Newfoundland

Catalina Harbour

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We visited the Catalina area and enjoyed a walk along a rugged area of Atlantic Coast. Catalina is on the Bonavista Peninsula which is unique for being relatively flat; without cliffs along the shore. When we arrived there was a thick mist coming in and almost a whiteout situation. We walked on narrow paths through a low, mossy/spongy carpet of berries, grasses, and wildflowers.

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Manuel Island Lighthouse. A tiny lighthouse on a tiny island in the harbour
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Where the moose outnumber the people; they take moose-plows seriously
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Roni, Jennie, and Becky; walking in the mist rolling off the Atlantic
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Catalina is a ‘working’ fishing town. Not very touristy which was refreshing

Puffins – Witless Bay Ecological Reserve

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We took a boat tour from “Gatherall’s Puffin and Whale Watch” of Witless Bay which turned out to be just awesome. The boat took us out to several islands comprising the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve. This is the largest Atlantic puffin colony in North America.

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Puffin Colony: each white dot is a cute little puffin on a nest. The puffins prefer grassy areas.
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Photos above, closeup of puffins.
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Photos below, puffins taking off & landing.
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Puffins everywhere, on the island, in the water, and in the sky.
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This island was covered in nesting Common Murres/Guillemots. They prefer the bare rock areas.
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Common Murres/Guillemots on the bare rock and puffins in the grassy area.
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It clouded up and started raining as we were finishing up. The birds were feeding on the water and ‘parted’ as the boat came through. The puffins often had beaks full of little fish hanging out.

Below are some of the colorful, rugged sea-shore rocks along the coast.

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Cape Spear – Easternmost Point in North America

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Cape Spear is the ‘easternmost’ point of land in North America. The sun comes up here long before it comes up at the much advertised Acadia National Park, Cadillac Mountain, Maine. It’s difficult to tell how much earlier because Newfoundland is in a different time zone 1-1/2 hours earlier than “Eastern Time”. Most of Canadian Maritime Provinces are 1 hour earlier than Eastern but Newfoundland gets another 1/2 hour earlier.

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The Original (now inactive) Cape Spear Lighthouse – 1836
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For a sense of scale; this photo is taken from Cape Spear, looking back northwest toward the St. John’s Harbor entrance. That bump on top of Signal Hill is Cabot Tower and the white dot below and left of the tower is the Amherst Lighthouse.
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Above: Clear water and rugged coastline. Locals told us this was one of the most calm Atlantic waters they had ever seen.
Below: The nearby “New” (active) Cape Spear Lighthouse was built in 1955.
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Looking Down: I enjoyed sitting on the edge of the easternmost cliff of North America. It was a long, long, long, way down and very windy but the breeze was blowing UP the cliff. It was fun to watch seabirds flying along below. Photos just don’t begin to capture the feeling of being there.
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Looking Left:
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Looking Right:
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Photo looking back as we were leaving Cape Spear.
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St. John’s & Petty Harbor, Newfoundland

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Our first stop was Cabot Tower on Signal Hill: There are many interesting things about this hill and iconic bit of Architecture. One is that this spot is where Guglielmo Marconi received the first trans-Atlantic wireless signal from Cornwall, England in 1901

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Cabot Tower
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How the Architect drew it…
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How it got built…
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The world with St. John’s at it’s center. At this point we were as close to Ireland as Indianapolis.
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Looking down on the entrance to St. John’s Harbor, called “the Narrows”. The Amherst Lighthouse on top of the outcropping is built on some of the old foundations of Fort Amherst below. Here’s a link to some interesting history; https://www.hiddennewfoundland.ca/fort-amherst–chain-rock
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Zoomed in on St. John’s downtown and Harbor. Upper left building is “The Rooms” built to house St. John’s art and culture exhibits. It is an oversized version of traditional “fishing rooms” which is what Newfoundlander’s called the colorful sheds along waterlines. They are brightly colored so fishermen can find them in the fog.
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Petty Harbor
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Petty Harbor. Newfoundland scenes like this were to become typical as we traveled for the next 30 days around the island.
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“Moose Madness” Moose Sausage, Ground Moose Meat and Moose Gravy on chips (fries) at Chafe’s Landing Restaurant in Petty Harbor.

Ferry to Newfoundland

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from : North Sydney, Nova Scotia : to : Marine Atlantic Ferry : to: Argentia, Newfoundland

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This is the Marine Atlantic Ferry. We loaded all of our RV’s onto the lower level for a 15 hour overnight sail to Newfoundland. We had a small ‘room’ for the night. Nobody can stay below with the vehicles. We just park it and set the brake.
Everyone gets ‘staged’ into loading lanes in a big parking lot. Some were unlucky enough to get staged underneath the lights where cormorants were nesting. Those RV’s were quickly plastered with white cormorant poo. We (and the motorcyclists staged near us) were glad we were far from a light pole…
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Some nice shoreline as we exited Sydney Harbor.
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Low Point Lighthouse marks the eastern entrance/exit to Sydney Harbor. Once past this lighthouse we were out into the open North Atlantic.
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The next morning, as we were approaching Argentia, we saw these beautiful haystack-like islands wrapped in mist. We also passed within a few miles of France! Saint Pierre and Miquelon is a group of eight islands that are the most western outpost of Europe. You need a passport to enter this part of France and their currency is the Euro. We did not go there but this was a geographic learning experience for me.
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More of the surreal misty morning coastline coming into Argentia
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From Argentia, we disembarked our RV’s and drove to St. John, the capital of “Newfoundland and Labrador” (the official name of the Province – which I will now just call Newfoundland)