Newfoundland

I finally made it to the "Rock" as Newfoundland is often called.  Irene, the boys and myself spent 8 days there,  starting and ending at St. John's.  Like most people who visit the island, we rented a car.     St. John's is a small city, perfect for walking. It's a historical city as well  and the row houses have a lot of character in their brightly painted colours.  We walked up to the famous Signal Hill, a high mount at the narrow entrance of the harbour overlooking the sea. Later, we drove to the most eastern  point of North America to Cape Spear, another rugged coastline of grass, cliffs and rock with a lighthouse perched on a hill.

Cape Spear

Quidi Vidi

Our road trip brought us first to the southern coastline of the Avalon Peninsula, to the spectacular bird sanctuary of Cape St. Mary. It was a foggy ("faawggy" as Newfies say) day as we walked up to the cliff were thousands of gannets, murs and kittiwakes are perched on a massive rock that is overflowing with piercing, diving and scrambling birds from edge to edge.

We drove back north, through small  coastal towns with somewhat odd names like Argentia and Placentia before stopping at a campground for a night in the tent.  Being from the Prairies,  I love the wind.  The wind in Newfoundland however is legendary and for the next two sunny days, it was blowing hard, white caps on the water, trees and grass swaying rapidly.  

Next stop; Twillingate, a picturesque town surrounded by coves and islets and known as 'iceberg alley'.  Sure enough, we saw a few of them close to shore and some massive ones far off on the horizon.  It was a good thing we brought our camping gear as all the BnBs and guest houses were full (and expensive) in this, their three month tourist season. After setting up the tent, we explored the town and watched a spectacular sunset from another lighthouse high on a hill, cliffs dropping to the sea.  We saw the spray of a few whales below and the howling wind made amazing patterns on the surface of the water.  Of course we ate some local cod in the form of fish and chips and the seafood chowder was excellent. 

We then drove west across the island to Corner Brook,  where my cousin David and his wife Marlene live.  It was great to see them after many years and just in time as well since they are in the process of moving to Ontario, having both retired from teaching fine arts at the local university here.  Another day exploring some coves at the end of the road, on the western coast. Yet again, massive cliffs dropping to the sea below.

Our last two days we spent in Gros Morne National Park.  We did a short hike to the famous Tablelands rocks,  a barren series of mountains with plateaus that emerged from the Earth's mantle, below the crust, when the tectonic plates collided.  Apparently there is only one other place in the world, Australia,  that has this same collection of peridotite rock, where nothing can grow due to the high amount of magnesium and other heavy metals in the rock.

Unfortunately, we did not have enough time to explore the many other remarkable geographical sites Gros Morne has to offer, but we still got an idea of how impressive this coastline is just by driving through its fjords and stopping in some its small towns.  By looking at some of the tiny fishing villages, little shacks on side of the sea,  one can imagine how life would have been, on this rugged, often remote coast before there were roads that connected it all together.   As Marlene told us, the Newfoundlanders are a very resourceful people. If anything happened to the grid she said, this would probably be the place where people would get by the easiest.  

It was a sunny day for our long drive back to Saint John's.  One last night in a comfortable suburban home, thanks to AirBnB,  and one last amazing cinnamon bun at the best bakery in town, before catching our flight back westward, across the country to the other coast.   I will most likely come back to Newfoundland to spend more time hiking its spectacularly rugged and wild coastlines and mountains.