Do you have any idea how many Moose there are in Canada? Answers to the nearest 10,000 please. Do you know how many we’ve seen in the last 5 days? None. They’re hiding. The nearest you can get to a moose is to eat one. Not a whole one, they’re big, but moose-burgers are on sale everywhere. Moose steaks. Antler pie. (I made that one up). Have those fucking Canadians made them extinct by over-eating?? Like they did with the Auk???? Or are moose just, like, really shy and timid, even though they’re fucking humungous, or are they banned by their agents from having photos taken without contracts being signed?

We’re in Gros Morne national park. It’s nothing like Marble Arch here. No moose is likely to get hit by a bus or a taxi because they have neither around here. And if an e-bike hit a moose, it would bend. Instead, they have forests. Mountains. Trees. Grazing land. Lakes. Everything your average moose would choose as his perfect ‘happy place’. And over about a million acres, so the moose won’t be cramped or crowded, like fighting over a little patch of grass. But not one has been seen. Only the pictures of them on every road with the sign reading “CAREFUL: MOOSE!!!”, at which I shout “WHERE?????”. Show me the moose I might run over and I’ll stop and take a selfie. Me, Mel and Moose. I have it all planned. I’ve even shouted at the forests that “I’ll eat a moose burger if you don’t come out!!!”, but I think they have a problem with my accent.

Therefore I no longer believe in mooses. I think they’re a product of someone’s imagination. Which is why they look a bit weird. They’re made up.

So we consoled ourselves with ‘second prize’ here. We took a boat ride down a fjord. Ok, it’s not big and furry with massive antlers but it was quite pretty. Ok, it was fucking spectacular. The fjord is an inland, fresh-water one. I would explain, like the lady on the boat did, but I think it’s too geological for you, to be honest. It was called Western Brook Pond. Obviously a ‘pond’ because it’s not big enough to be a ‘lake’. It’s only 16km long. Tiny. Pathetic.

Everyone talks to you here. Everyone. It’s so friendly as to be mildly unsettling. Though I actually like talking to strangers. It’s the people I know I have issues with. Or possibly that have issues with me.

Happy last day in Newfoundland

A xxxx