Being the dedicated dyed-in-the-wool Canadians that we are, we opted to continue our exploration of our home and native land this summer. We’re big fans of Newfoundland comedy (22 Minutes, Hatching, Matching and Dispatching, the Rick Mercer Report, etc.) and we’ve always heard glowing accounts of Newfoundlanders hospitality, so it seemed like a no-brainer that that’s where we’d go.
And of course, a seat sale on Air Canada didn’t hurt either for that last little tug in the direction of The Rock.
We flew out of Vancouver at 8 a.m. and it was sunset by the time we were airborne on the 3rd and final leg of our journey. The moon out the starboard window made for an interesting collage with the wing tip and the soft glow of the night sky. Two minutes after this photo was taken we were in a cloud bank that extended into St. John’s.
Balmoral B&B is a rather stately-looking structure with a nice view from our 3rd floor suite of the inner harbour. We can look straight out into the Atlantic. This experience makes for a full circle from a hiking trip we took with friends some years ago to the NW tip of Vancouver Island to a place called Cape Scott where we drove to the end of a logging road, hiked in about 45 minutes and camped on the open beach with nothing but water between us and Japan.
OK, well technically Hawaii was in the middle there somewhere, but when you consider the vastness of the Pacific Ocean compared to the insignificantly small amount of land area that makes up Hawaii…well, I calls’ em as I sees’ em.
The B&B photo shows our rental SUV in front of the building. That SUV was supposed to be an economy car, by the way. I guess there is a silver lining to getting in to your destination at 10:15 p.m. tired and weary from a 9-1/2 hour journey. The clerk at the rental car agency told us all the economy cars were already gone; all that was left was a brand-new Ford Escape. And I mean brand new; there are only four thousand and something clicks on the odometer. A colleague at work has one and I have still to hear a discouraging word about it, so I’ve been wanting to test drive one for a while now.
Attempting to thwart the onset of jet lag we decided to stick close to St. John’s on our first full day. At the complementary continental breakfast this morning our host, Kimberly, told us about how easy it was to get to Cabot Tower on the hill overlooking the entrance to the inner harbor. There are lots of trails and stairs for exploring this National Historic Site but you can drive right to the top.
There is also a mile post with distances listed to various worldwide destinations. It’s a stark comparison to think that this 500 year old European (non-Viking) settlement can now inform visitors as to the direction and distance to so many points within our new global community.
It’s really quite humbling to consider how far humankind has come in 500 years. I look out into the Atlantic from the safety and security of modern Signal Hill and wonder what type of explorer it must have taken to accept the challenges of sailing West without even a generally accepted agreement that the world wasn’t flat! Now I can get from the West to East coast of such a huge land mass as Canada in about nine hours, give or take a flight connection or two.
Despite a few aches and pains from sitting too long during transit, and a bit of jet lag weariness, this trip has begun well. I’m glad we came.
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