June 30 – Some Short Hikes

Today the forecast called for a chance of thunderstorms in the afternoon so we just did a bunch of quick things in case we had to get back to cover in a hurry. Of course the thunderstorms never came.

Our first hike took us passed Pleasant Bay, that we had driven to yesterday. There is a resort with the supersized versions of the dome at the campground.

The place is called True North Destinations and it seems that the domes rent for $250 a night. Seeing as the campground wants to charge $180 a night for the much smaller version they might have a hard time. About the only thing they have going for them is that the campground’s is very private.

The walk up Macintosh Brook to a small waterfall is just under 2 km for the return trip. It’s an easy, level trail.

A lot of the tress beside the trail seemed diseased.

According to Google Lens they are beech trees with Beech Bark Canker.

The place where the trail ends wasn’t close enough for me.

So of course I hoped over the stones in the brook to get closer.

The photosphere.

And then up along the shore for a different angle.

I tried the blurry shots again but liked this better.

Then back to the car.

A bit farther up the road is Lone Shieling, a short loop trail to a Scottish stone shepherd’s hut.

A nice stream and these yellow flowers were everywhere.

There must be a lot of flat stones around because the stairs that continued the trail and the trail itself for a while were made of flagstone.

There is a huge stand of Sugar Maple here.

The ground was covered in little maple trees.

Back up the next stone steps to the car.

It was a very humid day so we headed back to the beach at Pleasant Bay Harbour that we were at yesterday to try and find a cool breeze.

After lunch Jennie was off exploring.

Way off.

Between yesterday and today somebody spent a lot of time making this beautiful stone spiral.

Heading back towards home the next stop was just called, Bog. A short boardwalk.

It was hard to get an in focus picture of these flowers because it was rather windy here.This one is a Dragon’s Mouth Orchid.

Jennie loves the water lilies.

A huge number of pitcher plants and the cotton grass.

And lots of twisted trees being blasted by the winds and snow up here.

Back to the car under darkening skies.

We couldn’t resist one more lookout before going home.