Eastward Ho

We are wending our way eastward, back towards St. John's, but not too quickly.

Along the way we saw the falls at Grand Falls Windsor.

grandish falls

There we saw our first lilacs in full bloom, I had to stop and inhale them, as we missed them at home, having left before they were in peak scent.

Hiked a bit in Terra Nova National Park - 

Then a couple of days in Sandy Cove where we had a simple old-skool cabin like the ones we stayed in as kids in the 1960s. It was a nice base for hiking some of the Damnable Trails (liked the name of this network so much I bought the tee-shirt) and had an excellent dinner at the Happy Adventure Inn. It is heartening to know there is a town that is actually called Happy Adventure, even though the name seems to have come from ruthless pirate Peter Easton, who hid out from the British in this harbour and considered his escape a happy adventure. 

a telltale bell on a Damn the Bell
(Damnable) Trail

We tootled around the area, exploring the charming village of Salvage (pronounced salvayge).

Monday laundry

inner harbour

picturesque graveyard

Seeing a boat trip was on offer, and seeing how calm the water was, we stepped aboard, saw eagles and huge herring, but best of all we ended up floating through a colony of puffins! They flap their wings so fast to get anywhere, and zoomed around, crossing our boat on occasion. Dear things they are - we were thrilled to see so many of them.

surrounded by puffins!

young eagle

did Peter Easton hide out in this cave?
of was it one of the dozen others?

sky meets the sea off the Bonvista

Back on to the Avalon, we stayed a couple of nights in one of the best B&Bs we've stayed in anywhere, not just Newfoundland, the 1855-built George Inn. Lovely view and guess what, it's right across the street from the Dildo Brewery! Panko-covered lobster tails and beer marinated duck legs are added to the ubiquitous fish and chips.

George Inn in Dildo

Dildo Brewpub dinner

colourful Dildo harbour

duck legs....

.....and local beer.....

....finishing with a mint

American late night host Jimmy Kimmel latched on to the humour of a place called Dildo, made a thing of it on his show and has now become the honourary mayor. He declared Dildo's sister city to be Hollywood, and there is a Hollywood-esque sign high up on the hill overlooking Dildo harbour in homage.

Dildo "Hollywood" sign

There are so many peninsulas in Newfoundland and we have only circumnavigated a few, so we added two more.

At Placentia there is Castle Hill, which was a formidable French fortification, until wars in Europe went against the French and they had to leave this part of Newfoundland. Unfair I say, after having built such an effective protection for their fishery on Placentia's amazing beach. That fantastic beach must have been full of drying cod in the day. 

At the southern end of that peninsula, should one take the 13 km detour and brave the fog that increases in thicker and thicker waves along the road, and shroud even more so on the 2 km walk from the parking lot, one is rewarded with the stench of thousands of gannets home for the holidays, which means breeding on steep cliffs that plunge into the Atlantic.

gannets, the albatross of the north

plunging over the cliff in thick fog 

sitting as far to the precipice as Jenny dared,
given the high winds and sheer drop 

It's just as well one can not see very far in the fog, for the path goes quite near these alarming cliffs and there are no fences. 

The true reward is at the end, on a very precarious rock that leans out over the sea and looks right across at a bulbous rock full of gannets and murres and other seabirds. Hard not to be impressed with the sight, as long as one does not lean to far for a look....

professional photo to show what it looks like on a sunny day
we were perched on that point opposite the bird-filled rock

Every peninsula has a name - that of a "trail" representing something noteworthy about that trail. The Viking Trail leads to L'Anse aux Meadows, the Discovery Trail leads to Bonavista where John Cabot landed, and the Irish Loop in Avalon references the Island's 400 years of Irish heritage. The accents of Newfoundlanders change within a few miles, as they are all place-based.

What I mean by that is whenever we see Newfoundlanders - working in a restaurant or at their B&B or running a business or talking tourists round - we always ask "Where are you from?" The answer is always "Here".

Newfoundlanders don't move away from where they grew up and where their families grew up. Land passes through inheritance more than purchase. Some might have to go off to find work, but they always seem to come back, and not to another part of the province, but only back to their own village.

So the accents in this part of Newfoundland have a distinctly Irish lilt. St. Mary's was a lovely place to spend a night, and we watched the fog dissolve as it rolls past. We saw fields full of lupins, and there is a lovely pastoral air here.

The fog that dissolves in St. Mary's is, so they say, manufactured in St. Vincent's, and it's hard to dispute the opinion from our impression.

The beach there is the most stunning - wicked wind gusts, thundering white waves and jade green waters, made more stunning with gannets plunging into the ocean for fish and - wait for it - humpback whales cavorting just off shore - we could see them! Although the fog prohibited a great view, and our glasses kept getting drenched with foggy spray, it was pretty amazing.