20020611

June 11, 2002

Day 33

Start: Eastport Peninsula Sunshine Park, Eastport, NF
End: Pippy Park CG & Trailer Park, St John’s, NF
Miles: 173

The high today was 59f and the low was 41 last night or early this morning. The wind was moderate out of the southwest. Cloud cover was 100% early, but turned to partly sunny in the afternoon.

We ate, unhooked, and departed the Eastport peninsula. We turned east on the Trans-Canada Highway, and headed for St John’s. While still in Terra Nova National Park, we rounded a turn and saw a brown lump some distance away on the left shoulder. I slowed down, thinking it was a moose. When we got close, we saw it was a black bear stripping food off short bushes on the shoulder. The right shoulder was quite wide and no one was behind us, so I came to a quick stop. Dolores handed me the camera as I was slowing. The bear looked at us, then went back to his eating while I snapped two quick shots. Then the bear decided to be somewhere else and left; I took a picture of it departing. It was not a small bear, so it 
was probably (given the time of year – the mature females have cubs) a male.

As the bear left, so did we. The rest of the trip to St Johns was uneventful. There were no more sightings of animals. 

The geography changed some as we traveled. The narrow part of the island that connects the Avalon peninsula to the rest of the island is rocky, as opposed to boggy. So is the Avalon peninsula.

We found the campground without problem and set up the little house. Just as we were finishing, two ducks came along to greet us, or mooch food.  The 30-amp plug had no power, but the 15-amp did. We asked the campground to fix it, and while we were out, they did.

We went first to the waterfront. There were ships of all descriptions, all small in size looking as though they might support trade with Labrador. There were Canadian Coast Guard ships in several sizes. There were trawlers, large and small. There’s a substantial dry dock facility. Signs in some shops welcomed the Holland-American liner Rotterdam on June 8th - a few days ago. This is not the same Rotterdam that we took to Alaska several years ago.

Signs on the tourist center on the waterfront, in an old Newfoundland Railway passenger car, directed us to the City Hall because the car wasn’t staffed yet. We walked east on Water Street and west on Duckworth Street to look at shops on the way there. When there, we got all sort of brochures about the area. On the way, we bought a few pins and saw a few sites, such as the Anglican cathedral with its graveyard that dates back to 1583. Dolores was reading to me a moment ago a note in one of their guides that says the 
American pilgrims to Plymouth Rock stopped here for fresh water on the way. John Cabot discovered Newfoundland in 1497. Water Street is said to be the oldest street in North America.

After our shopping, we took the truck to the top of Signal Hill. A station was established on this hill to sight the ships coming in and signal their arrival to the owners at the docks. From here, you can look down on the length of the harbor. It’s astonishingly small, about 1.5km by 0.5km. Yet, convoys left from here for England in WWII. I don’t know how they anchored or moored them all prior to sailing.

We took a few pictures of the harbor and the entrance lighthouse from the top of the hill and then went into the gift shop there. While sniffing around in it, a lady announced she had seen the rowers get underway from the harbor. It seems there’s a group, "Skandia", who are trying to set a new record for rowing across the Atlantic. We went back outside and took a couple of pictures of them as they rowed out of the harbor into the Atlantic, with the fog bank a few miles offshore.

I don’t envy them their trip. Still, they volunteered for it and must know what they’re heading into.  [Ed. note: They didn't make it.  Their rudder broke after about 1,000 miles.  A freighter picked them up.]

Then we headed for the local mall to buy film – I’d run totally out. There was a Wal-Mart, so we checked their ability to process film – they can’t do development to CD the way I want, so I’ll probably just get prints and scan them myself when we get home. We then hiked the mall to which the Wal-Mart is attached and made a note to look in one store when we came back for the prints – D spotted a super value.

We went back into the downtown area then, and went to two more stores – me to a music store and Dolores to a Newfoundland shop. She bought a fleece vest with an embroidered flag of Newfoundland and Labrador on it. I bought three CD’s of Newfoundland music. The jacket on one of the CD’s notes that “Canada is a big country – St John’s is closer to Paris than to Victoria”.

Then we went to dinner at the Peppermill restaurant, still downtown. I had a soup and Creole Haddock. Dolores ordered mussels and lobster, but they had just run out of lobster. She had a pan-fried halibut. We thought they were good, and the wine was nice (an Aussie Chardonnay). The staff was very nice and service was good – a place to return to someday.

We came back to the little house in the city campground and settled in for the night and to plan tomorrow’s travel.