Cooke's tour of St John's area

2010.08.10

Mike and Elizabeth came over to our site to get us oriented and then give us a quick look-see of the area.

Mike and I spent a fair amount of time reviewing maps and locations of scenic or historic significance all over NL and certainly more places to visit than we have time for on this trip.

Then Mike drove us all around St. John's and particularly into places that would be difficult to navigate in an RV. St. John's is an old city of 100,000 (1 out of 5 Newfies live here) with many narrow two way streets that are difficult enough for a single car to pass through. The cliff-side houses along the Battery and the village of Quidi Vidi have streets like that. Even the city map we were given at the campground lists a number of "crazy intersections".

Mike gave us a close look all around the harbor. Besides the small boats, container ships, and Canadian Coast Guard there were ships that service the offshore oil rigs on the Grand Banks.

We did go up Signal Hill to find that Cabot Tower was in the clouds and we could barely see the outline of its base. A revisit in the rig was definitely in order. Also, along the way up the hill, Mike pointed out the Johnson Geo Centre which could be interesting to visit.

Also, we drove to Cape Spear which is the Easternmost point of The North American continent. It is closer to Ireland than it is to Florida (and probably the Carolinas). As we did the night before at Portugal Cove, we got to see whales feeding offshore.