RussLeona Trip 8/30/12 St. Johns Golf

The fishing village of Quidi Vidi on the edge of St. Johns.  The Quidi Vidi Brewery is located here.  We toured the brewery.  It was very interesting.

This was the most beautiful golf course we have ever played.  Most of the holes looked down on the ocean.

Another view of the ocean.  Pictures just don't do it justice.

This one of the par 3s.  You are standing on the tee box looking down onto the green.  Without a doubt the  prettiest and most interesting hole we have played.

Wednesday morning, we worked around the motorhome doing laundry, little jobs, etc.  In the afternoon we drove out to Quidi Vidi and toured the Quidi Vidi Brewery.  It was really interesting and a pretty drive.  We had some great fish and chips at an Irish Pub called the Duke of Dukesworth.
Thursday, we played golf at the Pippy Parks Admiral Golf Course.  It was up on the hill above St. Johns.  It looked down on the city and the ocean.  It was the most beautiful golf course we have ever played.  It was challenging and neither one of us played great but we had an awesome time.

Russ Leona Trip 8/28/2012 St. Johns 2

Looking across the harbor at St. Johns.  Shows the colorful houses.

Some of the Jelly Bean houses.

Houses along the channel into the harbor.

Original Cape Spear lighthouse.  Built  in 1836.

Existing Cape Spear active Lighthouse.  Located on most easterly point of North American.

Looking down channel into St. Johns harbor.  Signal Hill is on the right and Fort Amherst is on left.

Looking at Fort Amherst site (competed 1777).  South side of harbor channel inlet. Site of World War II Defense Battery.

Fort Amherst Lighthouse.

 I finally got an appointment with a dentist  to glue back on a cap on a tooth that came loose in Twillingate.  After waiting 2 hours and 40 minutes and $205, it took him 10 minutes to glue in back on.  His chair was complete with the little toilet bowl by the chair.  As it was a beautiful day, we drove out to Spear Cape.  It is the most easterly point in North America.  It has an active lighthouse and an old lighthouse that was built in 1836.  It was a beautiful view.  You could look back at the St. Johns harbor inlet.  We then drove to the Fort Amherst site located on the south side of harbor inlet.  A nice lighthouse was located there.  It was also the site of World War II defense battery guns.  We drove around and looked at more of the interesting houses.  We went home and BBQed a hamburger.  It was good after a fish diet.  It is supposed to rain tomorrow.

8/28/12 St. John

Our campsite at Twillingate,  We picked blueberrries behind the campspot.

St. Johns harbor.  The inlet is a small channel between the two large hills.  Very protected.

Signal Hill looking down on the channel into the harbor

The patio where we had dinner listening to an Irish singer

Many of the row houses in St. Johns are painted bright colors.  They call them Jelly Bean houses.

 

We have been out of touch for a while so I should bring you up to date.  We spent our last morning in Twillingate, laying around as it was raining.  We went for a walk along the beach and got caught in rain storm and got pretty wet.  We picked a big tub of blueberries as they are wild everywhere.  The next morning we left early and drove to Ganger where we picked up groceries.  We talked about where to spend the night and decided to drive on to St. Johns, which we did.  We have a nice camp spot at Pippy’s Park. 

The next day we drove up to Signal Hill.  It is amazing.  It overlooks the channel going into the harbor. The only way to enter harbor is through this small channel between to large hills.  Canons were placed on the hill to protect it.  Signal flags were flown to warn the town of danger or arriving ships.  The town is beautiful.  Many of the row houses are painted bright colors.  It is very pretty.  We walked around downtown and had a nice dinner on the patio listening to Irish music.

This morning as it was raining, Leona did laundry.  We ran out and got some groceries and a part for the motorhome toilet.  (An important appliance.)  Quiet day.

Russ Leona Trip 8/23/12 Fogo Island

Fishing boats on Fogo Island

We got up to another beautiful day.  We left early so we could drive ~30 miles to catch the ferry to Fogo Island.  The ferry took about 45 minutes and only cost $14.25 for the car and us both ways.  It was a really nice ride over looking at the many, many islands.  We took a tour at the Marine Information Center.  It was really interesting as it covered the history of Fogo Island, fish marketing, and cod processing. We drove on up to the town of Fogo.  It was really pretty.  The island has alot of water but is pretty barren, mostly rock.  It has become a fishing site for off shore fishing.  We bought some frozen crab at the fishing coop.  Crap and lobster fishing season is over.  We got the crab for $14/lb for broken legs and $20/lb for complete crab legs.  It is meat only so I think that is a pretty good price.  It was froze within the last couple weeks.  We caught the ferry back at 4:00 pm.  It was a great day.

Waiting to get on ferry.

Shows barren island with blue ocean.

 

The town of Fogo.

Another photo of the town of Fogo.  Almost all the buildings  in Newfoundland are located along the ocean.

Drying cod fish after salting

Russ Leona Trip 8/22/12 Twillingate

 We had a beautiful sunshiny day today.  We had some toilet troubles so I spent awhile working on it.  It will be OK until we get to a RV supply store.  We took a drive to look around.  This is such a beautiful place.  Wild blueberries are ripe so we picked some of them.  I visited with some fishermen as they cleaned their catch of cod fish.  We then toured a lighthouse that is still in service.  The light and fog horn have been upgraded to electric.  It was real interesting.  An afternoon rain storm came by so we went back to the motorhome.  We are going to a dinner theater tonight that is supposed to be real good.

View towards part of Twillingate

Lighthouse is still in service.  We took a tour.

Fishermen are cleaning cod on the dock in this photo.

Fishermen cleaning cod which they will salt and dry for the winter.  There is a pile of cod tongues at the top of the table.  They fry and eat the tongues.

View of some islands.

8/21/2012 Springdale

We spent two days in Springdale.  It rained almost continuously until this morning.  Yesterday Leona met with a lady who wire wraps stones for necklaces.  She told us about a sea glass beach.  Sea glass is glass that has  washed back and forth in the sand until it is smooth.  They make jewelry out of it.  Anyway this beach had all kinds of it so it made Leona's day.  Today was really a nice sunshiny day so I was happy.  We drove to Twillingate which is an island.  It was probably one of the prettiest drives we have ever had..  We will send more photos.  The photo attached is at Springdale. 

Russ Leona Trip 8/18/12 St. Anthony

 We left Rocky Harbor in the Gros Morne NP early Friday morning with our car only and traveled north along the east edge of Newfoundland.  We stopped at Port aux Choix and toured the Marine Archaic site.  In the 1967 a gentleman was digging a hole for a movie theater.  He unearthed a skeleton and called the archeologists.  They dug up 115 skeletons that were buried 3500 to 4400 years ago.  They were buried with all their artifacts.  It was very interesting.  Their tools were more advanced than later Indians.  We traveled on up to Saint Anthony (which was 210 miles from our motorhome) where we spent the night in a hotel.  The next morning we toured L'Anse aux Meadow.  This Viking site was discovered in the 1960.  Building sites along with many artifacts were discovered.  This is where Leif Erickson landed and built the site in 1000AD. This is the earliest and only verified Viking site in North America.  They were able to learn much about the site and the buildings they built.  They were built of peat moss with 6 foot thick walls.  They would have been very warm.  They had iron tools and weapons.  They also built a foundry to build iron nails for their ships.  We drove on back to our motorhome in Rocky Harbor.

Typical Fishing home and dock.

A Lighthouse a long the east Newfoundland coast.

Caribou along the Newfoundland coast.

Normal tundra of the interior.

Looking down on the Viking site.  It was close to the bay so they could pull their boats up on land and repair them.

A replica of the Great House that housed most of the men.

The interior of the Great House.  The women that were along for voyage were sewing.

RussLeonaTrip 8/16/2012 Gros Morne NP

The harbor in Rocky Harbor

The Lobster Point Lighthouse just outside Rocky Harbor

Two graveyards along the road north of Rocky Harbor

Fisherman houses along the road

The tour boats on Western Brook Pond with the cliffs in the background

The lake walled with cliffs up to 7000 meters above the water

One of the waterfalls with the other tour boat on the lake

Rocky Harbor is the town in Gros Morne National Park.  It is small fishing village.  It is very scenic and the people were very friendly.  We drove a few miles up the coast past several fishing homes to take a ride on the Western Brook Pond.  We had to walk 1.8 miles to the boat dock.  The boat took us on a 2 hour ride up the lake.  The lake is walled with cliffs up to 7000 meters above the water.  There were many water falls along the way.   Pictures just can't show the beauty.  It was a wonderful ride.

8/14/12 RussLeonaTrip driving to Gros Morne NP

Typical road from ferry to Gros Morne NP

Some of the tundra looking land.  Example of how they box power poles to hold them

 

The drive to Rocky Harbor in Gros Morne NP was beautiful.  It was very green with patches of tundra looking land to heavily wooded with small trees.  It was hilly, seemed like we were either going up or down.  We have a nice campground in Rocky Harbor.  We plan to stay here several days. 

8/13/12 RussLeonaTrip Ferry to Newfoundland

This is a ferry similar to the one we took but smaller

We are waiting to get on the ferry

Entering the harbor at Port-Aux-Basques Newfoundland

Port-Aux-Basques

Ferry pulling into dock

We got up good time to prepare for the trip to Newfoundland.  We stopped and fueled the motorhome up ($5.03/gallon) wow!!!!!  We drove down and waited for the ferry.  It was a huge ferry. Lots and Lots of trucks, cars, and RVs.  We spent $50 for a berth with 2 beds and a bath with a tv.  We got a voucher for two dinners.  It was a bargain as the dinner was a three course meal, salad, bacon wrapped cod, and cheesecake.  It was really nice to lay down and take a nap instead of sitting in chairs.  Trip took 6 hours.  It was 8pm when we got to Newfoundland so was about dark.  It was really pretty.  Lots of lakes and very green.  Like I would picture Ireland.  We are excited for tomorrow.