By Rachel
It had to happen sometime…
Last week we arrived in St John’s, our penultimate destination before returning home. Closing the loop of our round-the-world adventure was a bit tough to accept in some ways – it’s been such a fantastic year – but we couldn’t have chosen a better place to reintroduce ourselves to Canada.
Newfoundland is such a beautiful province, rugged, treed, gorgeous seaviews – and, best of all, it happens to be the home of our longtime friends, Gerry and Kerri. We spent a great week with them and their two children. Lots of talking (often accompanied by local beer), exploring parts of the Avalon Peninsula and the bay of Bonavista, enjoying music together, and even a bit of shopping.
Some highlights:
The lighthouse at Cape Bonavista where you can see how the original seal oil (later kerosene) light worked and learn how the lighthouse keeper lived. We also got to hear Rowan pipe as he stood on the rocks overlooking the bay, saw puffins, and watched whales spouting. Fantastic!
Walking the Skerwink trail and then stopping off for yummy gourmet grilled cheese sandwiches (who knew!) and excellent craft beer at the Port Rexton brewery.
Playing on the beach and braving the cold North Atlantic at Salmon Cove followed by a visit to the Newfoundland Distillery where we sampled seaweed gin, cloudberry gin, and gunpowder and rose rum.
All nine of us playing music and singing songs in the house we stayed at in Port Union. (What a great evening that was – brought back lots of memories of late night music sessions with Gerry and Kerri from a decade or more ago). And Port Union itself….
Exploring the streets of St John’s and finding some great little local shops in amongst the more typical souvenir stores. Including, of course, going up Signal Hill and seeing the narrows from above.
As an extra bonus we had sunshine most days! Not a guarantee in Newfoundland.
Yep, while it’s hard to believe that our year of discovery is just about over, we couldn’t have asked for a better re-entry.
A year of discovery 