We’re staying at Waterford River Valley Campground in Mount Pearl, which is a suburb of St. John’s, Newfoundland. Yes, St. John’s is big enough to have a suburb, just. This is a pretty nice place for a commercial, urban campground.
Right next to our site is a trail that crosses a footbridge over the Waterford River. Though I must say, the “River” is smaller than Big Brook in Terra Nova. Not sure I get the names here.
The trail from the campground links up to this section of the Newfoundland T’Railway, which is part of the Trans Canada Trail.
Today we drove out to Cape Spear, the easternmost point in North America. This sign was there, point zero for the Trans Canada Trail.
And here am I, at the easternmost point. That’s it folks, it’s all water from here.
We noticed the rocks here were rounded, not fractured like at Cape Bonavista.
There are two lighthouses on Cape Spear. This is the modern one, in use today, that was built in 1955.
This is the original one, built in 1835 and the oldest lighthouse still standing in Newfoundland.
The lightkeeper’s quarters were in the square wooden structure that was built around the stone tower. It has been restored to the way it looked in 1839.
Having a tower in the middle of your house made for some unusual hallways.
The quarters were two floors…
though between the tower and the roof, the second floor rooms were a bit cramped.
Notice the sperm oil in the supplies. It was commonly used in the lights of lighthouses.
You could get a peek up to the top of the tower but that was closed off.
The residents had a nice view! (Bud and Matey are waiting for me at the green bench.)
From Cape Spear we looked across St. John’s Bay to Signal Hill. The tiny tower you see in the photo is Cabot Tower. The entrance to the harbour is just to the left of that hill.
We drove there next. The hill has a history of being used for defense and also, because it is so tall and so close to the city and harbour, for sending signals. The tower was built in 1897.
Signal Hill was also the place where the first transatlantic wireless signal was received by Marconi in 1901.
Today it offers trails for hiking, (can you see the Canadian National Park red Adirondack chairs?)
and great views of St. John’s and its harbour.
The harbour entrance looked really narrow. That boat is heading in.
I tried to capture it with this panoramic shot.
Our route back took us through the city past these colorful row houses…
and city hall. The front plaza has a stone plaque for km 0 for Trans Canada Highway 1; yep, we are all the way east!
We’ve been doing a lot of driving lately so today we stayed in the park.
We found a trail about 10 miles away that was short and moderately difficult. After a few hundred yards through the trees we came out on a rocky slope.
It was pretty steep, but not too difficult. We had come from those trees…
and we were heading to that bald knob.
Yes, those are stairs on it.
Thanks to these easy to see and informative trail markers I know this hill is granite. Another marker said the rocks were scored by glaciers. What was more remarkable to us was that in many places the rocks were polished smooth enough by the glaciers to shine in the sun. But my camera eliminated the reflection so I couldn’t capture that.
It didn’t take too long for us to reach the top.
We took a few minutes to rest…
and soak in the sun and views.
Then we went back down, which was actually more difficult.
On the way back we took a side road a mile and a half to Blue Hill. The overlook was just down a short path from the parking lot. This is the highest point in Terra Nova National Park at 653 feet.
It was a great day to see the park from there.
653 feet might not seem too high, but you are very close to the sea. Our last stop had a foot bridge over a bit of the bay and this jellyfish was just about to float under the bridge on the outgoing tide.
We needed to rotate the tires on the trailer. The man from the trailer next to us saw us working and came over. Thursday, when we started the second side, Dennis was right there helping. He noticed the wheel bearings were loose. This is everything left as Bud drove to town for more grease, because of course there was at least one thing we needed that we didn’t have. In any case, Bud got the grease, we checked all four wheels and found the leak in the tire that had been very slowly loosing air.
Friday morning while Bud took our tire in for repair I walked over to talk to Dennis as he was picking up to leave. His wife, Florence, stuck her head out. Since they are from Newfoundland I asked where they would recommend we go now that we had a sunny day. While chatting I asked them if they were born in Newfoundland. Oh yes, said Dennis, “my last name is Porter and I grew up in Porterville”. He asked me if we ever got to see an iceberg. We didn’t, we came too late in the summer. So Florence got a baggie and they gave me some of their stash of iceberg ice! And they let me take this picture.
They said it was worth it to go back to Bonavista in the sunshine, so we did. The rocks were even more beautiful.
The deep and narrow slots in this region are spectacular.
And this time we could see the light house.
We discovered a puffin colony right by the lighthouse. Their island was a bit further from shore than the one in Elliston, but it was easier to see them in the sunshine. I got to watch them with the binoculars, you could see them going in and out of the burrows they dig for nesting.
Florence and Dennis also recommended the Skerwink Trail, on the way back from Bonavista. They had hiked it and seen whales. This is another trail maintained by the people of Newfoundland.
It started as gravel and there were a lot of people there. However, on the north side it passed two capelin beaches. Capelin are a small, silvery fish that come here to spawn. Whales love them, so we decided to hike as far as the capelin beaches.
It went quite a ways along flat land, although with lovely scenery.
We passed a house with a garden with this ingenious woven fence.
The gravel ended at this sign. We took the coastal route.
Yes, there were high cliffs. And beautiful views.
But the trail was well maintained.
This is the first capelin beach.
There were a lot of peeks at the high cliffs,
and downright dramatic views.
We went as far as the next lookout where we saw the second capelin beach as well as Skerwink Head. But capelin season is over and there were no whales.
So we are planning to come back next year, arriving in mid-June. We want to be here in iceberg and whale season and we love the hospitality of the Newfoundlanders!
Monday we moved and set up camp here at Terra Nova National Park. There was a bit of sun in the clouds. I took this picture yesterday (Wednesday afternoon) and it’s the first sun we had seen since.
Tuesday was cloudy, cool and misty so we opted to take a walk on the two and a half mile trail around the campground. It started down this set of stairs. I thought the plain below was marshy, then I thought I was seeing rocks, not water.
When we got down there I found it was lichens. They’re piled up like snow around here.
This lovely mix of lichens and moss is right by our campsite.
The campground trail wound through some of the boreal forest here.
It afforded some views of the big brook next to the campground named “Big Brook”.
It eventually led us out to Newman Sound Day Use Area.
Moss and lichens were colonizing the conifer needles on this roof. They don’t require much to establish a foothold.
Steps then took us back to the campground level. A nice walk on a cloudy day.
Yesterday we decided to drive to Bonavista on the next peninsula, hoping the weather would clear by the time we got there. It didn’t. We discovered this statue of John Cabot, or Giovanni Caboto, an Italian navigator who sailed west for Henry VII of England making the first European landing in North America in 1497. On the 500th anniversary (1997) of his landing, Bonavista was selected as his probable landfall and this statue was dedicated there with Elizabeth II in attendance.
What we could see of the cliffs was quite dramatic and I took this video to capture the sight and the sound of the foghorn from the nearby lighthouse, which was invisible in the mist.
From there we drove to Elliston. We were looking for puffins. But first we found this memorial to the sealing disasters of 1914. Sealers went out in early spring into the ice floes. In the early 1900’s small boats were replaced with larger, sometimes steel, steamers that could penetrate the ice further. Wireless was available but not deemed worth the expense by most sealing companies. In March of 1914 a father and son captained two ships for two different companies. Abram Kean helmed the SS Stephano, a steel steamer. His son, Westbury Kean captained the SS Newfoundland, a wooden steamer, which had the wireless removed after the last year’s season because it didn’t increase the take.
The Stephano was able to penetrate further into the ice. On March 30 they located a herd of seals and raised a derrick to flag the Newfoundland. Westbury Kean could not get his wooden ship in to where his father was. The next morning he ordered his men onto the ice. They were to walk to the Stephano to find and hunt the seals and then spend the night, if they had to, on that ship. The morning was mild at 7 AM when the men set out. It turned bad and at 10 AM 34 men turned back. The other 132 arrived at the Stephano at 11:30 and were given a lunch of tea and hardbread. Captain Kean thought they had made it to his boat in two hours and at 11:50 sent the men back out on the ice to capture 1500 seals and return to the Newfoundland. It was snowing hard then and soon turned worse. The men had to abandon hunting but no longer knew where either ship was. The SS Newfoundland never blew the ship’s whistle because they assumed the men were safely aboard the SS Stephano.
The men spent that night on the ice. Many froze, the next day those who could kept walking. They continued through that night and were finally spotted crawling towards the ship on the morning of April 2. When help finally arrived 78 had died (one after being rescued).
Among the dead are the father and son depicted in the bronze statue at the memorial. Rueben Crewe had survived a sinking in 1911, after which his wife Mary persuaded him to give up sealing. But when their son, Albert John, turned 16 he wanted to try his hand at sealing, a rite of passage for Newfoundland’s young men. He begged and his mother relented if his father would go along to protect him. They were found frozen on the ice, the father embracing his son to try to shield him from the cold.
At the same time another sealing ship, the SS Southern Cross, sank with all hands lost. It was thought she was overloaded and trying to hurry through the blizzard to be the first ship back with her bounty. 173 men were lost on the SS Southern Cross.
As a result of these disasters new rules were imposed on the sealers. The ships had to carry a barometer and a thermometer, flares and wireless. And load limits were implemented.
But the little town of Elliston has not forgotten their loss.
Oddly enough, the other thing that Elliston is known for is root cellars. Here are three of the 133 known to be in this town of 315 people living in 148 houses.
They were constructed from the easily split local sandstone…
and used to preserve the precious cold weather vegetables like potatoes and cabbage that the townsfolk could grow.
The examples we saw were at the beginning of the short path out to see the puffin colony.
And yes, there were puffins, though with just my phone’s camera and in the mist and poor light I couldn’t get a very good picture. Still it was an interesting day despite the weather.
This morning we went back to the lookouts at Long Point Lighthouse to see if there were any whales around. There weren’t so we decided to walk some trails there. On a rocky trail we saw this view and the gentler trail below. We didn’t see an easy way down, so we decided to drive to a nearby parking lot and walk from there.
There were still some decent lookouts from the lower trail and Matey got to be off leash for part of the walk.
I did put him on the leash when the trail went by this drop-off.
Once we’d stretched our legs we set off looking for another whale watching site. We took a side route towards Too Good Arm (again those names). When we were close to the end of the road there was a turnoff with a sign for an overlook at Pikes Arm so we headed that way and found this trail with steps.
Lots of very nice steps.
This is the top of the first set of steps.
But we were still a long way from the top of the trail.
There were little sheds along the way, I think perhaps for tools or other supplies. Volunteers from Pikes Arm maintain this.
They even had a very nice, clean outhouse near the top.
The view on top was spectacular and the platform, railing and picnic table made it a great place to hang out. We were the only people there.
I didn’t think I could get a panoramic photo to do it justice, so I used my compass and took a picture to the south,
the east,
the north,
and the west. There was water all around.
When we were done soaking up the sun and sights…
we headed back down.
There wasn’t much of a town there, there were no shops selling souvenirs, no restaurants, nobody making any money from this.
We dropped a donation in their box and I signed the guestbook, thanking them for sharing this beauty with us.
I’m writing this at the dinette on a chilly rainy morning in Dildo Run Provincial Park, but don’t feel too sorry for me. I’m warm and dry and this is the view out the window.
Dildo Run is on route 340, which is called “The Road to the Isles” and for good reason. We are now on New World Island, having crossed Chapel Island and several small islands to get here. This view is from the entrance to the park looking over the water to where our campsite is. The little island is the one we see from our windows. This body of water is called The Coish. It runs from the Labrador Sea to the Bay of Exploits. (I love these names.)
Early this morning, before the rain came, we drove just under 20 miles; across South Twillingate Island and to the tip of North Twillingate Island and the end of route 340. It ends at Long Point Lighthouse.
There are some lookouts there and we were looking for whales. Alas there were no whales.
There were however more incredible views of the coast. Newfoundland has 6000 miles of coastline, and all of it that we’ve seen is gorgeous.
There was a fishing boat out there. Dennis, the Canadian Coast Guard person on duty, told us they were fishing for cod. Commercial fisherman can take 3,000 pounds per day on Friday, Saturday and Sunday from inshore waters. Pleasure craft can take 5 cod per person up to 15 cod per boat on the same days. The offshore cod banks are still closed to fishing after 30 years.
The sun was trying to come up, but the rain was coming, too. When it started to sprinkle, we left. Now we are “stuck” for a few hours in this pretty, private campsite.
We came back to the same KOA campground we were in last week, but because they were having a caravan of campers come in the only space they could give us for two nights was this “deluxe” site. It also has a cement patio and a patio table and four chairs. However, if you look closely you can see that we had to put 3 risers under each wheel on the driver’s side to get the trailer level. I would much rather have a level site than the other extras. Oh well, it’s still a nice campground.
Matey and I took a walk this morning. You need to turn your sound up for this one, because although you can hardly see the birds on the pond I’m pretty sure they were loons and they were calling.
And then I took this video, it’s hard to see, but it is fog blowing in the wind. That is something we’ve been seeing here, but we had associated fog with still days, so were surprised.
The day cleared and we took off for one last day to see the sights. We started with a short walk to see Southeastern Brook Falls.
The trail was nice…
with steps where you needed them.
And the brook…
took a pretty spectacular tumble.
Then we decided to see how far up the approach trail to Gros Morne we could get.
It was another well made trail, with rocks where little brooks crossed.
We were following a larger brook.
But as we went along it became apparent…
that we were getting closer to the wrong mountain.
After about a mile and a half we came to a bridge across the stream. We could see that the trail bent back towards Gros Morne at that point, but we decided we should hike back out.
Heading back we saw some nice views that had been at our backs.
I noticed this one piece of cloud left on a mountain.
After lunch we drove to Norris Point; it’s not far from the campground, where yet another Newfoundland road just ends. It sits on Bonne Bay and is a pretty little town.
It had one of the few marinas we’ve seen. I’m not sure what the large boat was doing, but it may well be just sitting there waiting for the right season for whatever fish they are after.
Tomorrow we leave the west coast of Newfoundland. I’ll let you know what we find as we go east.
If you don’t take the ferry to Labrador, the only way back from the north end of the Western Peninsula of Newfoundland is back down the road you came in on. So yesterday we drove back down.
On the way up we’d seen signs for two places that intrigued me. I looked up the information and we decided to stop at both on the return journey.
Our first stop was Flower’s Cove. There a short trail led to a group of thrombolites along the shore. The trail crossed Marjorie bridge. Built by the father and grandfather of Marjorie Myers in the early 1900’s, this bridge was the only way into the community on land. It was used by horses and carts, by dog teams and by Bombardier snowmobiles running up the coast, as well as locals on foot.
The thrombolites were pretty interesting. They are called living rocks, although these are 650 million years old and the bacteria and algae that accumulated the minerals to make these forms are long since dead.
There were a lot of them and they were big. That’s Bud standing among them.
I looked up more information on thrombolites. The sign said there is only one other place in which they grow, a place in Western Australia. That may be true of remnants this size, but I found there are about 13 places where they exist. One place where they are currently alive is Green Lake, east of Syracuse, NY. The information I found has these as much smaller and underwater. I’m not sure you could see them if you visited Green Lake State Park, but the park sounds worth a visit anyway.
The second stop we made was at Arches Provincial Park. This was a small park right along the coast. There was just room in the parking lot to leave the truck and trailer. By now the skies had cleared and the three stone arches waves have carved on the shore stood out against the blue waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence.
The arches are quite large. The information on the park asked that you not climb them, some kids did and gave scale to my photo.
I went down on the stony shore to take a picture through them.
There was a fourth arch, but it collapsed.
Every trip is an adventure. I am grateful we have the time to find some of the wonders that surround us.
We like to take back roads to see places that don’t all look alike. So much of America is strip malls, chain stores, and look alike housing developments.
So far, not Newfoundland.
The land on this western peninsula is pretty much conifer forests, lakes, streams and bogs,
or rock. The land and the harsh climate shape the communities.
Life obviously centers around the sea. Even the fishing boats look different to us. They are short compared to the superstructure, and ones we’ve seen up on land have very deep keels. The whole boat is as tall as it is long. I call them bobber boats and I’m guessing that they may not be real comfortable in heavy seas, but they are probably very safe in all kinds of weather.
There is so little dirt that signs and even utility poles are sometimes planted in rock filled cairns.
That may be why so many of the houses are a story and a half. They probably have only partially dug in basements. The homes mostly boast simple straight lines. Any large window areas are divided into smaller panes. There are no extras for curb appeal; these houses are built to provide shelter in cold weather and strong winds.
Styles differ, but straight lines, dark colors and bold bright trims predominate.
These neighborhoods have their own curb appeal.
Another thing we noticed is that the roads are lined with stacks of cordwood. I met a women who grew up around here and she told me that’s wood being dried for winter; and no, as far as she knows, no one ever takes wood that isn’t theirs, even though it’s often right along the right-of-way. Later it will be moved to woodsheds.
Perhaps strangest of all to us are these little garden plots we see here and there along the road. They are fenced and most are planted to potatoes. My local source said if folks don’t have soil at their house and want a bit of garden they look for a likely place along the road to make one. Mostly they grow potatoes or maybe some cabbage. And no, no one steals from someone else’s right-of-way garden.
The western peninsula of Newfoundland is definitely somewhere else, and that’s what we’re out here to see.
On the Roam Again 