The skies were bright blue, the sun was shining, and we set off on our first day’s investigating in Newfoundland! Although we had planned to do “in town” stuff, we have learned very quickly that fog, wind, and rain are the norm. Sun is not. In fact, we met a chap on Miquelon who said he had done the race 9 times, this was his tenth, and it was only the second time that he had not run in the rain! So, we headed out on the Baccalieu Trail. This took us up the scenic west side of Conception Bay through endless tiny fishing villages with names such as Brigus, Cupids, Harbour Grace, Spaniard’s Bay, and Carbonnnear. In Brigus, (population 780) we visited Hawthorne Cottage which is where the well known arctic explorer, Robert Bartlett was born and raised. We also saw the “Brigus Tunnel, which was cut through the rock for a distance of about 30 feet by the Brigus family to allow provide direct access to the Bartlett’s ship on the other side. This was also the town where the famous American painter Rockwell Kent lived during WWI. As the story goes, he was quite eccentric and his behaviour got him deported on suspicion of spying for the Germans in 1915. The town itself maintains much of its 19th Century atmosphere. It is very picturesque and definitely upscale. Cupids is the oldest English colony in Canada and was settled in 1610. Harbour Grace is the home town of Danny Cleary, the Detroit Redwings No. 11, who incidentally is in MacDonalds in Sydney tomorrow afternoon signing autographs! The other interesting fact about Harbour Grace is that it is where Amelia Earheart, departed from in 1932 bound for Europe . She gained the distinction as the first woman to fly solo in a non-stop flight across the Atlantic Ocean. And Harbour Grace is also where we had our inevitable conversation with the ponies! I believe it is also the town where the pirate Peter Easton lived for a while, but I don’t know too much about him.
The northern shores of the Peninsula are stunning. They are barren, windswept, cliffs. Here we visited Bay de Verde, a stunning little village, but didn’t quite make it to Graves Cove as we were running out of time….and light.
The Eastern shores in Trinity Bay were more thickly forested, had fewer villages, less coves, and a much softer and kinder topography. The towns were delightful and included Hearts Content, Heart’s Desire, and Heart’s Delight. Then of course we had to go into Dildo.
The drive took us about 8 or 9 hours and we were quite exhausted when we got back to St. John’s. We had traveled windy coastal roads, along rocky cliffs, manoevered around deep pot holes and broken roads, amazed at the numerous and well presented churches, and seen an iceberg, However, we still had enough energy to try out Bridie Molloy’s an Irish pub on the famous party lane George Street. It was very pleasant, but quite tame. I guess it was a Monday and a holiday for Jean le Baptiste Day.
I hope the pictures tell some of the tales.
The northern shores of the Peninsula are stunning. They are barren, windswept, cliffs. Here we visited Bay de Verde, a stunning little village, but didn’t quite make it to Graves Cove as we were running out of time….and light.
The Eastern shores in Trinity Bay were more thickly forested, had fewer villages, less coves, and a much softer and kinder topography. The towns were delightful and included Hearts Content, Heart’s Desire, and Heart’s Delight. Then of course we had to go into Dildo.
The drive took us about 8 or 9 hours and we were quite exhausted when we got back to St. John’s. We had traveled windy coastal roads, along rocky cliffs, manoevered around deep pot holes and broken roads, amazed at the numerous and well presented churches, and seen an iceberg, However, we still had enough energy to try out Bridie Molloy’s an Irish pub on the famous party lane George Street. It was very pleasant, but quite tame. I guess it was a Monday and a holiday for Jean le Baptiste Day.
I hope the pictures tell some of the tales.
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