on the road and ferry to Newfoundland

on the road and ferry to Newfoundland

Waiting on the ferry

We had most of the day to explore the area around Sydney before we headed to catch the ferry to St. John's. We are grateful to Pete and Pam for giving us a heads up about places to visit in Nova Scotia that they have discovered on their numerous visits.  One of these places is Louisbourg National Historic Park, about an hour drive from Sydney.

Louisbourg...WOW!

This living history park is a step back to the mid-1740s when the French had an important fishery enterprise in Nova Scotia. This community was settled by diverse groups of people that all seemed to get along, melding parts of their cultures. Cod brought Portuguese, Irish, French, and even the English, who were constantly at war with France in this period, to the fort built at Louisbourg. Along with these settlers and fishermen came people from Africa as servants. (The interpretation did not use the word slave.)

The reenactors are all costumed and don’t go out of character. The visitor center and interpretive exhibits were state of the art, created at a time before accessibility considerations, and are very well done. We had our lunch in one of the taverns, eating as the early settlers would have.

Ferry to Newfoundland

Ferries leave for Newfoundland from North Sydney, Cape Breton. The overnight trip to Argentia, Newfoundland is 17 hours. It’s a little taxing if you do not have a cabin (and we didn’t), but the ship is well thought out, with snack bars and a restaurant.

We brought along blankets and pillows knowing that we would be sleeping in our seats. Once you drive into the ferry, you leave your car carrying whatever possessions you might need while on board, take the elevator to the passenger levels and settle into seats of your choice. Seating was not crowded, with plenty of leg-room and all are comfortable recliners with USB ports and free wifi. There's a bar, snack bar, and restaurant aboard. Next time, we’ll book early enough to get a cabin!

Our crossing wasn’t rough. At dinner, we were seated next to Barry and Nancy from Ottowa. Barry is a Newfoundland native and provided many insights into the island and things to do while visiting. They also informed us that the ferry, the Argentia, was only a couple weeks into service and the crew are still working out bugs. We had no issues, although previous crossings apparently had some hiccups.

Starting with St. John’s

The town of Argentia where the ferry disembarks is a 45-minute drive to reach St. John’s. St. John’s is a modern city that incorporates the culture and historic character of the past. In the older section of town, the houses are clapboard row houses, painted vibrant colors with white trim and no two houses are the same color.

Georges Street is a 2-block long mini-New Orleans French Quarter with an Irish infused vibe. At noon, the street is blocked from vehicular traffic, allowing people to walk the street listening to music and checking out multiple places to eat and drink. Proving the comments we gleaned from FaceBook, the restaurants and pubs ask if you have reservations and turn away customers from half empty places, relenting when you point out a table and ask “Is that one available?” Sometimes they will offer to seat you but explain that it will be an hour before food is served.

Although it seemed less busy when we were there, George Street has a vibrant music scene. Tunes by the iconic Newfoundland band Great Big Sea are performed everywhere, although, sadly, not by them as they dissolved some years ago. We experienced only one or two pubs with live music, although many others were blaring a playlist of some sort.

Signal Hill, famed for Marconi’s 1901 receipt of the first trans-Atlantic wireless telegraph transmission, offers a spectacular overlook of the harbor and city. Trails wind through the hillside, providing more vertical change than we were prepared to make. We preferred watching others climb up the hill while learning that the hill was used to signal the arrival of ships into the harbor long before the telegraph history. Because of its strategic location and views, Signal Hill played an important role in military signaling from 1704 to 1870. The first trans-Atlantic cable was laid in 1909 from Ireland to Signal Hill.

A great and overwhelming geology museum and education center is located at the base of Signal Hill and really worth a couple hours, or more, pending one’s interest in geology. As our late friend Paula observed, “Rocks are hard!” This interpretive center helped make them a little less hard. A summary of what we learned is that the rocks of Newfoundland are 600 million years old!

The innovative architecture of the tilted building was built into the exposed rock faces. We surmised that big oil might have funded the facility as reflected in the gallery that features offshore drilling and a positive spin on environmental precautions of the industry. We were to learn later that there are many geo-parks along our route around Newfoundland and we stopped at many of them.

Across the street was a small pond with ducks that attracted Lee’s attention. With the help of the Merlin app, she was able to determine that they were American Black Ducks.

We would have liked to hike the trails down from the hill but we were reluctant to stretch our luck with Lee's bum knee and Marvin's preference for flat-land walking.

Murals and art are everywhere!

with a sense of humor. and equality...

We've got a lot more to catch up on blogging about our Newfoundland road trip. Look for more updates as soon as we can get the edits done.

Thanks for reading!

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