ElsieD

Oh, one more thing. They take moose accidents and sightings seriously here.

Good morning! We are about to begin our travels in earnest today. Sue and Gary are already here and ready to roll. We are off shortly to Bay Bulls where we will be taking a boat tour to the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve. Newfoundland has a lot of quaint place names. We will see a huge Atlantic Puffin colony, apparently 1/2 million of them, Humpback Whales and hopefully some icebergs. The day is overcast but no rain is called for. Later this afternoon we will be going to "tea in a crypt", again something we did last year that we enjoyed. We actually did have a breakfast supplied hotel breakfast this morning but I didn't take any pictures because it was just the usual scrambled eggs and sausage. Nothing exciting. I have been told it is time to go. More later.

Oopsie, I attached the wrong picture. This is what we ate tonight. That's what happens when your eyes are at half mast.

Okanagancook, i'll watch the video tomorrow. The accents here can be pretty thick. The people here often add an s to their verbs. Like today, when at check-in the young lady said "when you leaves your keys"....... Rotuts, Tim Horton's used to have very good donuts. This was years ago. They made them at each location so they were always nice and fresh. They no longer make them on site. From what I understand, they are shipped to all the outlets from some central location. If anyone knows more than this, I'd be curious to hear it. Anyhow, I no longer buy them, they really aren't all that good. Remember, though, DD used to have the DD wih the handle? Those were GOOD! Having checked in, and done some unpacking, we went to the liquor store aka Newfoundland Liquor Corporation. Bought some Pinot Grigio and stuck it in the fridge in our room. Then we went to a place called Pi Gourmet Eatery. We had been there several times last year and really liked it so decided to go there tonight. I had a smoked salmon calzone and John had the Carnivore pizza. Both were good, but we did not tarry as we were keen to get back to the hotel. We made one wrong turn on the way there which added about 10 minutes to the trip. We have a navigation system in our rental but sometimes the arrow has you going one way while the voice tells you to go another. So we are trying to figure out where exactly we are going, it is dark, we are driving in an unfamiliar city and there are many, many one way streets, weird intersections and to top it all off, it is very, very hilly. Turning around is no easy matter. We are back in our room, sipping a glass of wine, the football game is on and it won't be long before we call it a night. Tomorrow morning John's sister and BIL are arriving from Calgary and we are spending the day with them. Hopefully I will have pictures of whales and puffins to share with you. There is a canvas print over the desk of a pair of puffins and I'll take a picture of it and attach it as well. I should have lots to tell you about tomorrow.

We have landed and have checked into our hotel room. Since I promised to show all our meals I'll begin with our lunch. As you know, you know have to buy your airplane lunch and they are usually not very good, especially in the cheap seats. So, we bought 2 sandwiches from a place all Canadians will be familiar with - Tim Horton's. A turkey and bacon sandwich for him, ham and cheese for me. We ate them once we were on our way. We are now on our way to get something to eat for supper and also to find the local liquor store for some wine. Our room has a fridge which is handy as we are white wine drinkers. I'll post more later tonight.

We are at the airport waiting to board our flight. As we seem to have interested folks from different parts of the world who may not know too much about our province, I thought I would start this blog by giving you an overview of Newfoundland and Labrador (NL). Before Newfoundland became part of Canada in 1949, it was a British Colony. Cupids, a town on Conception Bay, was settled 406 years ago, and is the oldest continuously settled official British community in Canada. Most of the early permanent settlers came from southwest England and southeast Ireland although the French also settled here and in the 17th century Newfoundland was more French than English. French is still spoken in Port au Port Penninsula, on the western side of the island, with English spoken everywhere else. Just off the coast of south west Newfoundland, St. Pierre et Miquelon are islands that are still a colony of France. There is a regular ferry service between Fortune, NL and St. Pierre et Miquelon. Geographically, the capital of St. John's is on the same latitude as Paris, France and Seattle, Washington. In size, Newfoundland and Labrador is a little smaller than California, slightly bigger than Japan and twice the size of the United Kingdon. NL covers 405,212 sq. kilometers (156,453 sq. miles) with over 29,000 kilometers (18,000 miles) of coastline. By itself, the island of Newfoundland covers 111,390 square kilometers (43,008 sq. miles). The population of NL is 510,000, of whom 181,000 live in St. John's. While there are some larger towns, vast areas are sparsely populated. In Newfoundland there are no snakes, skunks, racoons, poisonous insects or arachnids. There is also no ragweed - allergy sufferers rejoice! There are over 120,000 moose and it is home to one of the world's biggest caribou herds. They also have some of the continent's biggest black bears. Note: This information was taken from the official Newfoundland and Labrador web site.

Agreed. When we (ahem) bypassed Baie Verte we were on the Trans Canada turned right someplace and went through Gros Morne. Spectacular. Also saw signs while going through the park telling us how many moose/car accidents there had been that year and how many people had been killed. We thought that rather unnerving and so were very vigilant. From Gros Morne we went to L'Anse aux Meadow. We stayed in Port au Choix on the way up and back, and in St. Anthony for one night. The terrain sure changes, doesn't it?

If we had only known...... I just looked it up on the map. I can't say we would have visited there if we had had more time, but you never know. Some of the best places we saw last year were those off the beaten track. We would go off the highway and follow all these little roads to the end.

A few words about the picture of the roadside garden. We saw literally hundreds of them along the highway in the Northern Penninsula. We were told that although the land belongs to the provincial government, anyone can stake out a garden. They keep these for as long as they want to, or until the province needs the land. In contrast to other parts of he province, the land here is very barren. Mostly rock, every now and again you see a few trees. The soil by the roadside, in contrast to thd rest of the area is quite fertile. These gardens are meticulously maintained. When we first saw them, we didn't know what to make of them as here they were, in the middle of nowhere. Sometimes there wasn't a house in sight. From what we were told, theft is also not an issue, it seems people respect other people's property.

Quite right. That is where the initial settlement was. As you can see, pretty much all that is left are the outlines of where the buildings stood. What they have done, though, a bit away from the original site, is created a re-enactment of the original village. If anyone is interested, i'd be happy to post a couple of pictures. To tell the truth though, I was much more moved by the outlines of the original, wandering around and wondering what their lives were like back then.

Where did you live? Last year we started in St. John's and ended our trip in Deer Lake. We took in the northern part of the Avalon Peninsula, Bonavista Peninsula, up to Gambo, then north through Musgrave Harbour, Twillingate to Grand Falls. We were worried about the amount of time we had at that point and so had to give Baie Verte Pennisula a miss. We did explore the Northern Penninsula to the extent that there were roads, and visiting L'Anse aux Meadows.

I'll take a look. Last year when we were there we were in one grocery store only and that was more by accident than design. The liquor store was attached to it and we had gone there to buy some wine. Since it was right there we had a look around and I recall that I thought the produce was expensive. I'll report back.

Me too!

Well, how neat is that! It looks as though the individual tart pans come out. Do they?

I wrote to the place where we are staying for 2 nights to ask what I might possibly find in the cupboards. The answer was sugar, salt and pepper. The places I have stayed in where the pepper was provided, the pepper was in one of those shakers and no longer resembled pepper. I have decided to pack a pepper grinder and some sea salt. I may even pack some chipotle powder.

This is true. But NL (to use the short form for it's proper name, Newfoundland and Labrador) is a sparsely populated area outside the capital and a couple of bigger towns here and there. For example, one place we are staying in has a population of 439. The places with the kitchens are bigger, something like 4,000 in one and 2,500 in the other. So, I may be able to get the goods to cook with, but maybe not. Those of us of a certain age will remember The Rolling Stones singing, "you can't always get what you want".

We will have cooking facilities on 3 of the nights we are there, the rest of the time we are in hotels and one night in a B & B. I'm not sure if any staples are supplied at any of these places and I don't want to be buying a bunch of stuff to cook with only to leave it behind. I'm glad you asked the question because I will get in touch with the two places that have kitchens and find out what I might expect to find in the cupboards. If they have any staples I will seriously consider cooking something. One place we are staying in for two nights is a cottage with a bbq and since we can no longer bbq ourselves, that may be tempting. If I do cook, it will likely be pretty basic stuff. The rest of the time I will be taking you out to eat lunch and dinner. We aren't much on breakfast.

Wow, Sartoric, that's quite the feast!

We were there last year (husband's first time) and the Legion in one of the places we were staying in was serving up a Jigg's dinner. However, they were serving it at 4:30 in the afternoon so we gave it a miss thinking we would have another chance. And sure enough, it was on the menu in another spot. And they had had a power outage that day and had not been able to prepare the meat that was required. And those were the only two times in two weeks we saw Jigg's dinner mentioned. It is on the list to eat if we find a place serving it. I also wanted to bring some savoury back but I never did. It too, is on the list.

Aaargh! I am having trouble with some of my quotes. I usually back space to get rid of what I don't want showing and I missed this one. If you look down one line, it was rotuts who asked the question. Sorry, I'll double check in future.

Me too.

☺

Different provinces have different rules around fishing. Where are you going?

There are different rules for fishing salmon versus cod. One can fish for cod for 46 days this year, up from 32 last year. The limit is 5 cod per day. There is also a boat limit where three or more people cannot in total catch more than 15. I don't know what the rules are for freshwater fish.

Well, now, this should be a lot of fun. There is something about Newfoundland that tugs at the heart and stays with you long after you have left. I fell in love with it 36 or 37 years ago when I went out there on a business trip and spent the weekend with a friend and his family in an outport, Winterbrook by name. His mother cooked Newfoundland fare for my girlfriend and I which included fish and brewis ( salt cod and hard tack), topped with scrunchions for breakfast. The smell of that, wafting upstairs, was not something I was used to. The weekend also included canned trout, caught on the island and bakeapples for dessert. I can't remember what else we had other than the fact there was always tea on the stove. Very, very, strong tea. It is indescribably beautiful, and ranges from mountainous terrain in the west to a barren, flat terrain in the north west, to picturesque coves in the east. There are many outports, some with just a handful of people living in them. The people are extremely friendly, helpful and just all round nice. I am looking forward to telling you all about it. Elsie