End of the road

This morning, we drove out to Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America. That means all of our travels from now on will be part of our return journey.  It has taken us more than 12,000 km to reach this point, definitely more than the length of the Trans Canada Highway as we have travelled a meandering path.  It has been fun, educational and beautiful!  We live in a wonderful country and appreciate it more than when we left home.

End, or beginning, of the road in Canada

1836 - lighthouse at Cape Spear.  A newer one was built in the 1900s and has now been automated.  We toured this old one where the lightkeeper's house was built around the light tower.  That means each room has one convex wall.  Lightkeepers were well paid so it was a lovely house.

 

We arrived in St.John's last night and have worn out our knees and feet today - everything is up or down in this hilly city of 100,000+.  As well as hiking around Cape Spear, we visited Signal Hill this morning.

View of St. John's and its harbour from Signal Hill, where Marconi first sent a transatlantic radio signal.

 

  Tried to visit the Quidi Vidi brewery but their next tour was not until afternoon and we didn't want to wait - Quidi Vidi is a tiny, historic village on the outskirts of St. John, between a cove of the Atlantic and Quidi Vidi pond.  We then parked the truck back at the B&B and wandered the historic, steep streets of the older part of town. Much of the city burned in 1892 so there are many, many Victorian style row houses, all painted in bright colours (think Silver Star or San Francisco).  Here they are called 'jelly bean houses' and our B&B is in one of them - sloping walls in the room and dormer windows - very convenient to everything.

jelly bean row

The veiled virgin, face and veil were sculpted from a single piece of marble - amazing to see the illusion of depth created by the artist.

 

 We toured both the Anglican cathedral (mid-1800s but interior rebuilt after fire with very informative docent tour) and the Catholic basilica (mid 1800s) today but the highlight was seeing a 'veiled Madonna' sculpture in the Catholic convent, carved in the 1800s by an Italian from one piece of marble. Exquisite!!

We are resting our weary feet right now before walking down to George St, the place to go for entertainment in St.John's.  We will seek out a pub with traditional Newfie entertainment with our dinner and drinks - we may even get 'screeched in' (google that and see what it is all about!).  No screeching in but we had a delicious dinner at a brew pub (Yellowbelly), then listened to music at three different pubs.  The entertainer at the second one was a very talented young man who played the fiddle, the conertina, the guitar, the harmonica and sang beautifully, including Cohen's Hallelujah and French-Canadian traditional songs, very versatile and personable.  The third stop caught a Newfie folk music jam session with about 15 musicians playing fiddle, accordion, concertina, Irish drum and flute.  Great fun!

Yesterday, on our way to St. John's, we stopped at East Trinity to hike the Skerwink Trail, a coastal trail that hugs the edges of windy Skerwink Head.  Unfortunately, fog often hugs the area as well so we didn't get the full impact of the supposedly spectacular scenery.  What we saw was impressive, especially near the start of the trail when we thought the fog was lifting.  The wind on the cliffs was exhiliarating, and a little scary at times.  Same today on Signal Hill - loved the strong gusts of wind up there!  Photo upload just jammed again.

We are really hoping to catch our overnight ferry back to the mainland on Sat - Marine Atlantic is still juggling schedules due to one of their ferries being out of service.   If our boat is taken to the other route (as it will be tomorrow), it means we are stuck here on the island longer or we have to drive the 900 km back across Newfoundland to use the shorter ferry route back to Nova Scotia.  We strongly dislike either option so keep your fingers crossed for us!