My morning routine usually consist of dropping off Marije at work and doing some groceries on Stavanger Drive after that. Ordinary as it may be, the views and sightings are often amazing. Today’s bounty consists of snow, mist, cliffs, eagles and 2 moose on the beach, oh, and of course a supermarket parking lot.

Since I only had my compact camera with me, I did not bother trying to photography the wildlife (instead I enjoyed the view), so here’s some shots from the other stuff:

Red Cliff at the Ocean Sciences Centre - Logy Bay

Marine Lab Road - Logy Bay

Supermarket - St. John's

In the summer time this is a place where you can sit down and rest your shopping-weary legs, but at the moment, the snow is shovelled up too high for that.

White snow on a green bench - St. John's

The blizzard that came though yesterday wasn’t all that bad as it turns out, we got a lot of snow but not as much as I was expecting. Here’s a few shots taken around the house, clearing up some of the snowdrifts so they won’t freeze solid and block up our only exit:

Yes, I am a snow clearing Giant! - Torbay

This shot was taken by my compact camera on self timer, pushed down into the snow. In a way it looks like the snow comes up to my elbows but actually it only comes up to my knees. The backyard collected a fair bit more than that, those snowdrifts were deep enough to sink me in up to my butt. Here’s the snowdrift that’s blocking our view of the backyard:

Snowdrift at our backyard window - Torbay

More snow - Torbay

As you can see in this photo, our car was spared during the blizzard because it was standing out in the open. I’ve seen a lot of cars snowed in completely, because they are parked right next to the house and the snow has nowhere else to go.

Marije at our front yard window - Torbay

For a few days it has been in the forecast and today it’s really here: a blizzard. A blizzard is just a fancy name for a snowstorm if you ask me, but looking outside has convinced me that going outside is a bad idea. Have a look out of our window for yourself:

I’m sure the snowmobiling crowd will have a great day tomorrow, they’re always zipping around in our backyard and on the trail after a bit of snow.

UPDATE

After I blogged about this I started a time lapse recording of the view outside. Here’s a shot clip, were every frame you see is 4 minutes after the previous one:

UPDATE 2

The morning after the blizzard, the weather is much calmer and some people are venturing outside, for some groceries I guess. I don’t have plans yet as our front door needs some work before I can get out. Here’s our backyard window again, with Marije enjoying the view:

Snowdrift in our backyard - Torbay

Time sure flies when you live in Newfoundland. This morning I hiked the Stiles Cove Path and boy was it cold, at a the Blackhead viewpoint I decided to have a lunch break and guess what I found in my water bottle: ice! No kidding, I don’t remember having my drinks frozen on the trail before, so it must have been really cold this time.

The entire morning the sun was obscured by fast moving cloud cover and I had to wait until 2 PM before the sun came out to defrost my face. I brought two cameras along but it was way too cold to handle either of them all the time, so I didn’t shoot much. At times an eagle would fly by, shaking off the over excited crows. Later I even saw two juvenile eagles, it was a pretty good day.

Here are some shots:

Ice at Shoe Cove beach

Shoe Cove beach Rocks!

There were big rocks at Shoe Cove beach: Shoe Cove beach rocks.

The cliffs west of Shoe Cove

On the right you can see Shoe Cove Island, this is were I saw the eagles soar overhead.

Blackhead Cove, as seen from the top of the cove

The rugged coast at Blackhead Cove is a sight to behold, this picture just doesn’t do it justice.

This morning I hiked along the trail end of the Sugarloaf Path North of Quidi Vidi, this trail runs through a gorgeous landscape known as the ‘White Hills’. Today these hills were certainly white, white with snow. Since this was my first visit to the Sugarloaf Path from this end I took the wrong entrance, which is quite easily done with all the snow. You can’t see where the trail is in all this deep powder so I just followed the first set of bootprints into the hills. It turns out I was on some sort of outdoor mountain bike path, which was pretty hard to climb in these conditions. After a while I crossed path with a regular hikers trail so I stayed on that path and had a much easier time getting around.

Here are some shots of today, the weather wasn’t very cooperative but it was nice nonetheless.

White Hills - Quidi Vidi

Winter at the Gut - Quidi Vidi

Looking East from the White Hills - Quidi Vidi