On our last day in the St.John's area we drove out to Torbay and biked the East Coast Trail. There were amazing views, and even though it kept looking like rain the bad weather stayed away for us.
And here's a very short video of a cliff with gulls:
We then drove back west to Corner Brook, which is an interesting town. The layout isn't terribly visitor-friendly, since it took a fair bit of exploring to figure out where things are. It is very pretty (except for the large paper mill) with lots of hills and water. Here's a sunset view of the city (from a surprisingly nice look-out from a strip mall parking lot)
We took this photo on a Sunday night, and the McDonalds was the only thing open at the strip mall. I couldn't believe how busy it was--everyone in town must have their Sunday dinner at McDonalds! The seagulls in the parking lot were happy though.
We went to Margaret Bowater park, since it was a good place to park for a bike ride. Luke had just left for his bike ride when I jumped on my bike and my front shifter promptly broke in half. I collected the pieces of my shifter from the ground, loaded the bike back on the van, and went for a hike instead. (miraculously Luke was able to put the shifter back together that night, and got it to work (more or less) even with a missing spring)
They have a fantastic little swim area in the river at the park--with lifeguard--so it was the perfect thing for me after a hot day's hike. The water was icy cold, just as I like it!
The next day we did some chores and Luke got a haircut. When we first got to Newfoundland I had asked Luke if he thought it would be a good place to get a haircut (I needed one pretty badly). He told me they'd give me bangs and make me look like I listen to bad country music, and even though that was a joke I didn't dare risk it. So I had to laugh when Luke's hairdresser commented that "you're not from around here" when he asked for his city slicker longer-on-top/shorter-on-the-sides cut. And I teased him that they had given him 'corners' at the back (which they did).
Since it was our last full day on the island, we bought some NL jam (the same as from Luke's childhood) and got a last order of Mary Brown's taters. Then we drove to Port aux Basque to catch the ferry the next morning.
One of the views on the drive to the ferry
Port aux Basque, before the thick fog rolled in
The next morning we took the ferry to Sydney Nova Scotia, which took all day. The ferry ride was 6 hours, but they also told us to come line up two hours before the ferry left for some crazy reason.
The pay-off was that our friends Ed and Tricia and their two kids Shae and Tegan were waiting for us on the other side. We had travelled with them last summer out west, so this summer the trip was out east :)
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