundry, kitchen, and a bathroom as big as the bedroom! So we had a somewhat leisurely start to the day, tucking into some breakfast of pastries at Fixed Coffee and Baking in downtown St. John's. We had already prepared some snacks for the day last night, so we were ready to hit the road!

As quickly as we could, we drove towards Gros Morne National Park, which was 700km west of us, on the opposite coast of Newfoundland. We stopped for lunch in Clarenville at a family-friendly pizza shop, where I ate the largest slice of pizza I've ever seen in my entire life. They had gigantic pizzas, which we thought were sliced into 12 pieces, but were actually 6 humongous slices, each the size of a small pizza. While we ate, I listened to the snippets of conversation as locals came to grab their lunch and chatted with the owner - the Newfoundland accent was all around us! Nearby, we grabbed some gooseberries at the Sobeys and they were so nice to help us rinse them so we could eat them right away!

From there, the only other stops were at gas stations and a McDonald's to pick up a wild blueberry sundae. We drove through the Terra Nova National Park, finding it similar to other densely forested parks, and finally reached Gros Morne National Park. The scenery was still heavily forested, but with more coastlines since we had reached the Gulf of St. Lawrence. The most fascinating part of the landscape for me was the ability for the plant life and trees to flourish in rocky terrain. Here, we saw grasslands, very rocky terrain, and forests all existing in harmony - with not much access to soil. I guess we'll discover more tomorrow when we actually explore the trails.

The bed and breakfast host met us as soon as we pulled up in the driveway and showed us to our spacious room and the common area. Since it was getting late, we went to get dinner before settling in. A couple of restaurants were close by, offering simple choices for food. One surprise - pineapple crush soda. Apparently this flavor of pop is only available in Newfoundland!

Tomorrow will be a long day - hiking in Gros Morne, then driving up North to L'Anse aux Meadows. 

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