Quick Notes from St John’s NL

The 16 hour ferry ride was mostly uneventful, we slept in our cabin and dined in the buffet dining area along with almost everyone else. We made friends with people in line waiting to board and ran into a them on our first day touring at Cape Spear National Historic Site. This is the locale of the easternmost point of land on the North American Continent. The actual point was not reachable due to construction, but there is an “alternate” point that is maybe a few feet from the furthest, but in reality waves and rocks would prevent getting to the actual point. We returned to the coach for dinner and took a break for the evening.

On Friday we set out to tour the “Irish Route” not really intending to cover the 312 K. We made it to Witless Bay where we booked a whale and puffin trip for later in the day and continued on down to Ferryland Light where we hoped to have lunch at Lighthouse Picnic. After the drive over a one lane gravel road and a .9 K walk (about 10 minutes) to the light house we found that advance planning was required and there was no way we could get our lunch and be back for the 3  PM boat ride. We stopped to look at some whales and returned to the Jeep and stopped at Tetley Tea House for lunch. The whale and puffin trip was way over the top in a Zodiac with about 14 of us on board.

Entering a sea cave
Backing Out, end of trip

I don’t need to identify the puffin and whale tail for you 🙂

We returned to St John’s with the idea of walking through the entertainment district and getting some dinner. There is a major street festival on and we thought we might take it in. It appears to be mostly loud music and drinking so we stayed outside the venue and started to walk along the other venues. We heard a shout directed at us and and saw a woman we had met on the ferry leaning out of the Shamrock. We had had a long talk with Jennifer and Greg on the boat and decided to join them in the pub. Greg is retired Canadian naval Intelligence. We had a lovely 90 minutes shouting over the Irish/Newfoundland music (along with everyone else). Before we parted. The music sounded a lot like the sound of “Come From Away”. We found a quieter place for dinner before returning for the night. 

Today, Saturday, we will get on the Killick Loop.