Canadian Maritimes July 30-31, 2019

Day 51 Tuesday July 30, 2019 A tour bus picked the group up at the campground this morning at 8:30AM for a guided tour of some of the city's interesting places. Francis was our local guide and Jason was our bus driver.

Newfoundland/Labrador has a population of about 515,000 and St. John's population is about 107,000 so about 1/5 of the population lives in St. John's. We drove out to Signal Hill where Marconi received the first Trans-Atlantic wireless signal on December 12, 1901. We had a great view from the top of the hill of the city below but the wind was blowing really hard across the top of the hill. Our guide said there were a lot of hats blow off and down the cliff to the rocks below.

Then we went down to the wharf where some of the fishing boats were docked and he explained how the lobster and crab pots worked.

We stopped at the Lt. Governor's residence that was built in 1827 but we could only walk around the grounds and enter a small room to sign the guest register, pick up a free post card and peek through the glass doors to the parlor.

From there we went to where an old military fort at Cape Spear was located during WWII. It is also the Eastern most point in North America. The oldest standing lighthouse in Newfoundland/Labrador is also located there.

Our lunch stop (part of our tour package) was in a small fishing village at a restaurant named Chafe's Landing. Lena got a mooseburger and I got shrimp tacos. There was a mix up with the desserts. The restaurant didn't realize that desserts were to be part of our meal but the Wagonmasters showed them the order. Normally we all get the same dessert. They make all their desserts so they didn't have enough of one kind so they brought out 5 different desserts to each table of four people and we got to try all five so it worked out great.

Nice Mustang

We got back to the campground about 3:30PM so Lena washed a load of towels and we went to a nearby Tim Horton's and finally got the Blog caught up and our photos backed up and sync'd between out iphones and ipads.

Day 52 Wednesday July 31, 2019 Today was a free day to do as we wanted with no planned activities so we went to the Johnson GEO Science Center. They have a section on the Titanic and loads of information about the rocky formation of Newfoundland/Labrador, a section on oil exploration in Newfoundland/Labrador and a section on the Manned Space Station and the Canadian contribution to it. The section on the Titanic was just about identical to the one we saw in Twiingate, except they had a few artifacts that was not in Twilingate and one of the staff gave a short talk about some of the details of the story behind the ill fated voyage.

Newfoundland Dog - Lena - Labrador Retriever

We went into town and had a good pizza at Venice Pizza. Then we went back up Signal road past the GEO Center to tour the display in the Parks of Canada building while we waited for a Military Tattoo performance. All the participates were young men and women and they put on a good show.

Then we returned to the campground for awhile before returning to Tim Horton's to post the last update for the Blog in July.

Canadian Maritimes July 28-29, 2019

Day 49 Sunday July 28, 2019 We decided to go back to the Bonavista Lighthouse so we departed the campground about 7:15AM to see if the whales were out this morning. They were out and just down below us near the rocky cliffs at the lighthouse. We watched several for a few minutes then the Puffins started landing on the rocks near us and a man with a really big camera lens. We eased up the rocks and got still and some of the Puffins got curious and began to come near us. The man with the long camera lens lay down and propped his camera on his camera bag and one Puffin came right up a few inches from the lens.

We drove back into the town looking for a place to eat breakfast rather than driving back to the motorhome. We stopped at The Harbour Quarters Inn & Restaurant and had a nice breakfast and some good coffee. I got blueberry pancakes that was loaded with blueberries (my favorite pancake). The building was built in 1920 as a general store and was remodeled in 2004 as a restaurant and Inn.

After breakfast we walked next door to the Ryan Premises National Historic Site of Canada. It had exhibits in five different buildings depicting the history of fishing in Newfoundland including a 45 minute film. One of the buildings was the home of the man that ran businesses located in the buildings circa 1900. There was also a museum about early life in Bonavista. All this was operated by Parks Canada so our park pass got us in free. The park pass was included as part of our tour package and has got us into a lot of museums, parks, etc., without have to pay.

We drove around town for awhile and stumbled on the Bonavista Cafe near the harbours edge. They serve a wide selection of food in a small building including Lattes so we stopped for one and a scone and used their WIFI to check email, etc. Didn't have the laptop with us or I might have tried to update the Blog with a day or two of updates. But the WIFI was not very fast and there were others also using it so probably would have been a waste to try anyway. Our campground has NO WIFI, good or bad and our cell provider does not have an International plan so even if we could get a cell signal – and sometimes we can't – it would be expensive to use our cell phones for WIFI.

Cod drying rack

Cod drying rack

We had our drivers meeting at 6PM with snacks. One thing I have not mentioned is that the Wagonmasters always has a small gift they present to anyone in the group that has a birthday or anniversary and there has been several of each so far on this trip including one birthday today.

A few of the group

Day 50 Monday July 29, 2019 Some of the group was going to take a side trip to an old car museum on the way to our destination today so they departed earlier than we did. When one of our group started to leave the Tailgunners discovered one of their rear tires was flat. Upon father checking it was discovered the tire had a large tear in it on the back side so the tire is ruined. It probably was damaged from one of the many potholes on the roads here. They made some telephone calls and found a tire but not sure if the repair truck can come today or tomorrow. So they will be late joining the group at our next campground.

We departed at 10AM and headed to Pippy Park Campground in St. John's. We arrived about 2PM and was assigned site 54 which to our surprise was full hookup so Lena will be able to get the laundry caught up. We were told the sites would not have a sewer connection which would have been the third campground in a row with no sewer hookup but they all have a sewage dump station.

Some miscellaneous photos