Walking around Trinity

 Trinity is a beautiful little town to just walk around.

Just walking around.

Beautiful colours, beautiful buildings

Most of the buildings look like they were just painted yesterday.

Striking Church

This is a root cellar dug into a mound. The seem a little Hobbittish.

 

Brightly coloured Adirondack chairs wait invitingly in many yards.

Trinity NL

 In Trinity we stayed at "Rosewood Suites". We had a twin suite and Lily had a studio suite. It was an older building which has been updated to include modern conveniences.

After we settled in we went out for a little walk. Deb paused to sort something out and hung her purse on a fencepost, then we carried on. Later she realized that her purse was missing, but just assumed that it was back in the suite. She wasn't worried. When we returned to our room the purse was sitting on the table. No problem.

But... In the morning when we were packing the car the hostess popped out to ask if she had found her purse. A neighbour had found the purse and brought it to Rosewood. She had checked the name and put it in our room .

The hostess had explained: If they had not been able to find the owner, it would had been returned to the fence where it was found. She would have been able to walk out and pick it up in the morning.

Brigus NL (Rock Hard Build)

Because it was here and because we were hungry, we made a little stop in Brigus. This is the little town where they film "Rock Hard Build". It is a beautiful little place with hills and winding lanes. Most of the homes look like they have just been fixed up and repainted. A few look like they are just waiting their turn.

The deck level is lovely quiet little restaurant. The building is new and was built by the "Rock Hard Build" crew. We didn't even mind when a table of ten ladies came in and sat right next to us. They all started talking and laughing outrageously loudly at the same. It seemed like not one of them stopped shouting until we left. We had a lovely lunch.

 

This is the sturdiest picnic bench that I have ever seen (and there were several of them. This would be a lovely place to relax with a picnic lunch.

The harbour is quite small with only a few working boats.

Just a view of the harbour. I was intrigued by the desk in the house. The upper level has railings to keep you safe. On the lower level your safety is your own responsibility. Where the bench is, there is still a significant drop to the rocks, but here there is no rail.

This was the first place where we stopped for lunch, but the little dining area was closed. There were many vendors selling an amazing array of crafts.

Back to Saint John's

On our way home we stopped in a little community called Petty Harbour which is in Maddox Cove .

Lunch was at Chafes landing. It filled up very quickly an was apparently very popular. The sense is that they are quite well known for their seafood. I had a wonderful seafood chowder and Lily ate what she said were the best she has ever had.

Deb was not so lucky. She ordered cod cakes but then found out that they didn't have fresh cod, only salted cod - pass. Then she wanted some kind of moose dish but was told that they had absolutely no moose. She settled for macaroni and cheese, which she did say was extremely good.

Of course when we spotted this house we needed a picture.

Our next stop was at the Cape Spear Lighthouse National Historic Site. This is the furthest east you can go and still be in Canada (or even North America)

The plaque proves it.

Today was a learning day. I had no idea that a fort was built here during the Second World War. This was a gun emplacement protecting the entrance to Saint John's Harbour.

Saint John's was the most crucial staging area for supplies and weaponry that were sent to the allied countries to help them fend off the Germain war machine. Merchant ships loaded here and headed out past Cape Spear. Germain Uboats waited for them in the open water. These supply ships were safe as they began their journey, but were not once they reached the mid-atlantic. Many were lost, but many made it through.

Lily and I climbed the rock. There were very many steps and the wind was howling. As we neared the top, it became quite difficult to maintain our balance. Lily decided that the wind here was stronger than the storm that blew down so many trees in Peterborough. There were absolutely no trees growing up here.

Down below, Debby waited in the car. She said the wind was rocking the vehicle.

Let's say goodbye to Cape Spear. Turn the heat up in the car and go somewhere calmer. At the end of the day in Saint John's, the sun came out. Then all of the clouds went away (for the first time). It was still cold, but tomorrow promises to be a bright sunny day as we head to Trinity.

Bay Bulls, NL

 We were looking forward to today and anticipating that it would be one of the highlights of this trip. We drove about half an hour south to the little community of Bay Bulls. Here in Witless Bay we climbed aboard a tour boat and headed out towards the "Witless Bay Islands Park Reserve".

This just looked like something you would only see in Newfoundland.

Our chosen tour company

Heading out of Witless Bay. The water is still fairly calm and the sky is grey. The clouds are low but at sea level it is still very clear. The guide tells us that this is a wonderful viewing day. We are all bundled up (Brrr) and the wind is starting to pick up.

The guide sang us a wonderful song all about sailing out of this very bay.

Once out of the bay, the coastline becomes much more extreme. Somewhere out here we spotted our first whale. It was a minke and Lily was the first to spot it. She was promised a shot of screech, but she had to turn it down.

This picture is included here because we learned something new. If you are close enough, you can see a whale as it cruises below the surface and before it rises. It must be some kind of optical illusion, but the whale appears as a turquoise blur.

After the Minke we found two (or maybe three) humpbacks. The first was a baby.

Soon a larger mother humpback appeared beside the ship. The baby with her might have been the same we saw earlier.

Baby

Thar she blows. Notice the turquoise colour under the water

Soon we approached the Witless Bay Island and the air began to fill up with birds of several kinds.

These little guys are murres. They are not extremely good at flying so they seem to work harder getting started. They look very much like little penguins skipping across the surface.

The messiest spots belonged to seagulls.

These slobs apparently don't clean up after themselves.

Some individual birds flying around us and swimming around us were puffins.

The murres are not as messy as the seagulls. On the rocks they still look like little penguins.

The puffins dig holes in and around tufts of grass. Of all the birds here they seem to be the tidiest. This may be an illusion because because growing grass could easily hide a great deal. Puffins are quite small (six inches), so it is difficult to get good closeups very long lenses. Mine is only moderately long.

One of the natural predators is the black-backed seagull.

Murres (little penguins). When we turned back towards the bay we headed into the wind and into the waves. The boat was bucking wildly and it was very difficult to move around. Lily headed up to the bow and held on very tightly. As the ship bobbed and weaved her feet sometimes left the deck. This explained the signs around the bow that said "No Jumping". If you did jump into the air at precisely the wrong moment, you could land in the water.

Finally we made it safely back into the harbour. Even in this safe haven nature still holds  sway.

Saint John's, Newfoundland

 Once we arrived in Saint John's, we picked up our rental car and drove directly to the Alt Hotel. It is right on the harbour and it is very modern and very welcoming.

When we went to our room, we found wall -to-wall windows looking out on the water. 

From our window we could see the harbour and five different Coast Guard ship. The one right in front of us was Called "Terry Fox".

Of course we had to take a walk around town. This picture shows some "Jelly Bean Houses" and an amazing mural.

One of the main streets (Water Street) seems to be full of pubs.

And Breweries.

For dinner we went to an amazing Thai restaurant called "Gingergrass".

Here we have a picture of the lighthouse at the entrance to Saint John's Harbour (The Narrows).

This picture was taken from Signal Hill. On this spot, Marconi received the first Trans-Atlantic wireless signal from Cornwall, England. His antenna was held aloft by a kite and the first message was simply the code for the letter"S".

To the left is The Narrows (entry from the Atlantic) and to the right you see downtown Saint John's.

To the right of the harbour you can see the Coast Guard vessel "Terry Fox". Our hotel room was looking down on the deck of this ship.

Let's Try Newfoundland

 

The trip to Newfoundland began with waking up at 3 AM. The drive to Toronto was fairly uneventful. Who should be on the road this early in the morning. You would be surprised.

It has been years since we have been in Terminal 1 (Air Canada), so it took me at least 30 minute to find a washroom. The check-in machine would not print our boarding passes, so we had to get in a long line (another half hour, even though we had already checked in online yesterday). It turned out that the computer wanted us to pay for our seat selection (even though the seats had been selected and paid for three months ago - another half hour). When we went through security, one of my trays was flagged for secondary screening (I still don't know why - another half hour). Then Debby realized that her spare insulin pump had been passed through for screening and it was missing. Of course there was some panic, but it was a found and swabbed - another half hour).

Finally we got through security, but Debby had to eat so we stopped in a restaurant and watched the clock as our food seemed to take forever. It was expensive and it was okay and we finally made it to our gate just in time. First we got in the wrong line, but eventually we boarded the plane.