Twillingate

We have found another little piece of paradise - Twillingate is a charming fishing village with lovely coastal walks/hikes (complete with blueberries and partridgeberries to nibble on), a delightfully funny dinner theatre group, a warm B&B with seven homemade jams from which to choose, and gorgeous seascapes around every corner.  Okay, I may have just described many towns in Newfoundland but Twillingate is where we spent the last two nights. We also thoroughly enjoyed a couple of hours at Prime Berth, a fishing/family museum, complete with a cod splitting lesson and talk with Captain Dave, the owner of the place, a retired teacher and fisherman from a family of many generations of fishermen.  Dave also has a sei whale skeleton on display, along with its baleen. He towed the whale home, let scavengers clean the bones for a couple of years then finished cleaning the rotting carcass and put the bones back together again. Yup, he was an interesting guy - poet and storyteller, too. The photo is of cod tongue (right) and cod cheek (left) - we haven't tried them yet but will let you know if we do.

partridgeberries along a coastal path

one of many little coves with a fishing village. This is Little Harbour, NL near Twillingate.

Today, we drove southeast and are now in Bonavista, which many of us know from the song, 'This Land is Your Land, This land is my land, from Bonavista to Vancouver Island.'  The song has more meaning for us now!  And we saw our first puffins today!!!!! They are just too cute!  Many have left the land for a winter at sea but at least we have seen some now.   Still no moose, even though we have now driven through the heart of Newfoundland and everyone we meet has seen at least one recently!  We are beginning to feel slighted by the multitude of Newfie moose.
Newfoundland food -

cod cakes with baked beans and molasses bread

 

 So far, we have enjoyed seafood chowder, fish and chips (here, cod is called fish and all other fish are called by their names), pea soup with dumplings, baked beans, cod cakes (cod and potato),  touton (like bannock) with molasses, molasses bread, Fisherman's Brewis (cod, onion, bread, fried salt pork all scrambled together like hash browns), partridgeberry (lingonberry) pie, fresh blueberies, bakeapple (cloudberry) jam, pumpkin jam (like marmalade) and stuffed salmon.  The salmon was part of a lovely home cooked meal we ate at Marie Mathews' in Rocky Harbour, a town in Gros Morne.  Marie was a neighbour when I was a young girl in Langley, BC.  The Mathews moved to Nfld in 1963 so it had been many years since I had seen Marie!!!

Shon near Twillingate

I was surprised and delighted to discover that I can once again load photos. I will try to find time in the next few days to go back and add some photos to the Gros Morne and Cape Breton files.  Our country is so beautiful that words alone cannot do it justice!