Bonavista and Bumpy Roads
After our over night ferry and 3 nights in St. John’s we headed for the Trans Canada highway towards Bonavista. The highway was quite busy and in good shape but as soon as we turned North and onto provincial roads our progress was slowed by RV traffic and constantly watching for very large potholes and other bumps along the way. Did I mention that Newfoundland is about the journey 😉 and it was a trip to enjoy patiently (which is not always my forte).
Port Rexton and Trinity
A coffee shop/ lunch stop that I found on Google turned out to be an excellent choice and deserving of its 4.6 star rating. Two Whales is a small, independent shop in Port Rexton, serving vegetarian and vegan food and cakes. They use organic and/or locally sourced ingredients and make just about everything in house with their own produce. When I asked about the nettle soup of the day I actually got to speak to the person who made it!
The town of Trinity is exactly what we expected to find. A quaint, pretty, seaside town with white-picket fence lined streets criss-crossing throughout its centre. The harbour was first used by fishing vessels as early as 1500. The oldest standing wooden church in Newfoundland, built in 1833, is also in Trinity.
Puffins
The Elliston Puffin Viewing Site is said to offer the closest view of puffins, from the land, in all of North America. It is a short, but rocky walk into the site from the road with little parking, but it would be worth taking a folding chair (we did not) to say for a while and watch the action. We also did see puffins up close at the Bonavista lighthouse which has both a parking lot and much easier access.
The puffins themselves were actually much smaller that we expected them to be. I was thinking closer to penguin size, but they are much shorter. The Atlantic Puffin is rated as a vulnerable species.
Bonavista
The Harbour Quarters Inn sits directly on the Bonavista Harbour Front and is a registered Heritage Inn, built circa 1920. It has 12 renovated rooms and we chose the Town Suite for its sitting area and harbour view. The room keys are still actual keys! The rooms sit above Skipper’s Restaurant which had live music and a delicious crab feast.
Gander and The Mess
Next we headed to Twillingate via Gander. Gander has become know for its role in aiding stranded 9/11 air passengers and crews, but for us it is where we learned all about The Mess at Rosie’s Restaurant.
Mess is like poutine, sort of.
It is fries and gravy but Newfies add dressing, and that is what makes it so savoury and so good! A mess can also have other added ingredients like the one we had. When ordering fries in NFLD you’ll see dressing and gravy on the menu (sometimes it’ll be listed as “fries d + g”) or you could be asked, “Do you want dressing and gravy with that?” At first I did not ‘get’ it, but now obviously, the answer is Yes!
Twillingate and back to the Mainland
We spent two nights at Fridays Bay Cottages in Twillingate. That experience was worth it’s own blog post. Then we headed to Channel-Port-aux-Basques for the ferry back to Sydney, Nova Scotia.
You don’t have to be location independent to see the world. It just helps. Sometimes it is complicated and sometimes it’s not…but it is ALWAYS worth it!
CK Golf write two blogs, one is our 19th Hole Blog where we share personal experiences and the other an Industry Blog where we comment internet marketing best practices, sales strategies and give golf industry related opinions.
If you are ever looking for trip tips or just want to chat about travel give me a call, text or message. There is nothing I like to talk about more than travel.
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