There are pluses and minuses to travelling by the seat of your pants. You find amazing places - or you don't. We had a bit of both over the last couple of days.
We drove around Dildo to get a sense of the place, found The "Hollywood" sign that Jimmy Kimmel sponsored (and who is also the honorary mayor). They have a brewery, but closed in the morning. We have been finding a lot of places closed on Monday, slow season I guess. We decided to explore the northern part of the Avalon Peninsula, heading up the west side.
We stopped in various coves and harbours in search of a good cafe. We found fresh cookies along the way, but struck out on coffee. Having the van makes that less of an issue so fresh coffee and cookies are an easy break. We found a convenience store in Green Harbour that sells wool at low prices so Mandy picked up skeins for another sweater. That would be for a third sweater, she just started on #2.
We kept finding interesting places, Fisherman's memorials, and quaint harbours where we could get Pete out to stretch his paws and us to have lunch. We went through Hearts Desire, Hearts Delight, and Hearts Content on our way to Bay de Verde on the northern tip of the peninsula. There some steep hills as you drop down to the harbour from the plateau that makes your stomach drop but worth it in the end.
We stopped in at Blundon House, an early merchant in the town. It is a small museum with guided tours that finishes with tea and raisin biscuits (more like scones). Bonus as they were dog friendly so Pete was able to tag along. No surprise, he made friends with everyone there.
The east side of the peninsula was harder to access, the road was more inland so we skipped some of the harbour towns as they were in in and out access instead of along the way. Along the way I was looking for a barber, I was going a bit crazy with an itchy beard and bushy hair. No luck, closed on Monday!
We stayed the night at Mad Rocks at Bay Roberts. This is another community area on the cape that you can park up. We had a 3km or so hike in the morning that had cliffs, waves, a great views across the water to islands, rocks, or the other side of the cove. After the hike we stopped in at a barber that gave me a haircut and got me feeling human again!
We drove up to Pouch Cove while exploring the peninsula that St John's is on (exploring there on Wednesday). The drive was nice, but we really didn't find anything that we cared to stop at. We tried a shore hike at Pouch Cove, not bad but short and not great. Best part was the dog park where Pete chased around with a lab/husky cross pup named Jack.
It was overcast, cool and windy but we had a good night before heading to St John's.
Love the pictures you have been posting. BTW we’re finally doing fall here in Kamloops.
Don’t you just love some of the community names? Newfoundland is just so darn quaint 💕