The end of the trip

We flew back to Ottawa today. I'm glad to be home, but it was a great trip. I'm thankful for all the people we met who provided accomodations, food, information, gas, entertainment, and simple kindness. They helped us discover some of the beauty and pleasures of Newfoundland. Cheers!

Crafts and coffee

Relaxing in St. John's is pretty easy, especially with so many crafts and souvenir shops to visit, and a supply of coffee. We took a break at a café called Rocket.

In the big city

We drove from Trinity to St. John's yesterday. We plan to spend a couple of days here before going home. I think I've seen enough gorgeous icebergs, ocean, forest, heath, puffins, and tidy villages and towns for now. Yesterday we walked the waterfront, George Street pub central (during the quiet daytime), and some shops. Today we visited The Rooms provincial art gallery and museum, which was a beautiful building, great spot for lunch, and had very good displays. From Signal Hill we had great views of the city and harbour.

Skerwink trail

Yesterday we saw whales and these moose. We also toured some of the historic sights of Trinity, a specially preserved town full of old-time buildings. I had fish tacos for dinner and G had pan-fried cod with fresh green salad.

Puffins etc.

G got a great shot of puffins yesterday at Elliston. They flew over from their colony on the island to take a closer look at us.

Today we walked the Skerwink trail, about 5 km, in bright sun. We saw more whales from the clifftop trail, and on the way back through a flat area we saw a mother moose and a child moose. Moose total is now six. Happy Canada Day!

Animals and the people who watch them

On Monday, we toured around the area with a couple of goals in mind: see puffins, and see whales. We succeeded, thanks to directions from other tourists and our B&B hosts to the specific places on the coast where they could best be viewed. The tiny town of Elliston has a puffin colony on a big rock just off shore. We could watch them easily through binoculars and a few came over to see us. A spit of land had good whale viewing from shore. The humpbacks and minkes are about feeding on capelin. It was really hard to get any kind of photo of them from the distance, but we saw many. 

Traipsin' to Trinity

Yesterday provided a full day to explore in and around Twillingate. We walked to the top of some high cliffs, watched a fisherman check his lobster traps, visited two museums, and watched Colombia beat Uruguay while eating dinner in a local family style restaurant. Twillingate claims to be the iceberg capital of Newfoundland, and I have to admit, there were a lot of them. One privately run museum had a full sei whale skeleton along with displays about the old style of family fishing operations. Today we drove to Trinity a few hours down the road. We stopped at the provincial Beothuk Interpretation Centre early on, where tools that were used by First Nations people in the 1600s were found and are now displayed.