So where was I? Heading out of Iceland bound for St John’s, Newfoundland. St John’s which was founded in 1497, is one of the oldest cities in North America and is capital of Newfoundland-Labrador. It’s located in the region of Avalon, the little squiggly bit in the east of the Province poking out into the Atlantic. We were looking fwd to wild windswept cliffs looking over the Atlantic, the wildlife etc ..... ‘Shipping News’, 50 shades of grey! We found it - almost, the weather was unseasonably warm and sunny.
We took a couple of tours along the north east coast including Cape Spear, the most easterly point in North America. And no, it’s unlikely that we’ll get to its opposite number in the west of North America.
St John’s and Newfoundland-Labrador has quite a history. From the Portuguese, French and British after cod fish for hundreds of years - rock salt locally mined was critical to the cod industry and dried salted fish was exported all over the world -, Italian inventor Marconi received the first transatlantic wireless signal here at? ‘Signal Hill’! The Germans mined iron ore out of the 600 million year old iron rock until WWII! and during the war giant cannons were mounted at Cape Spear.
Although the city is expanding north and south along the coast, Downtown is very quaint, houses are built of timber and they are painted all the colours of the rainbow. Then we hopped on a bus to take us via the scenic route passed the famous Gander to Port aux Basque some 13 hours west there to take a 7 hour ferry trip to Nova Scotia. We went from a largely Irish-French heritage to a Scottish-French heritage.
It was an interesting bus trip passing by steep mountains, rocky outcrops, forests of Spruce, Birch, Larch and wild flowers galore. The island seems water logged with large expanses of bogs, ponds, rivers and lakes. No wonder it’s green! And it is still rising out of the ocean, rebounding a few cm a year - a hang over from the last ice age and the subsequent melt.
The crossing to Nth Sydney yesterday was calm - the calm between storms! A tropical cyclone is expected to hit later today as we head NW to New Brunswick.
A bientot!
All houses are timber and they can choose their own colour. In fishing villages they paint their houses the same colour as their boat/s. Easy to ID who owns what!
Jelly bean row. The colours are vibrant - so lovely not seeing dull ‘heritage’ colours everywhere.
Pink of the Newfoundland flag for the wild Irish rose
The breeze was not behaving but I included this pic to show you the original Newfoundland-Labrador flag - pink green and white. Newfoundland was called Vinland by the Vikings - a land of vines, but actually they were berries. Newfoundland-Labrador was once a colony and its flag was white for the wild English Rose, pink for the Irish rose and green for the trees of the region. You still see it flying particularly in the small villages.
White for the wild English Rose
And green for the trees, but there are abundant berries. This is Alder and they make wine with these. They also make many different berry wines.
The port of St John’s is very deep so large commercial vessels come and go with their loads. Big cruise ships also can dock. It’s an interesting port with piles of rock salt awaiting loading.
The wee harbours and bays are extremely picturesque. Many of them have been the location for a number of movies. This is Petty Harbour.
This is Cape Spear. Quite rugged. The rocks extend many kilometres out to sea.
Not the guns of Navarro, the guns of Cape Spear. They were raised from their hidey hole by huge lead counter weights
We walked through some of the tunnels where 1200 soldiers were based during the war. All open and airy now but I can imagine the air would have been fetid and damp back then. It reminded me of the rabbit warren of tunnels inside Gibraltar.
Quidi Vidi harbour. Very quaint. The morning was calm and the reflections beautiful - the silence created a special feeling about the place. There were once large fish plants here but no more.
These tiny structures are called Stores. They are where fishermen keep their tackle etc. I reckon they’d make a rather cute weekender.
Logy Bay where Caplin spawn - caplin are similar to sardines, .
Logy Bay where I wandered looking for the right colour and shaped glacial stones to put in my pockets as Worry Stones.
Torbay. The colours of the cliffs fascinated me.
This is Flat Rock where the fishermen could easily haul their boats up beyond the high tide mark. It is also the place that saw a visit from the Pope. The people built a religious grotto in honour of the visit.
Pouch Cove I believe the most northerly settlement on the NE coast. Very rugged.
We’re on the bus travelling across the island of Newfoundland to get to Port aux Basque. Love these signs! We didn’t see any moose (or taste any meat!) but there are supposedly around 100,000 moose on Avalon Peninsula.
The ferry was bigger than the little expedition ship we had sailed in a week or so earlier!
The island of Newfoundland is on the right with St Johns and Avalon on the extreme right. Nova Scotia and the Cape of Breton are on the left, the Arrow marks North Sydney where the ferry docks.
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