Camping

We decided that moose were okay as long as you didn't piss them off, so we would spend a night out in the tent! The forecast was for nighttime cloud but no snow or rain, so last night was the ideal time.

On our morning walk, we bumped into a Swiss lady called Bettina, who was taking her gorgeous black labrador for a snowy walk. Bettina had snow shoes on and was making light work of the trail! She invited us to see the local hostel, in case we wanted to stay there, and told us about a campsite further up the coast. We took comfort in the fact that she didn't think camping was a mental thing to do - she volunteers with the canine search and rescue team! And after all that help and advice, she invited us to her house and lent us two pairs of snow shoes! Amazing.

We took the shoes up the coast and tested them out on a short walk to the frozen beach.  Then we found a lovely trail to a pond and walked that before heading back to the campsite to set up for the night.

It was a nice evening, we made delicious pasta, got a fire going and had hot chocolate by the fire before bed.

Getting into bed is where it started to go downhill. Getting two people in a 1 person tent is tricky enough when you're both under 5ft. Jo is 6ft 1. So we wormed our way into our sleeping bags and lay there like sardines, talking and trying to read with books pressed between our noses and the tent wall. After about an hour, we admitted to being cold and needing the loo. The thought of getting out was marginally less unappealing than trying to sleep on a full bladder, so out we wriggled into the cold dark night in long johns and head torches, did our business whilst scouring the trees for moose, and squished ourselves back in.

Feeling much better and warmer for our excursion, we cosied in to go to sleep. Only we were scared. There were 2 other people at the campsite, so we could hear footsteps as well as the usual disconcerting woodland sounds. In the dark, our ears were tuned to hear the slightest noise and our brains would rush to insane conclusions about what they might mean. We were going to get trampled by moose, attacked by fellow campers and gored by bears!

Of course it was fine. Moose probably don't give a crap about tents. And the other campers were just camping, possibly imagining being attacked by us! But we didn't sleep all that much. Every time I was feeling safe, Jo would nudge me and say "I heard a grunt!".

So we woke up feeling narky but had a good day none the less and ended it eating pizza and going to a bar in Corner Brook before collapsing into our queen sized beds. Ahh, modern comforts!