Our View From The Road

Checkout day….. Time to say goodbye to St John’s and get back on the road. We’re heading South on the Avalon peninsula, but first a shower, fill the fresh water tank & dump waste. The park showers are really very good albeit a bit small, as such I’m giving them 8/10.

Campsite teardown went smoothly and we’re driving off of our site at about 9:00am. We drive to Topsail Rd where we stop to restock on grocery items at the Sobey’s. Done. Now onto Tim Horton’s for breakfast. Done.

Stocked and fed we head out onto Route 10 which has the title “The Irish Loop”. We head toward Ferryland.

A lovely natural harbour, Ferryland was settled in 1621; however, by 1629 the town founder thought the prospects and conditions to be too harsh and so went back to England leaving the settlers to make it on their own. We visited the gift shop and inquired as to the lighthouse but discovered that it takes an hour to hike out and that today no picnic lunches were available. The tearoom in the village was also closed for the day.

Returning to Route 10, we continued to Portugal Cove South where we stopped to admire the large shingle beach. We then headed East towards the Cape Race lighthouse where we thought we might spend the night.

The road to the lighthouse is a wonderfully twisty road that rises up and down along the craggy coastline. It is paved for about half of its 20km length, the remainder being a wash boarded gravel road.

Arriving at Cape Race we find that the interpretive centre is closed, so we read the outdoor information boards that provide a short history of the lighthouse and life on the Cape over the years. We then took a walk around the lighthouse and admired the views out to the sea.

The winds are reminding us of Bonavista and we realize that with the seafog lingering just offshore and the winds be what they are, we are not likely to get a very good nights sleep. So we setup our Starlink dish and investigated alternate options for the night.

The Holyrood Interpretive Centre near St Vincent’s a little further along the coast seems to fit the bill so we pack up and head back toward Route 10 and continue Westward on The Irish Loop.

45 minutes later after some very uneven and potholed road we arrive in a very foggy parking area where there are already 6-8 campers parked up. As I write this, about an hour later there are at least 12 campers parked up for the night.

We’ve settled in and Barb is booking the last few nights of accommodation for us in Newfoundland. We have one week left before we cross back to Nova Scotia and there are still places to go and sights to see.

This campground is sooo quiet. We slept really well and took our time getting going today. We even enjoyed an outdoor pancake breakfast.

At around 10:30am we headed out and again using an Uber got a ride back to The Rooms where we would wait for the hop-on/hop-off tourbus. It arrived shortly before noon and we took it out to Cape Spear.

Cape Spear is the Easternmost point of Canada and has Newfoundlands oldest lighthouse. The sea fog was drifting about but when we arrived it was clear enough to get some pictures towards the entrance to St John’s harbour.

There are two lighthouses at the cape, the original from 1836 and a new automated light built in 1955.

Before we left the fog had rolled back in brought by a stiff Southerly wind.

The tourbus took us back into St John’s and dropped us near the harbour.

We then walked to the Mile 0 marker of the Trans Canada Highway (remember that I had mentioned a couple of days ago that the marker is in downtown St John’s and not at the physical end of the highway).

We then walked to Water St which for the Summer months has been closed to vehicular traffic and is currently a pedestrian street. Barb took some time to check out several shops along the street and then we stopped for lunch at The Celtic Hearth. I enjoyed a moose burger and Barb had a Lobster roll. We both had a beer to accompany our lunch.

The remainder of the afternoon was spent wandering along Water St looking in shops and taking interesting photos.

We ended the afternoon visiting the Terry Fox memorial which is located at the foot of The Battery at the North end of the harbour.

We wandered back toward the South end of the harbour and onto George St. unfortunately all of the bars were not yet open and so we could not get ourselves “screeched in”. As such we arranged for an Uber to return us to our campsite where we began organizing ourselves ahead of our leaving St John’s tomorrow morning.

We started the day with an Egg, Bacon & Homefries breakfast cooked outside on the griddle. Yummy, that’ll set us up for a day of exploring.

We decide to take the Hop-On/Hop-Off tour of the city as the tickets allow us two days of access meaning that we can use the buses to shuttle us about the city to visit all of the sights we want to visit.

So, after getting ready we arranged for an Uber to drive us downtown and headed out. The driver managed to drop us off 500m away from our destination as the downtown streets were all closed for a foot race.

We headed by foot past Jelly Bean Row and then down to Water St where we waited for our tour bus. The first stop on the tour was Signal Hill, so named as it was the location at which Guglielmo Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal. It is also the site of the deciding battle of the Seven Year war in which Great Britain won and took control of Newfoundland from France.

The Signal Hill tower is now managed by Parks Canada and is a very popular tourist attraction. Today it was busy and the parking lot had a constant stream of cars entering and leaving.

Barb had a moment when she got to sit with a beautiful Newfoundland dog. I capture this as shown below.

Returning to our tourbus we continue to Quidi Vidi, a small fishing village adjacent to St John’s. It is also the home of Quidi Vidi Brewery, the makers of, amongst others beers, Iceberg Lager. This lager is made with water extracted from icebergs and sold in blue glass bottles. We enjoy lunch and sample several of their beers before heading back to the tourbus.

Our last tour stop today was The Rooms, a modern museum/archive facility that overlooks St John’s harbour. We explore the exhibits and take some photos across the city.

We order another Uber to return us to our campsite where we spend the rest of the day relaxing.

Another wonderful night, this one by the sea. It rained lightly just before sunrise but did not last and by the time we were ready to leave our parkup the rain had stopped and the skies were beginning to lighten as sunshine is forecast for later in the day.

Before leaving the parkup we saw a whale offshore moving along the coast, this is our 3rd of the trip. We drove back to Heart’s Content, turned East and crossed the peninsula to Carbonear where we turned South on Route 75 towards the Trans Canada Highway.

A short time later we leave the TCH and head toward Avonmore where there is a small railway museum. Unfortunately it was closed when we arrived so we took a few pictures and headed towards Holyrood. Here we stopped at the beach and admired the view of Conception Bay. After refueling it was back to the TCH and onwards toward St John’s.

We arrived a little early to check into our campsite and so drove to the end of the TCH where we were greeted by nothing. Yep, 7500km of road and when you get to the end there’s no sign, nothing to say you’ve made it. Actually there is, but it’s not on the highway, it’s in downtown St John’s in a plaza, go figure?

Leaving the TCH we turn North and head to Middle Cove Beach where we manage to squeeze into a tight parking spot and then walk down to the beach.

It’s busy. It’s the weekend. The capelin are in. As such people are out with their nets and buckets catching capelin.

Capelin are a smelt-like fish that come to shore to spawn in sandy coves. They do this in the hundreds of thousands. Evidently the fish is a traditional delicacy, we have not tried them so cannot say.

Leaving the beach it was now time to check into our campsite and relax for the remainder of the day. We are staying at the Pippy Park Campground in the middle of the city. It is very well maintained and hopefully a good spot from which to explore. We’re here for three nights and are really looking forward to discovering what St John’s has to offer.

Our airport parking location proved successful and we had a really good sleep. This morning the parking lot appears to be a popular spot for car pool parking, hmmm. We prepare for the day and depart before 9:00am.

We drive through Clarenville and rejoin the Trans Canada Highway heading East where after about an hour we exit towards Dildo.

Arriving in Dildo we pass the Dildo Brewing Company but it’s a little early for a visit and so decide to go to the beach at Anderson’s Cove which is where we have planned to spend tonight. After locating the access road and driving VERY carefully down it to the beach we rethink our choice of spot for tonight.

Oh, the beach is lovely, nice grassy areas for parking and a very walkable pebble beach, but that road!!! It is gravel and steep and the potholes had potholes! Barb has to spend several minutes re-securing the inside of the cabinets and cupboards before we could go any further as everything had shifted. We exit via a second road which a local person on the beach had told us was in better condition. It was, but only marginally. We both are now rethinking coming back later. Nobody on iOverlander had mentioned the condition of the roads leading into the beach.

Leaving Dildo we head East across the peninsula and then North to Carbonear and stop at a small park that has some boards describing the towns history. Settled by the English the town has a long history of fishing and shipbuilding. The French unsuccessfully tried to capture the settlement during the seven year war in the late 1600’s.

We leave Carbonear and head back across the peninsula to Heart’s Content. We stop at The Cable House Market and pickup some bread and goodies. It is a lovely old-style grocery store in a really well preserved building.

Next, we visit the Hearts Content Cable Station. A historical site where the first trans-Atlantic telegraph cable came ashore in 1866. The museum appears as it did in 1965 when it was closed as telegraph cables were replaced with more modern ways of transmitting.

For almost 100 years Heart’s Content was a community of people providing critical support for all incoming and outgoing communications between Europe and North America.

Leaving Heart’s Content we drive South along the shore and just South of Heart’s Desire we see what appears to be the perfect parkup spot for the night. We mark it on a map and continue to the Dildo Brewing Company.

The afternoon is warm and sunny but sitting outside would have been chilly as the sea breeze was steady and so we opt for inside seating where we enjoy a light afternoon meal and sample a few of their beers.

We take a couple of orders of their seafood chowder to go, visit the gift shop and leave town returning northwards to the parkup near Heart’s Desire. It’s a 30min drive and as we arrive and pull in we realize that this was a brilliant decision. There is one other campervan and so we have lots of choice as to where to park. We chose a spot near the shore and settled in for the evening.

Tomorrow we head to St John’s for a few days.