Friday, July 20, 2018

Home again, home again

We left Montreal early this morning on our way home.
Our total trip from leaving home on July 2nd until today covered 7.650 Kilometres.

What a wonderful trip it was.
I can't say enough about the people we met on the trip.
Everyone in Newfoundland, and New Brunswick and Nova Scotia, for that matter, were so friendly.

As we spent more time in Newfoundland, we remember those people so well.
The folks at the information centres (where we did spend some time) and the people at the B&B's, as well as the staff in the many restaurants and bars were so informative and friendly, that it made our experience so fantastic.

We did hit a lot of traffic when we got to Toronto, so, much to Joe's reluctance, we took the 407 home.

Arrived home around 1:30 to find we did not have a key to our house.
Fortunately our friends Barb and Steve had a key to our place.
So we did get in, unloaded the car, rested for a bit, and are ready for our next adventure.

Just to be fair, one of us did forget HER eyeglasses in a hotel room, which are fortunately being forwarded.
But the other one of us, HIM forgot to take.....car keys for the trip.  Fortunately his lovely wife had hers. And secondly HE forgot to take our house keys. Just saying.

See y'all next time we travel.

Thursday, July 19, 2018

Off to Quebec

We left the beautiful town of Woodstock, on our way home.
Everything was packed away, (more about that later) and off we went.

The drive through New Brunswick was very quiet with hardly any traffic. We made good time and were soon in Quebec.
I am sure you all know the Quebec flower, bird and tree. Oh, maybe you don't. Well, for those not as sharp as us, the flower is the blue flag, the bird is the snowy owl, and the tree, of course, is the yellow birch.

It was time for lunch and we remembered how much we enjoyed the restaurant in St Jean-Port-Joli on our 1st day of the trip.
So we went to that same place, The Bistro OK, and Bonnie had a veggie burger and I had an original burger. Excellent.

For those who forgot, I will add the same picture of the restaurant as in our 1st blog post.


On our way west toward Quebec City and Montreal.
A little before Montreal, the traffic came to an abrupt halt. Stop and go for an hour or so and then stopped again under the tunnel, just outside Montreal.
Finally, we made it just past Montreal and we thought, that was it for the night.
We checked into the Holiday Inn Express, got a bottle of wine and settled in for the night.

Bonnie got ready for bed grabbed her kindle and was ready to read.
Remember the earlier note of packing up all our stuff in Woodstock. Well, one of us could not find HER glasses. You guessed right, they are still in Woodstock, New Brunswick. About 800 km away.

Fortunately, they found them and will mail them back to us.
Oh well, I reckon these things happen!!!!

Tomorrow we will head home to Mount Hope.

Wednesday, July 18, 2018

Back in New Brunswick

The ferry from Digby to St John left at 11:00 AM.
The ship was called the Fundy Rose and was terrific. There was a bar, restaurant, movie theatre, cafe and many other amenities.

I am still wondering how a large ship made of steel and cement, with a hundred cars, trucks and RVs as well as all the people, can stay afloat, when my golf ball, weighing a millionth of that sinks whenever there is water around.
The trip to St John lasted only about 2 hours and we landed just after 1:00 PM. We were in St John and on our way.

We stopped for the night at Woodstock. No, not that Woodstock. No music or hippies.

Checked into the Knights Inn, and headed to downtown Woodstock for a pre dinner drink.
Barking Squirrel Draught for me and strawberry daiquiri for Bonnie. Sound familiar?

A picture of the deck, which is on the St John River, where we had our cocktails.


Dinner was a bag of pretzels for me and a bag of popcorn for Bonnie.

Tomorrow, we will make our way into Quebec and should be home by Friday.

Tuesday, July 17, 2018

On the Ferry to North Sydney

We had a leisurely breakfast at The Murray Premise and then headed out.
The drive from St John's to Argentia is only about 2 hours. Just an easy drive.

The distance from Port Aux Basque to Argentia is about 900 kilometres via the Trans Canada highway.  It took us 2,865 kilometres to do that trip. There was a lot of up and down, and over and out on the trip.

The ferry leaves from Argentia, but the town is actually Placentia. Apparently there is no town of Argentia anymore. I realized that was why Argentia would not come up in my GPS.

As we were early for our 5:00 PM departure, we looked around Placentia Bay.
The 1st picture below shows some boats in the harbour, and the next one, just to the right of the boats, and all you can see is fog. It is clear at first, and then the fog literally rolls in and you cannot see anything in just 5 minutes.



With an average of 206 days per year of fog, I guess that is to be expected.

We had time to check out Castle Hill. Castle Hill overlooks Placentia Bay. The French government founded a colony there in 1662. They called the colony Plaisance. They were attracted here by large quantities of codfish, highly prized in Europe. From Castle Hill, they were able to defend the colony from the British.

You can see the cannons that helped defend the Bay, as well as some pictures of the Bay from Castle Hill.




Placentia proved to be a poor choice for the French colonists.
Despite the successful fortifications at Castle Hill, Placentia had serious problems.
The British could blockade the bay fairly easily, and thus the French colonists had limited access to basic supplies. The French colony was destined to fail.
And that's why Plaisance became Placentia!!!

On our way to Digby, (while still on Cape Breton Island) we noticed a couple of signs that said,
Caution: Beware of blowing snow. I checked the outside temperature gauge in the car and it said 28C.
I guess that's why the maritime folks say "if you don't like the weather, wait 5 minutes"

Time to head to the ferry. Our ship is called the Atlantic Vision.
The picture is only the front part of the ship as it was too large for the camera.


What a wonderful ship. They have 2 restaurants, 2 bars, a movie theatre, and anything else you may want.
Our cabin, although a 4 berth, was booked for just the two of us.


We spent the evening in the colours lounge where a girl played music (singing, piano and guitar) from 6:00 PM until 11:00 PM.
The pictures below will show why the lounge is called the colours lounge.



A good nights sleep on the ferry, coffee and muffins in the morning, and we were on our way by 9:00 PM.
Only a 16 hour crossing. Wonderful.

Off to Digby. Now Digby is about 6 hour drive from North Sydney, and we arrived around 3:30.
Our B&B is called "Come from Away" and is excellent.
You may or may not know but Digby is the "scallop" capital of the world"
We went out for dinner and Joe had the scallops and Bonnie had the pasta!!!
The beer and wine were real good as well.

The 1st picture is from our B&B and the 2nd is from the restaurant where we had dinner.



Today was an overcast day for the most part. If tomorrow is any better, I will attempt some more pictures of the beautiful town of Digby.

Tomorrow morning we are off to get the ferry to St John, New Brunswick.  It leaves at 11:00 AM. Stay tuned.

Sunday, July 15, 2018

A Full Day in St John's

Today is our 1st full day in St John's. Unfortunately the weather is not co-operating, as we like sunshine, and not rain.
Our hotel, the Murray Premise is quite nice and right downtown.
We are steps (although uphill) from Water Street, which includes the Celtic Hearth for drinks, or the Rocket Bakery for fresh food, locally made jams, and a plethora of baked sweets.
Steps away (uphill again) is George Street with more bars in one block than anywhere else in Canada.
We did check out a couple of them.



George Street has entertainment in the bars every night. You can even be screeched in on most nights, if you really want to kiss a cod.

As this is our last full day in Newfoundland, we thought we would do a bit to driving around the area.


The day was overcast and sometimes raining when we left for Portugal Cove. The picture above is in that area, and about 20 seconds after this photo, the fog came in and suddenly you could not see the area right in front of us.
There is a ferry from Portugal Cove to Bell Island that leaves from this area.
Below is that area.


Back to the hotel to rest up and prepare for dinner.
Below is our hotel and also a view of the St John's Harbour.




Off we went to George Street (uphill all the way) to the bar district.
Dinner at Greensleeves (fish chowder) where the live music was quite good.
After that, we went to O'Reilly's for a nightcap and of course, more live music.
All in all, despite the weather, it was a very good day for our last full day in Newfoundland

Tomorrow we head to Argentia to catch the ferry back to North Sydney, Nova Scotia.

1st day in St John's

The trek from Bonavista to St John's is not real far, but we ran into some more lousy weather.
Not real bad, but a steady rain. Thank you Chris!!!!

We arrived in St John's just after 12:00 o'clock. We went to a new facility called "the rooms", that is a museum, housing many local artifacts, plus a restaurant overlooking the St John's harbour. We had lunch at the museum cafe.

The pictures are not up to our usual standards, but as we earlier noted, the weather was lousy.

This view of St John's harbour is from the cafe at the museum.


We made our way to Signal Hill. Signal hill overlooks the city of St John's. Again due to the inclement weather, the pictures lack their usual good definition. Thank you Chris!!!!




This is Cabot tower.


From Signal hill we made our way to Cape Spear.
Cape Spear is the easternmost point in North America.

Just sticking a foot in the water here is an experience. (also a frozen one)




You can probably see the lousy weather, if for no other reason, that I finally put on a sweater.
Oh well, hopefully tomorrow will be better.

Our hotel, the Murray Premise, is in the heart of downtown St John's. After our long treks around Signal Hill and Cape Spear, it was time for a cocktail. Off to the local, for a libation. They were not playing music that night, so we made our way to the Shamrock Bar and Grill.
Good meal, good drinks, and also good music.

Home for the night and getting ready for a big day tomorrow in St John's.


Friday, July 13, 2018

Bonavista and Pictures, Pictures and Pictures

The overnight weather was quite lousy. Heavy rain and strong winds. Well, at least we were inside and asleep for most of the bad weather. Damn you Chris. We do not like you.

Got up in the morning to a wonderful day. Sunshine and temperatures around 15C.
Perfect for sightseeing.
We went for a nice breakfast at the "cafe" and then toured around the town of Bonavista.


The picture above is from our table at Skipper's where we went for dinner.

We thought we would go to the Cape Bonavista Lighthouse. It is right on the tip of Bonavista Peninsular. We took a tour of the lighthouse and learned all about the operation of the lighthouse and how to operate the light. I have promptly forgotten it all.


Bonnie in the kitchen of the lighthouse, but not looking ready to cook lunch.
It is quite amazing how they cooked, baked and heated with the stove.
They also had a nook in the outside wall which they used as a refrigerator.

The scenery at lighthouse point is quite spectacular as shown below.



We thought we would drive around, and see what else was on the tip of Cape Bonavista.
The Dungeon is a natural wonder created by centuries of pounding waves.
It is truly one of nature's carvings. It is a circular opening in the cliff with 2 side channels where the sea roars through it.




The handsome dude below was just standing around, and asked us to take his picture. Not sure why.



A short walk past the Dungeon showed some spectacular coastline.



Our next stop was Elliston the Puffin capital of the world, but also the root cellar capital of the world.
(more on that later)

Once you arrive at Elliston it is a 10 minute walk through rough terrain to the best puffin viewing site.
But your intrepid adventurers were up to the task.


Believe or not there are plenty of puffins in the picture.


For all you non believers, I risked life and limb to get a good close up of the puffins.
I was so close, I thought I might name them, but I wasn't close enough to tell if they were male of female.

More scenery from puffin point.





We mentioned that Elliston was the root cellar capital of the world. There are 135 root cellars in the area. I think that is more than the population of Elliston.
In this area, there is a lot of rocky ground, (as you can see in the pictures) so any root vegetables grown had to be stored and this was prior to refrigeration. Hence root cellars.
Below is a picture of one.


Our B&B for the night is great. Living room, kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. What else could you want.

One thing we have noticed in Newfoundland is how friendly all the people are. Whether it's the  information centre, a gift shop, a restaurant or just walking on the street, everyone is so pleasant and easy to talk to. Sometimes we have no idea what they said, but it was in a very friendly way.

Tomorrow we are off to St John's.

Thursday, July 12, 2018

Bonavista

We left Twillingate on our way to Bonavista. What a crumby day. It rained for most of the trip, and sometimes it was quite hard. I think Hurricane Chris (now down graded to a tropical storm), caused our problems.
I am not sure, but I sort of blame Chris Jones, in fact I blame all people named Chris for our lousy weather.

You can see how the weather affected the day by the picture below.


Eventually we made it to Bonavista and found our accommodations to be quite good.
A 2 bedroom house with a full kitchen, a living room and a washer/dryer.
We got all our clothes washed and then went to dinner.

We went to the Shannon's Pub and Grill.
Excellent spot with good food, good staff and, unknown to us, music.
A couple of fellows came on the stage and entertained us with numerous Newfoundland music and song. What a hoot!!!


This pictures shows the 2 fellows entertaining us. They both could play multiple instruments and both could sing.


This is the couple who were there to eat and be entertained. And both happened.


Tomorrow we will stay in Bonavista and hope for better weather and some pictures of the puffins.

Wednesday, July 11, 2018

Twillingate

We set off for the long drive to Twillingate. The distance is only about 400 kilometres, but due to road conditions, it takes considerably longer than you might imagine.

There appears to be more potholes in Newfoundland than the rest of Canada combined. Instead of filling the potholes, they put a sign up saying, "potholes ahead". Saves a lot of money.

We passed a moose walking on the side of the road, but the shoulder is about 12 inches wide and the speed limit is 100 kph. So, no stopping to take a picture.
We did get a picture of the area as we travelled towards Deer Lake.



We passed through a number of small towns like Loon Bay, Birchy Bay, Toogood Arm, Boyds Cove and Tilt Cove before we finally came to Twillingate.
Just past Twillingate is Crow Head (not to be confused with Cow Head) and we stopped at Lighthouse Point.
Wonderful spot for pictures as you can see.




Off in the distance is our 1st whale sighting. You cannot see it in the picture, but we were looking through our binoculars and also listening to a guy shouting "whale at 12 O'clock"

More pictures from Lighthouse Point.




We returned to Twillingate to check into the place we are staying. It is called Hillside B&B, but we ended up in a cottage. Very nice 1 bedroom cottage with a full living room and kitchen.
There is a Dinner Theatre in Twillingate that we were lucky enough, to get practically the last 2 spots.
Pan fried cod for me and pan fried salmon for Bonnie. Excellent meal.
The Dinner Theatre group shows their talents in all sorts of Newfoundland culture. The group sings and also performs comedy sketches as well as prepares and serves the meal.
We got there around 5:00 and the meal and the entertainment lasted until almost 10:00.

Back in our room now, and tomorrow we make our way to Bonavista.
Stay away hurricane Chris!!!!