Newfoundland Recap

I'm going to attempt a quick rundown of our journey to the Rock...

We left Saturday August 20th, pretty much on schedule, just sometime after 7 am. The weather was overcast/drizzly/misty. At least we managed to pack the car without it downpouring on us. Our first stop for gas was in Ste-Hyacinthe and that was actually our first fill-up at over $1 (those were the days!) By the time we got to Moncton, the sun peeked out and we continued driving and then stopped for the night at the Victorian Motel in Amherst, Nova Scotia. 11 hours later! Twelve if you count the hour time difference!
Discovered Alexander Keith's Red ale, very tasty.

Sunday we were again on the road just after 7 and made it to Sydney by 12. Drove around the area and visited the Fort Petrie Miltary Museum, a bunker that was used most recently in the two World Wars but dates back to way long ago.
We then headed for the ferry terminal and boarded around 3:30. The boat ride was pretty uneventful. It was pouring rain most of the time so we didn't spend anytime out on deck. We got in to Port-aux-Basques about 11:30 and actually managed to find our B&B quite easily despite having no directions to the place.

The next morning we took off in the fog and just outside of P-aux-B, we veered off the Trans-Canada and took a side road towards Cape Ray and saw the first (of many) lighthouses on our trip. We stopped in Cornerbrook where we had a pretty nasty lunch at

Mary Brown's

and then got some supplies and hit the road again to reach Gros Morne National Park

We set up at the Trout River campsite.
The next morning we headed out for a 14 km hike along the pond, which is more like a really big lake. It was overcast again with a few periods of drizzle but with the major gusting wind, you could hardly tell it was raining! Very strange landscape on the 2nd part of the trail, almost lunar-like.
That evening we went to a campfire ghost story session (it was actually in a shelter around a wood stove!) The wind was howling in the eaves and the hot chocolate was very yummy and warm (it had the mini-mini marshmallows in it!)

The next day we headed a little further North in the Park to Lobster Cove Head (lighthouse) and came across ¨The Heap of Junk¨, some kind of makeshift friendship monument between Canada and the U.S. and we left a note to mark our visit. In Rocky Harbour we picked up some steaks for supper which Tim cooked over the fire. And we´d come prepared with our Montreal Steak Spices so they were very tasty. We also stopped at South East Brook Falls on our way back to the campground where we got a few good shots of the waterfall and then got swarmed by mosquitoes when we turned back on the trail. The great thing about hiking around there is you hardly encounter a soul. Maybe Gros Morne Mountain would have been busier but there is no way we were going to attempt ¨the longest and most grueling¨ hike in the park (16 km rated as very strenuous and takes 7-8 hours to do!) Although the view is supposed to be spectacular (on a clear day...) and I think its the second highest peak in the province.

Thursday morning we packed up camp and headed to Twillingate. We went on a tour of the Notre Dame Winery and stocked up on some blueberry, blackcurrant, damson plum and rhubarb wines, our favourites from the tastings we got. When I was in NL back in ´94 I had tried the Markland Cottage Winery´s blueberry wine and had rated it as pretty awful. Apparently it has gotten better, maybe the competition has helped!

Friday consisted of Cape Bonavista and Trinity which are best described by our photos and that night we stayed at a B&B in Clarenville. The first two places we stopped at were full and the third place didn´t look promising either as they had a driveway full of cars...turns out they had a wedding party going on but we were more than welcome to stay the night & join in the celebrations! After a brief discussion and a more than enthusiastic convincing by Sonya, the owner, we decided to stay. Although I did not witness it (as I was slumbering at the time), they screeched Tim in, not by making him kiss the cod but by having him eat a capelin and down some kind of nasty rum.

Gosh this description makes our trip sound like it went by much faster than it did...

Saturday we made our way to St-John´s and after checking into the B&B (which was more like a boarding house really), we did the all-important tour of the only microbrewery on the Island, Quidi Vidi. We then walked all around Signal Hill & that area.

Sunday was Cape Spear, just a short distance outside the city and we also visited the Johnson Geo Centre. That evening I got the scare of the trip...we had gone to get take-out pizza for supper and about 5 minutes after leaving the restaurant I realized I didn´t have my wallet...so we raced back and lo and behold, it had slipped out of my pocket on the seats where we were sitting and someone had actually given it to the waitress all contents intact. PHEWF! BIG SIGH OF RELIEF!

Monday we made our way back across the island and camped ina provincial park past Corner Brook at a place called Barachois Pond. We saw our first and only moose! Didn´t have time to get a picture though. Had some heavy rain during the night so we had to pack up the tent wet the next morning, yuck.

Tuesday we got to Port-aux-Basques pretty early so we kept going to Rose Blanche (another lighthouse!) which was very picturesque. Then we caught the ferry back to Nova Scotia that afternoon. We had booked another B&B that evening in Sydney as we were getting in late & it was also raining the whole boat ride. At least it was on time.

The next morning it was again pretty grey and we visited the Alexander Graham Bell museum in Baddeck and another stop was at the Glenora whiskey distillery in Glenville (pretty bad road signs to show you the way but we found it).
That night we stayed at the youth hostel in Wentworth. Pretty quiet place. There were only three other people there, a couple from B.C. & a guy from Toronto. Turns out that the guy running the hostel was from the Shore. He even went to the same high school as Tim. Small world...

Thursday was the last leg home. Pretty uneventful save for the spotting of a Florida RV probably worth $400,000 pulling a motorcycle trailer with a Honda Shadow behind which they were pulling...a Hummer H2. Man, now that´s the way to retire!!!

Okay, that´s enough babbling for now, this last week´s events will have to wait...