So, we finally set off in Shaun on 31 July! Not too far at first as we needed to get our confidence in Shaun back. So, first stop, Murphy’s Cove, on a camp site, by the ocean, just 50 miles up the road. Then on to Sherbrooke, Nova Scotia, a riverside campground, and a chance to look at a preserved early settler’s village, which we really enjoyed.

We then drove up towards Cape Breton, making our way to North Sydney to catch a ferry to Newfoundland. Along the way we enjoyed a wonderful day at St. Peters where we saw the historic canal and bridge and witnessed the annual ‘swim the canal’ event.  We also took the opportunity to see Louisbourg Fortress – what a wonderful reconstruction, a real opportunity to take a step back into history, helped by the ‘actors’ who assumed the parts of actual citizens who occupied this town during the 1700s.

Then, Newfoundland!  Yes b’y!! (0ne off their many colloquial sayings!)

Flippin’ heck, the f’en roads – what a bumpy introduction we had to Newfoundland.  Our first thought, how are we going to drive round this rock on roads like these.  Now, don’t get us wrong, Shaun is a pretty tough truck, but massive potholes on tarmac roads are not in his comfort zone (or ours) and for the first 100kms, it was tough going.  But, the scenery was already amazing, the sun was shining and the gannet colony at St. Marys ecological centre was stunning – and we met our first real life Newfoundlander (Newfie) – and yes, are they are as friendly as people had told us.  That night, and so many others on Newfoundland, we found great free park ups by the ocean.

Newfoundland has so many great driving routes and we initially followed the Irish Loop up to St. John’s – this part of Newfoundland boasts some stunning scenery and people who can trace their families back to Ireland (mostly Cork & Wexford) and they sound a lot more Irish than Mark does.

In one of our park ups in Tors Cove we met two locals, Sheila and Bill. Friendly and informative, Sheila told us she worked as an artist and worked with Morgan MacDonald a local bronze sculptor. She told us they were doing a bronze pour early the following week and asked if we would like to see this? Oh yes, that sounded great! We travelled on to St John’s, the capital of Newfoundland, and introduced ourselves to city life and the entertainment district known as George St – think a Newfie Temple Bar. The next day we went to see Sheila and Morgan and watched the bronze pour and saw the convoluted process of making a bronze statue, a fantastic experience. Morgan and Sheila took a lot of time with us telling us about the whole process, from conceptualisation to the final piece. We were lucky enough to see two of Morgan’s pieces in their intended places in Newfoundland. ‘Time’ is in George Street, St John’s, a really large and complex piece made up of smaller pieces. The second one was in Elliston, famous for its root cellars and puffins. This one commemorated a disaster on the ice in 1914, The Sealers memorial. This is an incredibly moving piece. We love Morgan’s work and hope to see more of it as we travel in Canada.

We enjoyed seeing St John’s: – Signal Hill, Jellybean row houses, The Rooms (a great museum) and the National War memorial, where a World War 1 unknown soldier was recently interned. We finished our time in this area with watching the sunrise at, arguably, the most easterly point in North America, Cape Spear. However, we were glad to get back on the road to more rural places.

The Bonavista Peninsula is beautiful. We started with a world class hike, (so says a travel magazine called Travel and Leisure), Skerwink Trail with beautiful coastal views nearly all the way round. If we had been there a few months earlier we would probably have seen icebergs floating past! We spent a couple of nights at Trinity a heritage village, so well preserved by the people who live there. They had their annual festival on, so we were able to see and join in Newfie culture (and they do like to party!) We drove up to the top of Bonavista to see where John Cabot first viewed Newfoundland and said “buono vista”! Around this area were many UNESCO Global geoparks, and we were lucky enough go see many geologically interesting places and rock formations.

We found a small village called Keels, where they filmed Maudie, a film we watched about a Nova Scotian artist called Maude Lewis. It had ‘devils footprints; A geological feature in the rocks that looks like, yes, you guessed it, footprints. Sometimes when you travel you just connect with a place and this was one of those. Really unspoilt and untouched by time, a really tranquil place, still getting on like it always has, a small fishing village and minimal tourism.

Another place that made a big impact on us was Kings Point. We went there because we wanted to hike the Alexander Murray hike. The day we arrived was hot and humid, and late afternoon, so we checked into the town municipal campsite. This was a bargain at $25 a night, including free use of the washing machine and dryer, a chance to do all the ‘big stuff’! That evening a gentleman called Jim called by, looking for someone ‘nice’ to pass on some lettuce he had grown to. We had a lovely chat with him, he told us he was among one of the people who had developed the hike we were going to do the next day. He offered to take us on a drive of the local community, which we accepted. This was a great way to learn about the local culture. The next day we did the hike, which included over 2,200 wooden steps, all made by the locals. This took us to some great views, with few other hikers about! That afternoon Jim came back, with more home grown vegetables, and asked did we want to go on a boat trip in the bay for a different perspective of the area! Bob took us out on his boat, and Owen and Rhonda came along and invited us to their stage (a fishing shed, which was bigger and better equipped than Shaun!) afterwards. They all gave us such a warm welcome and great hospitality, drinks and delicious food they had grown/caught and prepared! Our new friends showed us the best of Newfoundland!

We cannot forget to mention going to Gander to watch the musical, Come From Away! We first saw this musical on TV; our kind relatives and hosts in Dartmouth showed it to us because we were going to Newfoundland. We saw it was actually being staged in Gander whilst we were there, so we booked tickets. It is an amazing musical, a roller coaster of emotions, we were laughing and crying and it was magical to see it in Gander, the place where it happened. It is the true story about planes which were diverted on 9/11 to Gander, a small town with a big airport. The airport may be big, but the hearts of the folks of Gander are bigger and they took these passengers and crew in and looked after them in the most bewildering and frightening of times. Once again, a great example of what Newfies are like!

One of the big reasons we wanted to visit Newfoundland was Gros Morne National Park, a UNESCO heritage site. The Earth’s mantle had thrust its way through the Earth’s crust millions of years ago, and the opportunity to see this and walk on it was irresistible! It was truly amazing, and we enjoyed this so much we went twice and enjoyed other walks with great and diverse scenery. Further north, up the same peninsula we visited another UNESCO site L’anse aux Meadows, where in the 1960’s they found evidence that the Vikings had used this area as a staging point. Not only was there this incredible history but the scenery was great too. We stayed there for a few days, in a great park up, while Mark took some well needed time to do jobs and tweaks on Shaun. Living in your moving home means you have to take time out from travelling and do jobs on the go.

We then started heading back to the south, in preparation for catching the ferry back to mainland Canada. We went back to Gros Morne to do a couple more hikes; we couldn’t resist going back to Tablelands for another walk as the scenery there is so fantastic. 

Finally we caught the ferry from Port aux Basque back to Nova Scotia. We didn’t want to leave, and know we have to go back. Six weeks was not long enough to see everything. We think we could live in Newfoundland, but haven’t experienced a winter there, so who knows??

Is there life after Newfoundland…………….?