Last day in Newfoundland

All going well, we will be sailing from Newfoundland back to Nova Scotia tomorrow, a 14 hour overnight sailing so we have reserved a berth and will get some sleep.  I say 'all going well' because high winds are forecast and that could cause a delay or cancellation.
After a hike to the lighthouse in Ferryland this morning, we drove around the southern parts of the Avalon Peninsula today and saw some interesting landscapes.  When we saw Avalon Protected Wilderness area on the map, we envisioned forested area. Instead, we discovered what looked like tundra, endless vistas of very low growing plants interspersed with small ponds and lakes.  Some of the lakes were just sitting 'on top of' the tundra with no noticeable depression to hold the water.  I think the land around the lakes was probably boggy barrens but am not sure.  Interesting to see.  The rest of the time, the coastal road went up over hills then down into coves, many with small fishing villages, so we were glad we weren't pulling the trailer over the steep up and downs.  Not much traffic on the roads and not much to see as it was cloudy and a little foggy at times today - some lovely seascapes that would have been stunning on a sunny day.
We are so glad we came to Newfoundland.  It has added a whole new dimension to our knowledge of Canada and one that everyone should experience.   It is like being in a different country, a beautiful, friendly place with a culture all its own.  Shon describes it as quiet and slow.

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!

Bonavista

Frustration again - I managed to upload two photos successfully then the system quit again. 
I will let you know if and when I am able to add the rest of the photos to this post - especially the puffins.

One day in the Bonavista area is not enough but we sure tried to see and do it all!!    As in many of our stops across Canada, culture, history and nature all competed for our attention so what you will read here is a random attempt to capture our thoughts throughout the day.

-          Scenery – the coastline here is very jagged with many small coves hiding between rugged headlands.  Any one of the coves may have a small fishing village or even just one house.  Offshore islands are either all rocks or have some soil and grass.  The latter make good seabird nesting sites.

-          When the landscape has few trees, power lines and poles seem to dominate the towns and barren lands. It can be a challenge to shoot a photo without power lines!   I should not say barren, as the low growing bushes produce many types of berries, all of which the locals use.  Our B&B breakfast table here  is resplendent with 44 types of jam!!!!!  Our hostess is creative with her combinations and choices.  We tried many varieties yesterday with a different taste on each bite of pancake.  We shall sample more this morning on her homemade bread toast.

-          Ryan Premises  National Historic Site is a collection of 5 old buildings here in Bonavista that were a hub for the cod industry here.  The Ryan family men were fish merchants – buying fish from the fisherman and running a retail store to sell the fisher families the necessities of life.  Money did not change hands; account books were kept.  As the fish merchants set the price for both the goods and the fish, the fishermen seldom came out ahead.  However, it was a system that worked for centuries because the merchants and the fishermen were reliant on one another.

-          Bonavista’s United Church is said to be the largest wooden building on the east coast.  It can seat 2200 people!

 

-          On a pebble beach, when a wave goes back out to sea, the water burbles over the pebbles like a babbling brook – a delightful sound.

-          The placement of houses seems very random in most NL towns – no town grids or planned subdivisions.  Houses are scattered at every angle so the streets are curved, angled, usually narrow – makes for an interesting town and many short streets.  Very hard to capture this on film unless there is a high point overlooking the town.

-          A small nearby town, Elliston, bills itself as the ‘root cellar capital’, with about 140 old root cellars.  As you drive through town, you notice them in random places.  Made me remember my great aunt and uncle’s root cellar in Winfield, BC – a source of fascination when I was young.

-          When we stopped for a quick lunch in Gander on Sunday, the Subway, McDonalds and Tim Hortons all had very long lineups (inside), so we ate at KFC.  The drive-through lines were also long and had double lanes leading up to a merge before the window.   No wonder we are noticing many overweight people here!  We have eaten fast food very seldom on this trip as we want local food. When we have the trailer (we didn’t bring it across to Newfoundland), we do our own cooking. 

-          Newfoundland food – a small tea room here in Bonavista makes everything from scratch and it is delicious so we ate there both nights.  The family’s grandma used to run a tearoom in the house many, many years ago so they decided to recreate it.  I had seafood chowder one night and cod au gratin last night – both excellent.  Shon had Fisherman’s Brewis the first night – we learned how it is made at Ryan Place yesterday – ‘hard bread’ is soaked overnight as is salted, dried cod then both are added to fried salt pork bits – no potatoes as I had thought before.  All ingredients can be kept without refrigeration so good for out on the boats.

-          Lighthouses were, and still are, important to life in Newfoundland.   The lightkeeper’s house was sometimes built around the circular lighthouse so each room had one convex wall – quite intriguing!

-          We walked on a boardwalk around a marshy pond last night at sunset.  Many locals out for a brisk evening walk as we tourists snapped photos by the dozens of the town in evening light.

-          The traditional Newfie house is called a ‘salt box’ house as it is shaped like the boxes that salt came in. Very utilitarian style.  In some areas, there are also houses with two or more gables but not exactly Cape Cod style.

-          Saving the best for last (breakfast is almost ready – will have to add photos tonight in St. John’s).  The highlight of our time here was watching the puffiins on their island colony.  They are soooo cute and there were hundreds of them, all waddling, hopping, flying and trying to keep the gulls from grabbing the fish they had caught.  VERY enjoyable!
 

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!

Western Newfoundland

Okay, all of you who told us that Newfoundland was the best province to visit just might have been right!  Great scenery, great music and friendly people all add up to a lovely place to visit.   It all started on the 6 hour ferry trip from North Sydney, NS to Port aux Basques, Newfoundland.  A duo played live music for most of the trip, some country, some traditional Celtic fiddle numbers, some Newfie ballads, some original numbers - along with jokes and banter that had us all in stitches. 

 The scenery in Gros Morne National Park was stunning beyond words - strange geology made it even more special.  For example, The Tablelands are high, flat mountains with nothing growing on them due to concentrations of heavy metals from the mantle of the Earth - ancient upheavals sent part of the mantle to the surface. 
oh, fiddlesticks, I still can't upload photos. Is anyone else having trouble uploading to their blogs this week??  I want to know if it just a glitch in my blog or is it the system?  We have so many awesome photos to share right now, too, from the NS and Nfld. C'est la vie.  To continue....

We took a 2 hour boat ride into Western Brook Pond, actually a large lake that used to be a fjord before changes cut it off from the ocean a LONG time ago.  Now it is a fresh water lake but lack of nutrients and its depth keep it from being biologically productive - it supports almost no life.  What makes it stunning are the 600-700 metre high cliffs which line its shores - new, breath-taking scenery around every curve along with some very steep waterfalls.  A misty fall near the far end of the lake had us guessing names like angel falls or bridal veil falls but, wait for it, it has the very Newfie type name of Pissing Mayor Falls.  The 3 km walk into the lake to catch the boat was a mix of treed limestone ridges and boardwalk covered bogs.  After the boat tour and the walk back to the truck, we stopped at an ocean beach, full of pebbles all smooth and rounded from eons of wave action and ate our lunch in sight of the scattered rusty remains of a 1919 ship wreck.  We rounded out the afternoon with a walk on a coastal trail, a visit to a lighthouse where a Parks Canada employee shared her life stories as one of the first female fishers in the province, a visit to a marine research plant where we enjoyed an informative tour about life in Bonne Bay in the park, and a drink on a pub deck overlooking Bonne Bay.  So much to see and do in the park, so little time!!!
Last night we went to a local pub in Norris Point, a small town in Gros Morne, and enjoyed some local singers at an open mike night. No traditional Newfie songs but some great covers of songs from the 60s and lots of Bob Marley, covered by young local musicians with lots of talent!  Chatting with fellow travellers gave us more ideas for the rest of the province.
There are up to 5000 moose in Gros Morne Park and we still haven't seen a moose on this cross Canada trip!!!!  Did see one small bear along the road today.
  Today was not a banner day - strange noises from our truck convinced us to skip our last planned stop in Gros Morne in favour of driving straight to Deer Lake, the closest town.  A mechanic was able to do a computer diagnostic test and tell us what was wrong but would have had to order the part.  Being Friday, that would have put us into next week.  We phoned back to Cornerbrook, 50 km out of our way, but they also did not have the part.  We phoned ahead to Grand Falls, 180 km east but on our planned route. The Dodge dealership had the part but said they had no time to install it until the second week of Sept!!!!!  We drove there anyway, through torrential rain but with a cooperative truck, and convinced them to squeeze us in today - one  hour and a few dollars later and we were on our way again.  Now we are in Twillingate and will explore this peninsula, or group of causeway and bridge connected islands, tomorrow - forecast is for sun (-:

Our night at the lighthouse

Cape Breton Island, Nova Scotia

For the second day in a row, photos are refusing to upload so this episode will be text only - too bad cuz we have some great photos to accompany this.  C'est la vie!

66 days into our trip and we are still having fun!  We pulled into Lower Bras D’Or tonight, will have an prep day tomorrow then catch the ferry to Newfoundland early on Tues.  Due to ferry mechanical problems, our reservation has been changed from 11:30 am to 7:30 so we have to be at the ferry docks by 5 am!!!

I see that we have been ‘out of touch’ since Aug 14^th.  Since then, we have explored part of Nova Scotia, mainly Cape Breton Island – great scenery of mountains and seascapes and lighthouses!  The highlight was a night of ‘free camping’ beside a lighthouse at Cape George.   Another family had the same idea so we weren’t all along up there above the sea with the wind howling but almost.  Lovely to wake up in the morning and look out at the sea – we both did some yoga before breakfast.  I could get used to that life – in the summertime! 

  Watching the light play on the ocean was delightful!    Before reaching the lighthouse, we had puttered around the old town of Pictou, established in the 1770s, then endured an incredibly heavy rainstorm – had to pull over and wait it out as we couldn’t see!  Had dinner beside our trailer on the wharf at Arisaig, a tiny town on the coast, then had an ice cream cone at the little concession in the lighthouse there before driving to Cape George.   The rain stopped and the sun fought through the clouds for some awesome scenes there.

Note to everyone – don’t dispose of plastics that can end up in the ocean!  At the Bluefin Tuna Interpretive Centre in Ballantyne’s Cove, we saw a large piece of plastic that had been found in the stomach of a 700 pound tuna. It would have killed him if he had not been caught by a fisherman first – either way, it was ‘death by human’.

We then spent some wonderful, and not so wonderful, time in Cape Breton Highlands National Park and drove the world renowned Cabot Trail.  Hard to believe it is rated as one of the top ten cycling trips in the world when you see how steep and narrow some parts of the road are through the park but it is a spectacular place!!   The first night howling wind and torrential rain kept us awake wondering if the trailer would be blown apart – we survived totally intact – and the sun came out the next day so we could enjoy the scenery on the drive.  In 2004, rain and fog obscured the views so we were happy to see them this time!  We hiked a few of the shorter trails in the park and stopped at some of the ‘lookover’ to enjoy the views.  On a bog walk, we saw pitcher plants for the first time – carnivorous plants that ‘eat’ insects.  Walked into MacIntosh Falls along MacIntosh brook, named after an early settler in the area – sunlight playing on a babbling brook was a highlight of that walk. 

We were met at our campsite that night by a curious chipmunk and half a dozen vocal blue jays (not our Stellar jays from BC).    The next day, we walked more trails, stopped at more lookovers and enjoyed meeting the locals at Neil’s Harbour, a small community of maybe 500 whose festival had called everyone ‘home’.  It was like being at 10 or 12 family reunions at once – everyone greeting everyone with hugs and tears and ‘my, how you have grown’ comments.  Fun!  We had a drink, enjoyed people watching, chatted with a few ‘naitives’  and listened to the homegrown Celtic music talent.    That night, after dinner at the campground, we drove to the Keltic Lodge, a beautiful old place on the water, and listened to more local talent over a drink in their lounge – a place where the wealthy stay and play! 

We are excited about heading to Newfoundland and hope that it is as good as everyone says it is- the absolute best place to visit.  More next time!