St. John's

16.09.2013

Well I guess it is my turn to blog. Tony is off doing laundry. It is raining today (Thursday) and everything feels damp.

We arrived in St. John’s on Tuesday. We are camping in Pippy Park. It is right in the city and pretty close to the Legislation Buildings and the airport. The sites are quite nice but all the notices warning us about thefts in the area are not comforting. The washrooms and showers are run down but clean and the water is hot, so we are happy.

Yesterday we wandered downtown St. John’s. We started at the top and worked our way down, like a switch back when you are hiking. Earlier Tony had gone out for his early morning ramble and from Signal Hill he watched a huge cruise ship come into the harbour. I think we ran into everyone of the 3,080 passengers from the Caribbean Princess. They were filming a scene from the Republic of Doyle so we watched that for awhile but the cruise ship passengers didn’t even seem to notice.

St. John’s has changed a lot since I lived here over 20 years ago. The downtown streets are still colourful but there are a lot more businesses and the harbour is now restricted access in some parts. Twenty years ago you could walk along the whole length. A lot of the houses downtown have cute little mailboxes.

It is now Saturday morning and I am back to blogging. We are at my friend Janny’s house right now. She lives in a cute little house in St. John’s not far from Pippy Park.

So back to Wednesday. After our wander downtown we went to Cape Spear the most easterly point in Canada. Again we encountered cruise ship passengers by the busload. Then off to Petty Harbour for lunch. Petty Harbour is a cute little fishing village, a little bigger than I remember and also more touristy. We had lunch at Chafe’s Landing and while waiting in line for a table (this is after 1 pm in the afternoon) we see Alan Doyle and Sean McCann of “Great Big Sea” also waiting for a table. Of course they got seated before us. Alan grew up in Petty Harbour and chatted for a few minutes. They are getting ready for their 28th tour. The food at the restaurant was also good. We had moose sausages and fish (cod) & chips.

Thursday was rainy so we spent time at the mall and in the car. Not to exciting. Tony took a picture of me in front of my old house on Sudbury Street. That evening we met up with Janny at the Flauvarium for a book launch by Ann Bludgell a former CBC reporter. She had access to journals and letters of a woman who moved to Labrador from Park Avenue. I’m looking forward to reading it.

Friday we moved over to Janny’s place to spend a few days with her before heading home. It was a beautiful day in St. John’s so we decided to do a day trip to Cape St. Mary’s (a bird sanctuary) about 2 hours from the city. Well it may have been a great day in St. John’s but not so nice in Cape St. Mary’s. Fog and rain. At times we couldn’t see more than 250 metres in front of us. The fog horn was sounding constantly. We did the hike out to the point where only the gannets are nesting right now. They make a lot of noise, it must be even louder when they are all here. Most of the other birds and their chicks left in the latter part of August. The short hike was worth it but our pictures were not that great. The locals free range their sheep there through the summer so you have to be careful not to step in sheep shit.

On our return trek the weather improved and was nice once we got to St. John’s. We asked at the Visitor’s Centre just outside St. John’s about a good affordable restaurant. Velma’s was recommended but she thought that they had moved from their Water Street location. They phoned and said the new address was 32 George Street. So we tried to find it. We didn’t succeed. George Street was hopping but we were told this wasn’t anything “ wait for the young kids to come out at 10 pm or 11 pm”. Since we couldn’t find the restaurant and all the other places had line-ups we got a cab and went back to Janny’s. We ordered a pizza and had some beer, Janny was out for dinner with some friends. We were in bed before Janny got home.