The Final Day on the Island

This post is a little behind, as we had limited access to internet connection over the past two days.

We spent our final full day in Newfoundland touring the shores of Conception Bay and Trinity Bay.  It was a beautiful day for the drive and we had plenty of time to travel into many of the communities along the way, beginning with Brigus, which is a historic site and was home to Captain Robert Bartlett, a renowned navigator whose career spanned from the late 1800′s until approximately 1930.  We visited Hawthorne Cottage, which had been his family home and in which his youngest sister, Eleanor, resided in until her death in 1971.

We saw some stunning new homes on the shores of Conception Bay, stark contrast to so many of the quaint saltbox style houses we had become accustomed to seeing.

We traveled to the very tip of the peninsula that separates the two Bays, stopping at Caplin Cove where Nelson finally got some tail – whale tail that is.  We were treated to a show by no less than four whales frolicking off the coast.  Unfortunately despite Nelson’s extreme off-roading (leaving my knuckles white) we weren’t able to get as close as we would have liked.  Still, Nelson managed to capture that elusive “tail” shot that he had been so relentlessly pursuing.

We visited Bay de Verde, which literally translates to green bay and found that the description was very accurate.  We rounded the tip of the peninsula and took in Heart’s Content, Heart’s Desire and Heart’s Delight which sounded far more picturesque than they turned out to be.

It was great relaxing day and a perfect way to finish our time on the Island.  The following day we did a few final errands and found a wonderful place for lunch in St. John’s – The Hungry Heart Cafe – the food was unbelievable and I am hopeful I will yet be able to convince the Chef to surrender up her recipe for the vegetarian crepe lasagne, which currently holds the title of the best thing I’ve ever tasted (and I’ve tasted a lot of things).

Four hours on an odd little shuttle bus with a driver whose accent was the thickest we’d heard in our travels (we just smiled and nodded in response to most of his comments on the drive), followed by 18 hours on a pretty rough ferry ride and we arrived in Sydney, where we enjoyed the second-to-none hospitality of Warren and Katheryn for a day before checking into our hotel for the duration of our time here.