Sunday, July 3, 2011
A beautiful sunny day, starting out at 10 and climbed to 22 degrees. Silly me didn’t even wear shorts, only capris, not sure what I was thinking. I guess after the awful weather we’ve had any thing that resembled summer clothes got shoved to the very back of the closet and the sweaters and longjohns front and centre. We were headed to Cape Spear the most easterly point in North America. The trip over was a very nice drive, up and over the hills and winding through a couple of small towns. The coastline is absolutely beautiful. I just love to watch the waves crashing the rocks, they are so powerful and the water along the edge a beautiful emerald green colour.
We walked along the paths that lead to the lighthouse and spy some more whales. Boy, we’ve been lucky spotting whales it has been awesome. We watch them for quite a while cruising along the shore. There appeared to be a mother and her calf and a couple of other whales. There are several whale watching boats from St. John’s harbour going past searching for whales. There are tons of trails to walk along, which will be on the list of things to do when Amanda arrives on the 16th. The lighthouse was built in 1836 and is one of the oldest surviving lighthouses in Newfoundland. A gun battery was installed at Cape Spear during WW II to defend the entrance to St. John’s harbour.
Barracks and underground passages leading to the bunkers were built for the use by the troops. We spent a few hours at Cape Spear and then head over to Signal Hill. All the times I’ve been to Newfoundland and I have never been to the most visited spot on the Island. I guess we were always here to visit relatives not to sight see. There is just a small parking lot at the top of the hill so we had to circle around a few times before we found a spot.
We decided to take our lunch and sit on the wall overlooking the ocean at the Cabot Tower. What a great spot to sit and have lunch while enjoying the amazing scenery, and the gorgeous day. Signal Hill rises 525 ft above the narrow approach to St. John’s Harbour. This was the site of many battles between the English and French for control of Newfoundland and Labrador and it’s fisheries.
The Cabot Tower was built in 1897 to commemorate the 400th anniversary of John Cabot’s discovery of Newfoundland and Labrador, and the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The tower contains an exhibit about the history of communications and signaling and has a great view of St. John’s.
In 1901 the first transatlantic wireless message was received by Guglielmo Marconi. There are also several batteries built during the 18th and 19th centuries.
Lots more hiking trails that I’m saving to do with Amanda. We can be mountain goats together.
We took a drive through Quidi Vidi Village and Pippy Park campground. We haven’t decided yet if we will move into the city for a few days. Cities really aren’t our thing. That being said it is time for us to get out of St. John’s. Hemi has been parked long enough, rigamortis will be setting in soon. We decide to drive north of St. John’s to Torbay, through Flatrock around to Pouch Cove.
I wanted to go to Cape St. Francis the very tip of the peninsula, but when we headed up the gravel road it was very loose gravel, quite steep and very bumpy. We don’t want to push Hemi too much she still has to get Elbroko back to Baden. We carry on to the little village of Bauline which appeared to still have some of the smaller fishing boats.
We then went down to Portugal Cove. This is where we will catch the ferry over to Bell Island next week. They actually have 2 smaller car ferries that run every 30 minutes so we will not have a problem getting over and back whenever we have finished being a tourist on the island. Just as we were leaving the wharf we spotted more whales. There was one right in close to shore, it was awesome. There was even a turnoff for us this time we didn’t have to worry about obstructing traffic.
These whales were smaller so I would imagine they are Minke whales. They were just playing and rolling around and one even waved at me with his flipper. Just down the road in St. Phillips we saw schools of Capelin. They were there by the millions! We were standing on the wharf so we could see them really well. It certainly gave us a different view of them than when we had in Harbour Breton. We finally make it back to camp around 7:30 just in time to get our supper warmed up and enjoy a nice cup of tea before bed.
Lots more hiking trails that I’m saving to do with Amanda. We can be mountain goats together.
I wanted to go to Cape St. Francis the very tip of the peninsula, but when we headed up the gravel road it was very loose gravel, quite steep and very bumpy. We don’t want to push Hemi too much she still has to get Elbroko back to Baden. We carry on to the little village of Bauline which appeared to still have some of the smaller fishing boats. 
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