On the last day of the trip and other news

Sorry if I haven't been updating a lot of late. My best excuse is that there hasn't been a whole lot of biking news. Of course, I hadn't written about the last day's hike, even though I made a blog entry on that day.

As I mentioned, the last day featured a hike up the Tablelands. The Tablelands are an odd geologic feature of Gros Morne National Park, the one that earned its UNESCO world heritage status. The short version is that it consists of ancient volcanic sea bed, something that it rarely seen on the surface. The rocks themselves have a weird chemistry that plant life has not been able to adapt to particularly well.
If you look at this shot taken from near the top of the Tablelands, you will see that the background is much more verdant than the foreground despite the fact that both are roughly the same altitude. However, as the foreground is this funky volcanic rock, vegetation has a hard time growing on it.
As you can see from this shot of Jason and Alice, there isn't a whole lot of veg on the climb up. As well, the rocks themselves have a strange appearance and texture to them.
A fair number of them had this odd looking "skin" on some surfaces. All their surfaces had an odd feel to them, almost like plaster or sun-dried bricks. It was a very strange place.
It was also rather steep as Jason and Mark demonstrate in this shot. We stopped for a break to regroup and to get in a group shot.
It also allowed us to take pictures back towards Norris Point and Bonne Bay.
In order to get to the start of the hike, we had motored across Bonne Bay in Moonshadow. I must confess I was somewhat uneasy by the crossing as the wind and waves were higher than I felt comfortable with in such a small vessel. When we got to Woody Point (the village opposite Norris Point) Alice negotiated a ride in shuttle bus up to the start of the hike.

It was a spectacular last day. Then it was back to Alice's to pack and to catch the plane back to Montreal. More hike pictures are on my Picasa site.

Other news

I found out today that I will be gaining an "official" sister-in-law. My brother Philip intends to make an honest woman of Dominique, mother of his daughter. No date announced. This is slightly surprising as in the past Philip has voiced opinions against being formally married. Admittedly, this was prior to his getting involved with Dominique. Best of luck to them.

In the bargain, I gain Eowyn as an "official" step-niece. Interesting that I now have one "true" niece (Désirée), one (soon-to-be) step-niece (Eowyn) and one proxy-niece (Isla) and no nephews to speak of.