Author: 2csovercs

Friday 21 August 2026

Cherrie has turned her back on Cod. I am still worshiping, but I’m not sure how long I can keep this up. The North Atlantic Cod fishing industry sustained Newfoundland for centuries, until over fishing forced the introduction of quotas. It’s still King though and is venerated here. We’ve only been on this island for four days and already we’ve had Cod pan fried, Cod chowder, Cod puttanesca, Cod cakes, Cod au gratin, Cod casserole. I get Cherrie’s point.

Today we brave the car again, and with eyes on the road and hearts in our mouths, we head south on the Avalon Peninsula to Bays Bull. We took the scenic route, intentionally, and arrived at our destination in an hour. My praise extends beyond Cod to Sea Legs. What a wonderful invention of our New Zealand neighbours. This little white tablet allows me to go out on the water and keep the Cod down.

We are in search of the Atlantic puffin and so the boat takes us straight to Gull Island, well as straight as it can with quite a bit of bobbing along the way

It’s breeding season, and we hear them before we see them

Every little white speck is a puffin

We ease closer

These enchanting creatures are very vocal on land, but silent in the air, with those little wings working hard. Incidentally, those wings work underwater too

Very difficult to photograph

Persistence pays

After the breeding season, which ends soon, they will spend winter at sea and not return to land until spring. We loved them and they’re all called Billy

Oh, and there were a few other birds on Gull Island as well

Once back on dry land, in glorious weather, we return to the car and head further south on the Irish Loop. Now, if you’ve been paying attention, you will recall from yesterday’s blog that there is a rich Irish heritage on this Island which dates back 400 years. The Irish Loop winds along rugged ocean shores and is over 300km long. It’s where the Irish settled and it’s where the Irish still are. Not far south of Bays Bull the brogue starts. We speak with one woman who has a strong Irish accent. She was born in Newfoundland, as were her parents, grandparents and more before them. When I enquire when her forebears came out from Ireland, she can’t tell me. Hundreds of years ago I’m told. But that accent…..it’s amazing.

We lunch at The Irish Cafe, a little family run house which hugs the cliffs. It’s full of Newfoundlanders with strong Irish accents. It’s run by an Irish family who have been here for generations. It’s like being in Ireland. Except for the food. There can’t be this much cod in Ireland.

As we leave the Irish Cafe, we meet a young man, in his 20s I suppose, who strikes up a conversation with us. He speaks in a Canadian accent, so is obviously not from around here, but is a proud Newfoundander and is showing his friend from Montreal around. On hearing where we are heading he suggests another route. He is so engaging and friendly, as we have found all Newfoundlanders to be and is so convincing as to his reasoning that we take his advice. It was good advice We continued south, as intended to Ferryland.

Annie Proulx describes these rock formations in her book The Shipping News

Perhaps an Irishman built this wharf

Ah, the Irish humour is alive and well in Ferryland

From Ferryland we had intended to continue south and then follow the road all the way back north to St Johns in a loop, but we took our newfound friend’s advice and circled back to include Petty Harbour. And so pleased we did. This fishing village has been continuously occupied since at least 1598 and fidelity obviously reigns

And one bastard

It’s a very pretty, very quiet, very fishing village

Cherrie has moved on from Cod to Lobster

Every town has it’s snow proof post boxes and it’s church

Every town has it’s retirees

Everyone in every town has been very welcoming. There’s always an exception

And so as they head out to sea, we head to our home St Johns after a full and fabulous day

Thursday 20 August 2016

It’s raining today so we hail the Hop On Hop Off bus again (it was a two day ticket) and tolerate the incessant talk of, this time, Dylan. Dylan is a history graduate from Memorial University, Newfoundland’s only. He loves the island and doesn’t want to leave, so he is using his degree as a tour guide on the bus. As the rain eases, we alight at Quidi Vidi, pronounced by almost all as Kiddy Vidi. It’s only those who actually live in this historic fishing village who call it Kweyedi Veyedi.

The origin of the name is unknown, it is not Latin, but we do know that it dates back centuries

These are the first residential gardens we have seen, each with their own shed

Quidi Vidi’s harbour is accessed through what is called The Gap

Some skill needed to navigate that on a dark and foggy night with a boat load of cod.

Our next stop is Government House, built in 1829 for the British Governor of Newfoundland, now the residence of the Lieutenant Governor (since Newfoundland and Labrador became a province of Canada in 1949)

The Gardens are beautiful and very serene

I stood at arms when the cops passed by

Just outside Government House is St Thomas, built in 1836, and the oldest continually used Anglican Church in Newfoundland

We waited a long time for the HoHo bus. Possibly delayed by the driver having to make a quick detour for throat lozenges. It finally arrived and it took us to The Rooms, a museum of history, art and culture. We learnt about the influence of the Irish on Newfoundland, which is often called the most Irish place outside of Europe. Irish migration started in the late 1600s, with many of the settlers coming from Waterford.

We had a sandwich in the cafe in The Rooms, which was fairly buzzing

We then made our way downhill, to the harbour and the hotel. It’s a slow walk for me, any walk of mine these days is slow, and the photo editor took advantage and checked out the neighbourhood. The general expression for the highly coloured houses is Jelly Bean Row

Everyone is welcomed in this most welcoming of cities

And the water is never far away

Wednesday 19 August 2026

I start this post 31 hours after we left Sydney in an Uber to Sydney International Airport. And we ain’t there yet. But only 2 hours to go now before we land. We’ve travelled on Air Canada from Sydney to Vancouver, with a 90 minute stopover and then a 4 1/2 flight to Toronto with a 4 hour stopover and now en route to St John’s, the capital of Newfoundland. This last leg is with Rouge Canada, which I think is the equivalent of Qantas Link. Now, be assured that I am the last person to sing the praises of Qantas (in the unlikely event any could be found) but I have to say that Rouge Canada makes Qantas Link look good. We’re on a plane which clearly is a vessel of the last century. We are blessed with a crew who wishes they were on duty anywhere but here. Preferably not an airline. The battle of the overhead lockers is surpassed by the late takeoff which was so alarming in its noise that Cherrie actually recorded it in case the black box didn’t. So far, though, we’re still in the air so there’s a positive. We were offered a choice for dinner – chicken parmigana or chicken parmigana. We chose the chicken parmigana. Grateful to be told what it was (thrice) because once it arrived, it was indiscernible. Whether that had anything to do with the almighty galley crash that reverberated throughout the embattled aircraft prior to service I can’t be sure. When it was served by the woman who is seemingly incapable of eye contact, we spied a bed of tepid, edge curled penne on which sat 15 half chicken nuggets. We did however eat the carrot cake, which was quite nice once the icing had been removed. No entertainment on board, save the suicidal crew, who I suspect would rather not be saved from this dreadful fate of theirs which is only made tolerable but their interminable phone scrolling (on a connection not available to their fellow travellers), no blankets, no little pillows, and the buttons at the side of the seats turn out to be non-functional props.

Ah well, we are due to land at 2am local time, which will be 34 hours post Uber.

Being the studious traveller you know us to be (not) in the past three weeks we’ve reread The Shipping News (Annie Proulx, set on Newfoundland) and Hannah Kent’s odes to Iceland Burial Rites and Always Home Always Homesick. Cherrie has also been reading The Colony of Unrequited Dreams by Wayne Johnston (also Newfoundland) and we’ve loved them. They’ve all put fire in the belly to visit these places. En route…..

We land uneventfully at 2.15am and disembark to no eye contact, or utterance of any kind from the crew. We overnight at the airport hotel.

Wednesday 19 August 2026 – Again

We collect our rental car from the airport and head off into St John’s. I drive, Cherrie navigates. We speak out at each corner “small turn” or “big turn”, so that we remember that the left turn is the big one. It’s true that they drive on the right side of the road and we on the wrong.

We navigate successfully to the hotel, where we have requested early check in. At the corner turn to the hotel the navigator is heard to say “small turn“. I obey. Wrong. I find myself in head on traffic and a pedestrian standing in the middle of the road waving at me. Ooops. Reverse. Onto the wrong side of the road. Not a single horn, toot or bad word from the many motorists involved. We sorted ourselves out and finally found the car park. We have not driven since.

Early check in done. The view from our room is quite satisfactory

Conveniently right at the front door of the hotel we spy a hop on hop off bus desk. We always find this a good introduction to a new city so we purchase two tickets. They’re out of paper so Cherrie takes a photo of the ticket on the vendor’s screen. They’re out of maps. Insufficient print run. There was a big ship in here yesterday and 8000 passengers disembarked.

The timetable for the bus is in a bit of disarray as the driver slept in this morning, so departure time uncertain. No matter to us, we stroll downtown and are introduced to this absolutely charming city. It’s welcoming, colourful and has lots of public art.

Arty

We pop into an art shop which sells local works and find ourselves chatting to the owner. She tells us that one of the American cruise ship passengers yesterday was very demanding and actually said to her “we’re going to take over your country”. Charming.

An internet search informs us of a nearby stop for the bus

and we do the loop. Why is it that tour bus drivers always suffer from verbal diarrhoea? Chad is a local. He knows this island like the back of his hand and he wants to tell us everything. He does not restrict this to just the landmarks. We learn about his family, and I mean great-grandparents down, the jobs he’s had (he’s only been at this job since June, and no it doesn’t require training since he knows it all), the house he bought, how much he paid, details about the new kitchen he put in….the talk goes on. But we enjoy getting our bearings and it informs us what we want to see tomorrow. Some interesting facts from Chad include that four moose (1M, 3F) were brought in from New Brunswick in 1904 to work the ploughs instead of horses. No one cared, they preferred their horses, so the moose were released. Today Newfoundland has the highest density of moose in North America and at last count there were 250,000. And, the polar bear. Sometimes they drift in on ice, but because they are not people friendly (perhaps Rouge Canada could recruit some) they are tranquillised and sent back. No detail of the method of return.

From the bus we see lots of colourful houses. Fishing was the big industry here These originally housed the fishermen in Victorian times and they were painted so brightly so that they could be spotted through the fog. This was important since there are 200 foggy days a year in Newfoundland

If it’s not colourful timber, its stone

The stone is not local, but came from the UK as ballast on the loads of whatever. It then stayed here. The details are scant because Chad was speaking mostly of his old school friend’s recent fishing trip.

Officially we are in the province of Newfoundland and Labrador. Here they are

We are both vigilant about our exercise regime and take every opportunity to limber up

A stroll back to the hotel via the harbour

And so endeth Day 1 in this beautiful city