Motion Path, Petty Harbour

We made plans to meet up with friends for a Sunday morning hike. It can be hard to get the kids excited for hiking sometimes, but it’s always exciting with friends; we’re so happy to find some lovely friends who love hiking too! The weather forecast looked overcast and cool, so it seemed like a great day for hiking, but in reality it turned out to be very very steamy and humid!

Motion Path is part of the East Coast Trail that starts right on the edge of the town, leading up from somebody’s driveway into the wooded hills above. The start of the trail is pretty rough, compared to other sections of the East Coast Trail; it’s narrow and overgrown, squeezing through trees and boulders, and pretty rough footing in some places. After a half-hour of narrow forest trail, the trees clear away and the path goes up into rocky barrens with lots of blueberries, low shrubs, and small twiggy flora. The kids got excited to scramble up onto big flat boulders, and soon we could see views of the ocean below and the town behind us.

The girls had each brought along a doll, play food, and a little blanket, so when we stopped to eat our sandwiches the dolls got to have a picnic too.

They found a small cairn and took it apart, then rebuilt it taller.

There were lots of blueberries everywhere! Sadie did a great job picking lots of tasty berries to share.

We enjoyed the gorgeous views and baked in the sun for a while, then headed back down to Petty Harbour in search of ice cream.

Lots of blueberries on the way down!

We thought that getting near the ocean in Petty Harbour would give us some cool ocean air, but instead the mountains around the Harbour seemed to shelter us from the wind and the with sun burning through the clouds, it was surprisingly hot and still and sticky!!

Petty Harbour was beautiful as always. We found some very big ice cream sundaes at Tinker’s and then we were very relieved to head home and spend the afternoon in the shade at home!