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Home >> Articles >> Life of Myden
Newfoundland: I'll Take Mine With Ice
<<< June 10
- Pick up rental car
- Drive to liquor store
NLC Liquor Store 55 Stavanger Dr
- Stay at Airbnb 18874603 St. John's
Downtown Sailors
- Walked to Quidi Vidi Brewery Taproom but it was closed for a private function.
- Bought some cookies at Craig's Cookies.
- Went to Bannerman Brewing across the street. Chris had a green beer. We had some nice Thai food to go along with it.
<<< Sun, June 11
- Walked around and checked out Jellybean Row. Quite a few cats in the windows.
- Went for breakfast at Terre (Alt Hotel). Delicious breakfast sandwiches.
- Walk around Jellybean row some more: Stopped by a bakery.
- Bought groceries at Coleman's.
- Drove to Blue Whale (Bonavista). Failed to check iceberg reports on the way.
Very windy, sideways rain, cloudy and cold.
Made our pasta for dinner.
<<< Mon, June 12
- Went to Elliston in the morning to check out the puffins. Incredibly windy and cold.
- Drove to Trinity where the weather was a little nicer. Walked up Gun Hill and viewed the town from above.
- Drove to Spaniard's Cove where a great iceberg was nestled in the cove. Walked down the ATV trail and soaked my shoes on the muddy trail.
Beautiful view of the iceberg in a gorgeous setting. Danielle from Port Rexton Brewing Company took a nice pic of us in front of the iceberg.
- Went to Port Rexton Brewery. Had a couple beers and an expensive grilled cheese sandwich. Danielle was there and sent us our pic.
- Headed out in the evening and checked out Dungeon Provincial Park. Drove down Dungeon Road - nice coastal views.
Saw a very large iceberg far off the coast.
- Stopped at Dairy King for dinner. Burger, fish and chips and a milkshake. Sat in our car at the lighthouse, viewing icebergs in the distance
and hoping the weather would improve but it never did. Figured out where the puffins were at the lighthouse. They had already come home for
the night.
<<< Tue, June 13
- Drove back up Dungeon Road to see if the icebergs had moved. Another windy and rainy day.
Checked out the puffins for a bit at the lighthouse. No easily visible icebergs.
- Drove to Elliston but didn't get out of the car (too miserable). Saw a small iceberg floating in the bay.
- Sat in our car, ate lunch, played a game.
- Moved to our next Airbnb, which had a hot tub. And an adorable Himalayan cat named Lilly, fluffy with blue eyes.
- The sun finally came out in the evening. Back to the lighthouse we went. Once again the puffins were already home.
<<< Wed, June 14
- Finally, some nicer weather!
- Walked out to Spillar's Cove where Peter Pan and Windy was filmed. Incredible ocean scenery. Dramatic cliffs and sea stacks.
Sat in front of the puffin colony and watched them for a while, with an iceberg to our right.
After half an hour or so, we got up and walked a little to the left of the puffin colony and realized another iceberg was sitting there, blocked
from our view by the puffin colony.
- Then we went back to Elliston (again) and watched the puffins. Much more enjoyable this time. We were finally able to watch them without
gale force winds. There was also a nice, small iceberg perched off the coast near the puffins. Then the fog rolled.
As we walked back we realized we had taken the boring way to the puffins a few times. There was much nicer scenery on the other side.
- Went back home and played with Lilly the cat again.
- Drove to Upper Amherst Cove by the Bonavista Social Club. Sat in the grass and had a great view of an iceberg all to ourselves.
- Swung by the Bonavista Lighthouse for the third time? Fourth time? It was definitely the best weather we had at the lighthouse,
and *this* time we were there before the puffins returned home. At 8:10 PM the puffins swarmed the sky, buzzing around their colony and swooping
from all directions.
- Came back for a dip in the hot tub.
<<< Thu, June 15
- Checked out of Bonavista
- Drove to the Skerwink Trail. Parked in front of a garbage can with a picnic table beside it. "Who would ever eat lunch here?" we asked ourselves,
with so many amazing views to eat lunch on the trail. We would find out the answer at the end of the hike.
- Hiked the Skerwink Trail, some nice views with the highlight being one of the viewpoints with two very young and rambunctious foxes that loved to
wrestle.
- We came back from the beautiful trail to find a couple eating at the picnic table beside the garbage can in the parking lot.
- Drove to Trinity for our whale watching / iceberg tour on a zodiac. Passed by some beautiful scenery. Floated partway into a cave.
Checked out a medium-large, beautiful iceberg in Spaniard's Cove, the same one we had walked down to days before. It looked much larger up close and it was nice
to get a complete view from all sides. Glowing green on the bottom left. A boat was harvesting iceberg ice to sell.
- Boated by a large puffin colony / island. They were swarming all around us in the sky.
- Saw some seals as we headed back to Trinity.
- We had pretty much given up hope on finding a whale, but on the way back in we spotted a humpback whale with her baby. We didn't get to visit
with her for a very long time, but she gave us one nice up close whale-tail shot as she dove down.
- Headed to Port Union for our stay at the Harbourside Inn. We were disappointed to learn that they no longer offered dinner as we had read
great things about their food. Instead we went to about the only restaurant in town, Carl's Fireside Inn.
<<< Fri, June 16
- Hiked Heart's Ease Beach trail. The weather wasn't the greatest but we had a great surprise waiting for us, a nice little iceberg that we
hadn't read about anywhere. We would end up taking one of the small chunks of ice thst had floated to shore to see what it was like to drink
10,000 year old water. Turns out it's very similar to 10 minute old water.
- There was also a great sea arch on this trail.
- Picked up groceries at Foodland at Arnold's Cove. Took the 'scenic' route which involved being exposed to the seedy underbelly of Newfoundland as
we passed by some nasty looking refineries.
- Next we drove to Chance Cove, a hike recommended to us by the Harbourside Inn. It was pretty nice, with some great sea stacks close to shore and
a lot of nice views. No icebergs or whales though!
- Drove to Whale Watcher House in St. Michael's / Witless Bay / Bay Bulls.
<<< Sat, June 17
- Drove down to Mistaken Point to take a guided tour to the 565 million year old fossils, evidence of some of the earliest multi-cellular life
on the planet. They looked like fern leaves and cabbage.
- Went for dinner at The Fork. Delicious.
<<< Sun, June 18
- Went for a hike around Bulls Bay. More great coastal views with beautiful rocks but sadly did not spot any whales.
- Sat on our lawn with great views of the Atlantic Ocean and a few little islands in the Witless Bay Ecological Reserve (Pee Pee Island and Ship Island)
Still no whales.
<<< Mon, June 19
- check out at 8 AM
- Drive to Cape Spear, arrive at 9 AM
- Cape Spear to YYT 30 min
- Fly home
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