St. John’s to the Bonnavista Peninsula
Where to see Puffins and go on spectacular hikes
On my second day in St. John’s I woke up rather early and took a walk on the beach, thinking about what I should do about the Element. It had started making some squeaking sounds with the breaks. At first it sounded like the front left and then later like the back left. Knowing that I’d be putting on 2,000km around the remainder of Newfoundland and Labrador before I returned to North Sydney in Nova Scotia, I was a little anxious to get it sorted out before I left a bigger city. My brief research suggested that maybe the break pads had worn down to the indicator and needed replacing.
I saw that I wasn’t the only one who’d stayed the night at the waterfront park as two girls emerged from an open Jeep and met a third for an early dip in the water. I wondered how cold the water was because they were slow to get in but once in seemed to enjoy it. I left to go check out the nearby Manuels River Trail which was suppose to have fossils but like everything else I’d experienced yesterday morning, the interpretive centre didn’t open till 10AM. That didn’t both me very much but then the trail to where I thought the fossils would be was also closed so I was out of luck. I decided then that I should call a mechanic and see about the breaks. The first one I called had time first thing the next day so I decided to stay in town for another day. I wasn’t on any fixed schedule and I expected that it would be the nextday anyways so it seemed like the best case scenario. To lull away the day I went to a Starbucks and spent the morning backing up more images and video to Dropbox that I hadn’t been able to finish the day before.
When I was done on the internet I got some lunch and then went to the Rooms museum. It wasn’t on my initial interest list because the building was unappealing from the exterior but for only $6.50 as a student I thought, why not? The Rooms museum is about the history of the province and has an art gallery that includes some Group of Seven work. I would never have guessed from the name, but the museum was a pretty cool place and a good spot to spend the afternoon. They also had incredibly fast wifi which allowed me to upload a vlog video and back up my journaling app that was going screwy on me. I’ve used this app daily to record what happens and it has over 2,700 entries. I couldn’t solve the bug which means that it’s probably a developer side issue but I took a moment to appreciate that I’d been consistently logging my daily events for five years.
It’s kind of wild how difficult of a time it is for me to find wifi since I’m not staying overnight in Airbnbs or hotels so everytime I need to backup pictures and do stuff online like blog and vlog it’s like a half-day (atleast) commitment to a Starbucks or library.
One of the other things I really wanted to do in St. John’s was have a shower. I tried to go to an outdoor pool but it was drained and closed and the other day the union workers were on strike. Failing that, I went back downtown to check out a souvenir shop now that it was open but the quality was poor so I went for dinner and had a moose burger. The meat itself was good, maybe a little dry, but nothing to call home about either. I think it was good because it had all the toppings, including chips.
For the remainder of the day I hung out in a park near the ocean watching the sky cloud over and a few sailboats race by on a strong tailwind.
The next morning I brought the car to the mechanic. Although they had good reviews online, steeping through the door I wondered if I’d made a mistake. Unlike in Bridgewater, the desk was serviced by a secretary who didn’t know mechanics but she was polite enough and promised to call with a diagnostic within the hour. Maybe it was the overcast sky, but I just didn’t get a good vibe. I went to wait at McDonalds and one hour soon turned into two and was nearly three before I got the call back. After much prodding and relaying to the head mechanic I was told that my break pads had 6 and 7 millimetres on the front and back — about halfway. The noise apparently was due to some kind of roughness on the backside of the rotor. Not trusting that they do the work in their claimed two hours and seeing as the breaks had half their life left, I decided to pull out of town.
This was a relief and I was happy to leave stocked up on gas and food. Driving north out of the Avalon Peninsula and into Bonavista Peninusla, I took lunch at a lookout beside the road and then saw a sign for a rec centre in a small town. I was delighted that they allowed me to take a shower and feeling mightily refreshed and clean — was much happier. The day had taken a turn for the better.
That evening I arrived at the Skerwink trail. My notes said that it is, “one of the provinces most famous hiking trails…this trail has been selected by Travel and Leaisure magazine as one of the top 35 walks in North America and Europe in its August 2003 World Best Awards issue.”
It began with tall sea stacks to the east, curled around to beautiful cliffs along the south, and ended at a black beach to the west. I chased after the setting sun, leaping over tree routes and snapping pictures all the way. All along the trail were fantastic lookouts and many different viewpoints.
The Skerwink trail was amazing and beautiful and well deserving of its hype. I enjoyed it so much I considered hiking it again in the morning since it’s only 5.3km, about an hour to an hour and a half. Unfortunately a storm blew in overnight rocking the car and occasional pelting it with rain. In the morning a thick cover of fog blanked the peninsula so I had no choice but to move on.
That wasn’t so bad though because the Bonavista peninsula might be best known for a large colony of puffins near the small town of Elliston. Although it was late in the season there were, “still a few” hanging around. That looked to me like hundreds of little black birds zooming around offshore among the rocky islands while dogging bullying seagulls trying to steal their food. They are pretty small but flap their wings quickly and zoom around equally fast.
I was struck by the beauty of the landscape. Even in the cool wind and downcast sky that blanketed the landscape in white fog, the jagged cliffs that turned the ocean into foaming white and turquoise waves felt insprining to my thoughts on architecture. It felt strong. I’m sure that to live here and resist the wind and waves takes strength and a resilience I don’t have but I could imagine designing cabins that perch as lighthouses on the horizon and retreats that shelter in crevices from the wind.
The tip of the Bonavista peninsula is a popular tourist destination. I think it’s because it’s relatively close to St. John’s and has puffins. But there’s also a small provincial park with two rock tunnels leading to a pool and the Bonavista lighthouse where it’s suspected that John Cabot first sighted the new world in 1497. The lighthouse wasn’t very interesting but the provinical park made for a good photo op.
Most interestingly though was the Ryan Premises National Historic Site. At first I passed it without seeing any parking. I thought it was just an old house but it was actually a museum about cod fishing and the staff put on a detailed demonstration to show how salt cod was prepared and then cured. I especially enjoyed the many model boats beginning with the first seasonal French schooners and moving through time to the modern bottom trawler.
The Trans Canada highway is a spine along the coast of Newfoundland that runs up, over, and around the main body of the island. Off-shoot minor highways wind up every peninsula that sticks off the coast like fur or feathers growing along the nape. There’s really just the one Trans Canada highway so it’s impossible to avoid it. Just North of Bonavista peninsula is the Terra Nova National Park. The park does have a campground and a few hiking trails but it felt more like a highway through a protected wilderness area. The main stop was at a lookout with a fire tower that had a commanding view of the park. Otherwise, I did a short walk along a stretch of a bay but there wasn’t much else to see or do. This is a shame because it has such a cool name.
One of the less successful stops was the town of Dover off a detour from the Trans Canada. Before Newfoundland was a single island, the western part was part of the Laurentia continent and the eastern part part of Gondwana. 410 million years ago the two continents collided forming a mountain range but also a stress-released fault. I had hopped to see evidence of the fault on the surface geology but the town’s lookout only had a bunch of information boards and nothing was readily apparent. This was one of the few times that I was disappointed but it didn’t last long because I was heading north to Fogo Island and I had high expectations for it. So I instead I appreciated the many glacial erratics strewn about and then continued on my way.
