Goodbye, Newfoundland! (08-14-13)

 

Well, after three weeks on Newfoundland (it’s pronounced NewfunLAND by the way), it was time to take the ferry back to Nova Scotia. Naturally this involved getting up before dawn, much like taking an early flight.

  




At that time of the morning you need to keep a sharp eye out for moose along the road- luckily there didn’t seem to be any out and about.











Into the belly of the beast we go, along with a dozen or so other RVs, numerous cars and motorcycles, and lots of 18 wheelers!










We have to arrive 2 hours before departure, at which point they line the vehicles up outside.  After we wait for about an hour,  they start loading the vehicles.  It’s very efficient, actually.  Once you leave your vehicle on one of the 3 garage levels in the ferry, you aren’t allowed to go back down to the garage.







We had an uneventful 7 hour crossing.  Pretty boring.  Paul read a book and I played games on my ipad and wandered around the ship. Dozer stayed in the trailer.  I’m pretty sure he slept all day.

Before we left Newfoundland, here’s what we did:

   We drove all the way over to Gros Morne National Park, where we spent one day just hanging around, not doing much at all. The weather was not good enough to hike to the top of the mountain so we made the plan to do that the following day.

In the meantime, it looked like it would be a nice sunset, so we drove out to the nearby cove to wait for it.  

The wind was really whipping, so the waves were bigger than usual.










Eventually the sky turned bright pink.

 

Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling well the next day and there was no way I was going to hike, so Paul went by himself.  It was a 9 mile hike with over 2000 feet of elevation gain, and of course he said it was awesome! He even saw a moose along the trail.

I was glad he went without me, and glad I got to stay home and do nothing all day, but I was definitely jealous when I heard about the hike.  His cell phone takes a pretty good picture.  The view was obviously spectacular!

  That night was one of the best nights to see the Perseid  meteor shower, so at 11:30 pm, we jumped into the truck and drove out of town to find a dark spot. 

We parked in a parking lot and just as our eyes were getting accustomed to the dark, a car pulled in next to us, with his lights on, of course.  I was a little concerned as to why someone would pull right up to us, but it turns out it was a ranger, just checking the parking lots to make sure people aren’t camping illegally.  We assured him we just wanted to see the meteors.

We each saw a couple of dozen meteors-some were bright, others not so bright.  I love taking pictures of stars, unfortunately I can’t for the life of me figure out how to get a good shot with my new camera, and all of the decent pictures were taken with my old one.  I brought it with me because I know it takes good star shots!  Too bad I didn’t get a good picture of a meteor, but its annoying to everyone to have the light from a camera on all the time, so I didn’t want to take too many.


On the drive home, which was done verrrrrry slowly, we saw two moose on the side of the road.  Those suckers sure are hard to see at night!
So now here we are back in Sydney, Nova Scotia, where we’ll spend a few days exploring this area.

St. John’s, Newfoundland (08-09-13)

   I’m not sure how we managed to only plan to spend 3 nights in St. John’s, but there you go.  We had 2.5 days to explore this area, so we prioritized our “must see”s.  Having rain and fog in the forecast helps us decide what we want to do.

We first drove out to Cape Spear Lighthouse.  This is the eastern most point in North America, so we had to get a picture taken here, right?  We were hoping to hike along the coastline but the wind and cold were a bit too much for us. 

It was beautiful though, and we did watch  a few Minke whales meander by.  We didn't get to see any Humpbacks though.

The lighthouse has been here since the early 1800s and we found out that most of the windows are fake, but they are put there so that the house would conform to the standard neo-classical style of house typical in England at the time. That way, anyone seeing it from a ship would know that it was an English settlement that they were approaching.

I was excited to find out that the George Street Festival would be taking place while we were in town.  George St. is where a lot of the pubs, and live music venues are.  Once a year they close off the street and have a festival, with lots of outdoor music.  We rested in the afternoon so we would be able to stay out past 7 pm, then made our way to George Street.

Well, this is an outdoor festival, right?  So, who knew that they would sell out?? So, not only could we not go to the festival, we couldn't even go to George Street, since it was all closed off.  And most of the surrounding restaurants were overloaded with people, so we had to walk a bit to find one with a reasonable wait time.

  

We finally found The Keg, where I was able to sample the local beer, made here in St. John’s with actual water from icebergs.  (once we got the bill, $$, we knew why the wait wasn't as long!)  The food was delicious though, and we got to eat outside on the heated patio.

view of St. John's from Signal Hill

One of the other things St. John’s is known for is Signal Hill.  Sitting on the coast, overlooking the city, this fortification has been used to protect the city of St. John’s since the 1600s. 

  
For many years, the English and the French fought back and forth for control of St. John’s, both countries wishing to control the lucrative fisheries in the area.  Nowadays, several times a week, a 40 minute “Tattoo” is held that showcases the military history of the area.

Back in the day, the signalmen would use several types of signals,  including cannon fire and flag raising, to alert the townspeople to anything they needed alerting to- from the approach of an enemy to the arrival of a merchant ship.

One important signal was the 12 noon cannon shot.  Being seafaring folk, knowing  the correct time was essential to the inhabitants, since when navigating ocean waters, using the incorrect time could put a vessel way off course. The 12 O’clock cannon shot still takes place (although, according to our cell phones, they were off by a full two minutes!)

In December of 1901, a different but equally important, kind of signal took place at Signal Hill.  It was here that Guglielmo Marconi received the first wireless transatlantic signal, sent from Cornwall, England.

There are actually quite a few hiking trails in the area of Signal Hill,  and Paul and I spent one afternoon exploring them.  Our progress was somewhat  hindered by the fact that the trail was bordered by thousands of ripe blueberries!









Oh, and I lied.  I said we’d stop in Central Newfoundland and explore other areas on our way back and after spending one day in Terra Nova National Park, we elected to continue all the way back to Gros Morne National Park, where we really hope to hike to the top of the mountain. 

Terra Nova NP is mostly wilderness and although we did hike one interesting trail, the weather forecast called for rain again so we decide to spend the rainy day driving.

Bonavista Peninsula, NL (08-04-13)

Bonavista and Elliston

Another day, another scenic drive. I was a little leery about driving all the way up the Bonavista Peninsula because I was thinking that coastline is coastline, and I wasn’t sure what we could see that would be much different.  Plus, Paul is fighting a cold and I wasn’t sure he wanted to spend another day driving.  (yeah, I could have offered to drive, but I didn’t think that would make him feel better!) 

  As it turned out, I really enjoyed our day. We spent the morning in the town of Bonavista, touring the Ryan Family Premises- a collection of buildings from the 1800s that give both a history of the town of Bonavista, and of the island of Newfoundland.

Cod fishing had been the largest industry on Newfoundland since Europeans first settled here.  Part of the museum showed how the small communities survived in the early days. Most of the cod was salted to preserve it, so it could be shipped to Europe.  It was quite a process to salt the fish and dry them out on the flakes, so they could be shipped.

  Much like the mining industry, the cod fisherman became indebted to the merchant who sold them the supplies that they needed to fish.  The merchant would then “own” the fisherman’s catch.  It was a vicious cycle-for the fisherman. Pre World War II this area was run almost completely on a barter system.  If a family needed something, they either made it, or traded for it. In fact, Cod became known as the Newfoundland currency. Money served no real purpose for them.

During World War II, jobs were created nearby that provided a paycheck, and that barter system began to change.

Over the years, this area was so overfished that Cod began to disappear, and in 1992, with the number of Cod at a critically low level, Canada closed the area from Grand Bank to Labrador to Cod fishing.  The result was the largest industrial layoff of personnel in Canadian history.

After touring the museum to our heart's content, we ate at a restaurant on the water.  Our timing was great- just after one bus full of people, and right before the next.

We continued driving the coastline after lunch, and enjoyed the rugged look of the coast. They don’t call this island “the Rock” for nothing!

It was on the way to the town of Elliston that we saw more whales, and the town itself is home to a large population of Puffin.

It was a long day, with a long ride home but definitely worth the drive.

Trinity

On the other side of the peninsula lies Trinity. This town has reinvented itself by restoring many of its old buildings, and catering to the tourist industry.

There are 5 buildings that you can tour, but after having just done Bonavista yesterday, and looking at the price tag of $15 per person, we decided to admire the buildings from the outside. 

Still, we walked around the town and enjoyed the atmosphere. We were supposed to be hiking, but the weather didn’t cooperate in the morning. It seems that it rains almost every day here on Newfoundland, then clears up (usually) in the afternoon.

    Sure enough, the weather cleared enough in the afternoon for us to do our hike.  The Skerwink Trail is rated one of the top trails in North America by numerous magazines and organizations, including National Geographic, so we were really anxious to see it for ourselves. Its only about 3.5 miles long, and not very difficult, so many people can enjoy it. After the morning rain, it was a bit muddy though.

This is another place to see whales from shore, and I admit I was disappointed that we didn’t see any.  Seeing an Eagle was a nice consolation prize, but I really would have loved to have seen a whale burst out of the water!

 

We watched the eagle until he flew off to the opposite shoreline.

The trail led us to one great view after another.

This is one of those places where pictures just do not do it justice.  The views were amazing and the sounds and smells of the ocean, combined with the fragrant pine trees added to the overall experience.

As we rounded the final bend, we could see the town of Trinity off in the distance.

That’s all the time we had for central Newfoundland this time around.  We needed to head to St. John’s, the only large city on the island.

Central Newfoundland-Part 1 (08-03-13)

Why “Part 1”? 
There are several ways to tour Newfoundland.  One way is to arrive in Port aux Basque on the short (6) hour ferry ride, see everything you want  along the drive over to St. Johns, on the other end of the island,  then take the long (14) hour ferry ride back to Nova Scotia from Argentia.  The advantage to that ferry is that it runs overnight, and you can rent a sleeping cabin (if they aren't sold out) and spend the entire crossing sleeping. 



The disadvantages are that, even accounting for fuel to drive back across the island,  it costs more, plus, we would have to deal with no propane to the refrigerator for 15 hours, and the cat would be alone in the rig the entire time- not that he would care.

   I will say that for me, there was another consideration.  As much as I love boating, and cruising, for some reason, having my home and all my worldly possessions on the ship with me bothers me- 

especially after watching this video:

(If you can't see it,  the video is of the ferry being tossed around like a twig)

So, we elected to keep our trip to the shorter ferry ride, and instead of seeing everything we want on the way to St. Johns, we are only seeing half and we’ll see the other half on the way back.  I also insisted on booking our ferry ride two days ahead of our “drop dead, gotta get off the island' day, just in case the weather is nasty. Anyone watching Canadian news may have noticed that a Newfoundland ferry ran aground the other day-while leaving the dock. Of course, its the one we were going to be on, so now they are scrambling to figure it all out.
(Update- they have now canceled all the sailings from Argentia so that they can use that boat at Port aux Basque. Anyone who was booked on the Argentia ferry for the next two weeks will have to be accommodated  on the Port aux Basque ferry.  Now I’m Really glad we decided to go the short route!)

   Anyway, so Rte 1, the main road that runs across Newfoundland doesn’t detour much into the many peninsulas along the way, and we have been in RV parks along route 1 and then day tripping up to the scenic drives along the peninsulas.

Our first outing was to the town of Twillingate, where we hiked a trail called “Top of Twillingate Trail”.  It was about 4 miles round trip, and the trail needed some maintenance, but the views at the top were worthwhile.  Twillingate is part of “Iceberg Alley” .  During Iceberg season, this is a prime place to come and watch the bergs. 

Driving along the coast, the views were truly amazing.

  This is also a prime area to see whales from the shoreline, and it’s where we first saw whales but weren’t able to get a picture.

On the Lookout (08-01-13)

There are certain things that are fairly easy to find on Newfoundland, that may be more difficult to find in other places.  Those are the things we have been on the lookout for in our travels.  What are they? Whales, icebergs, moose, and Puffin.

Moose

Let’s start with moose.  I mean, seriously, there is one moose for every 6 people here on the island.  How hard can they be to find?  They are so common, some of the highways are equipped with moose sensors, that alert drivers by flashing lights when moose are on the highway. Of course,  they weren’t flashing when we went by (twice).

  Every road we drive on seems to have prime moose habitat along the sides. Don’t the moose know this an excellent place for them to be?

We even drove down some brain-jarring, spine rattling dirt roads, just to increase our chances of finding some of these elusive creatures.

We finally did see a moose- actually a cow and her calf, while on the hike at Western Brook Pond. I couldn’t get a picture of the calf though.










Puffin are birds that look like a cross between a Toucan and a penguin.



 

They are actually easy to find because they hang out at the same places all the time- one of those places is the town of Elliston- so all we had to do is go there and see them. 

They are absolutely adorable when they fly- I expected them to seem out of place in the air, like a penguin would be, but they fly pretty fast. 

Icebergs

Iceberg season is really over at the end of June, so we weren’t sure we’d get to see one. You can take a boat tour out to see whales and Icebergs, but we really didn’t want to do that because we knew that the boats weren’t finding any icebergs anyway.  On the way to Labrador, we stopped at a visitor center, and she told us about an iceberg that was floating around a harbor.

  Lucky for us, it happened to be on our way, so we kept a sharp eye out. 

As far as icebergs go, its not a very big one, but this late in the season, I felt very happy that we were able to see one at all!  As a side note, the people from this area were some of the first to respond when the Titanic sank.

Whales

Last but not least, the whales.

Newfoundland has lots of coastline. More than 10,000 miles of it, I believe, and whales live here all summer long.  Again, you can take a boat tour, but you can also watch the whales from shore, so everywhere we go, we are on the lookout for the telltale “blow”.

We saw whales Friday, but they barely came out of the water at all, and were so far away, we didn’t get any pictures.

Saturday was better, but not by much. These whales were very close to shore, there just happen to be no roads in the vicinity. There was a small pod of whales feeding just offshore. At least I got a picture of the tail!

This picture actually has two whales in it- a fin showing on the left, and another whale blowing thru its blowhole on the right.  Yeah, I’d like to get close enough to get better pictures!

We’ll still keep a sharp eye out to see if we can find more whales, moose and puffin ( the icebergs are a lost cause at this point) but at least we got to see them once!