East Coast Trailraiser walk

The East Coast Trail is one of the most remarkable things about living on the East coast of Newfoundland. It’s a truly spectacular chain of trails that follows more than 300 km of the rugged Atlantic coastline, connecting coastal towns and wilderness and even passes through our city of St. John’s, providing us the opportunity to step out of our front door and hike off into the coastal wilds. Some sections of the trail are easy, well-known and beloved, while there are longer, more rugged stretches that we’ve never visited yet. The East Coast Trail feels like such a great part of our life here in Newfoundland, that we were more than happy to join this year’s community fundraiser to help raise money for trail maintenance. The “family-friendly” Trailraiser hike seemed like a great way to help out the trail and the community and do some social hiking with other kids and families.

We met our friends in Bay Bulls and caught the shuttle bus which brought a full busload of hikers to the Tinkers Point Path trailhead in Tors Cove. We’ve never hiked this section as it requires two cars, so this was a special opportunity for us to see a famously beautiful section of coastline trail. It starts in the beautiful little town of Tors Cove and hikes past some neat old wooden houses before it goes uphill into the woods.

We studied up on the weather (the forecast was for cool and damp, not actually raining) so were all suited up with wool layers, rain pants, boots and gear and we didn’t mind the cold, soggy morning weather and muddy trails.

However, about a kilometer into the hike it started to drizzle and then pour down hard rain! We got so wet, even our rain gear couldn’t keep us warm and dry.

Good thing these kids are so tough!! It really helps to hike with a friend too, there was definitely a little whining about hiking through the pelting rain, but mostly they were in good spirits. (with a little help from m&m’s!) I’m so proud that we all made it 5km through lots of rain and mud, and even had some fun along the way.

We found some wild strawberry blossoms which seemed impossibly springy on such a cold wet morning!

When we finally made it to the end of the trail, it seemed our shuttle bus had gotten a bit lost and unfortunately we all had to wait a good while in the rain for the bus to find us! Thank goodness we had lots of snacks, and the kids managed to enjoy splashing in puddles and picking dandelions and playing “I spy” until the bus finally turned up!

We were REALLY happy to get some hot tea and coffee and lunch (and enjoy the live music) when we got back to the community center with all the other soggy hikers. We peeled off all of our wettest layers and piled them in a chair which drip-drip-dripped a lake of muddy water while we ate our sandwiches.

Thanks for your donations, we exceeded our fundraising goal and helped the ECT Association meet and exceed their fundraising goal of $100,000 to be used towards trail maintenance and improvements during the coming year!

It felt super duper cozy to get back home and peel off all that wet stuff and sit by the fire after that hike, what a great afternoon to relax inside and thank goodness we have our livingroom back and our couch back from storage now.