Cuz here things go from grey to grey and ...
Trip Start
Jul 06, 2001
1
14
20
Trip End
Jul 22, 2001
St.John's, Newfoundland, Canada
Tuesday, July 17, 2001
The band was singing about there hometown of Seattle but it seemes this line works quite well for Newfoundland as well. Since arriving on the island I haven't had more than 36 straight hours without rain or heavy mist. I should have known things would get worse when I arrived in St.John's yesterday to find out that the International Fog Convention was going on in town. Yes, today was miserable. It was warmer in Iqaluit and sunnier too no doubt.
St.John's has the potential to be a very pretty city. I won't know until I see it in the sunlight (and when I can see more than a 100 feet in front of me). The cool part is that I can camp at Pippy Park which is only a short 30 minute walk to the heart of downtown. Of course when the rain is pouring buckets you take drive anyway.
Right after my last installment I headed out on a boat to chase an iceberg that was rapidly drifting away from Twillingate harbour. We had to venture 3 miles out to see to get to it. It was a thrilling experience though which was due to the stormy seas we were out on. I was thoroughly soaked when he got back to dry land (or at least the semblance of dry land as it was raining pretty hard).
I headed down to Terra Nova National Park the next day with a detour around what's known as "the straight shore." I must say that this part of the island (including the park) can be skipped for those travellers who must budget their time. It's nice but in comparison to the rest of the island it pales.
The Discovery Trail up through Summerville to Bonavista and then back through Trinity was very cool. It was a clear day. YAY!! I did some small hikes amongst some of the towns along this peninsula which took me to some interesting spots like abandoned graveyards and the sites of former villages that were re-settled in the 1960's. The Ryan Properties in Bonavista is also a first rate Historial Park to check out. As an added bonus two whales were feeding on caplin not 50 feet off the tip of Cape Bonavista. In the late afternoon is rained heavily again. So much so that the Trans-Canada became nothing more than a 2 lane river. I had to give up and take a motel room. Thankfully it had cable TV so I caught up on all the WWF action I had missed the previous week.
Yesterday I went to the town known as Dildo. It's not as advertised.
Hopefully the weather changes for tomorrow because I'd like to get some pictures of all the great colours of St.John's. I'm not exactly optimistic though. I'm just praying I don't drown in my sleep tonight.
Finally, you know a town is pretty cool when the local radio station VOCM is giving out free packages of Jam Jams to everybody camping in the park.
