Date: Wednesday, August 19, 2015
Weather: 24 degrees Celsius, sunny and breezy
Distance: ~ 23 kms (Gros Morne Visitor Centre to Lobster Cove Head Lighthouse and back)
Road biking in Rocky Harbour is something else…
Our final activity of our multisport adventure through Western Newfoundland was to be mountain biking. Our provider of bikes couldn’t rent us enough mountain bikes for the day so we split into two groups: road bikers and mountain bikers. As Katie had more mountain bike experience than I, I took the road bikers out.
We spent an hour as a combined group in the parking lot of Gros Morne National Park’s Visitor Centre, setting up the bikes for our heights, finding helmets that fit our heads, figuring out shifting and braking, and going over the rules of the road / trail. We agreed to meet back in two and a half hours to share lunch together and then we went our separate ways.
We navigated our thin, road tires over deep cracks in the asphalt, through construction zones, into the heart of Rocky Harbour and out to Lobster Cove Head Lighthouse. Large RVs passed us on their way to the KOA campsite. Big rigs barreled past, off to their next delivery. We trudged up and over hills, stopping to walk them where necessary and enjoying the glide down on the other side.
We arrived back in the parking lot of the Visitor Centre a bit late. After talking it through we decided not to put the other half of the women through the experience (nor were they terribly interested) so half stayed on to mountain bike and the other half were shuttled back to the cabins for a free afternoon in Rocky Harbour.
After getting ourselves cleaned up and organized, we enjoyed another lovely dinner at Java Jack’s followed by the official ‘screeching in’ of our group. The optional entertainment for the evening was the long-running, unbelievably popular, super funny “Anchors Aweigh” where we sang along and laughed until it was time to head back to the cabins for the night.
For more from this trip report, click here.
Kate Monahan Outdoors 