(More photos to come... check back later)
This morning we were greeted with a fairly thick fog and all through the night, the fog horn sounded it’s lonely song into the dark. By the time we got mobile, the sun started to peek out here and there and giving hints of the day to come. It started to warm up a bit as we headed out to Bonavista.
Very shortly after leaving Trinity, however, we drove directly into the thick fog blanket that had moved over the peninsula, saturating the air with moisture and sucking all heat out of the air. DAMN it was cold! Suddenly, it was about 3 degrees and, by the time we headed into Bonavista, we were frozen popsicles. We missed the turn off to the waterfront of town because of poor visibility and ended up on the other side so we carried on straight out to the lighthouse to see some puffins which nest on a big rock outcropping on the point.
We saw a few through the mist and could see them flying out to the water to fish but it was too cold and windy to stay for long. We visited the little gift shop there and chatted with the women running it. They said this is capelin weather, that capelins need this cold, damp weather to come in and spawn and then, after the run, the weather will warm up.
We hopped back on the bike, gritted our teeth and rode back into town (about 10 minutes) and made our way to the waterfront. By then, the wind had calmed a bit and things started to warm up. The fog was thinning and we could see a bit. We walked down to the small wharf by the fish processing plant and chatted with a few of the fishermen who were just coming in with the morning’s catch.
We wandered down to Skipper’s on the waterfront and had a really good breakfast and warmed up. We chatted with our server and she’s living in Bonavista and her husband is working in a camp job in Alberta and, like many people in Newfoundland, are having to make things work in this fashion. There is a desire to stay “home” and build a life in Newfoundland but the employment opportunities are limited and many need to leave to make a living. It seems to be the way of things for many Newfoundlanders since the cod fisheries collapse.
After breakfast, we wandered on the boardwalk a bit but, when the fog rolled in again, we decided to head out to Elliston which is about 15kms away. There is a really great puffin colony there. We saw quite a few more puffins there and they were closer so you could get a much better view of them. They are such cute little birds and boy can they fly. They’re like little bullets, zipping by.
From Elliston, we returned to Trinity. It was a cold ride back as well but the visibility was improved. So much of the landscape in this area is just like northern Yukon and Northwest Territories - stunted little windswept trees, lots of black spruce, bogs and marshy areas.
We rode right into Trinity and decided to get tickets to their Rising Tide Theatre production, another little variety show that has been running for over 40 years. Trinity, as a community, got together and resurrected many of the town’s heritage buildings and now, the little downtown core is sort of a living museum. You can buy a pass which allows you to go into many of the buildings which are staffed by interpreters or, without a pass, you can just wander around the town and enjoy from the outside. Six years ago, when we were here last, Lynn visited the working heritage blacksmith shop and today, the Green Family Forge was still open and in operation. Wade Ivany has been a blacksmith there for 19 years and we’re pretty sure he was the same guy Lynn visited with last time. Today, the shop was slow because of an afternoon pageant in town so Lynn and Wade spent a leisurely hour trading blacksmithing tips and tricks. Wade told us about CanIRON, a bi-annual blacksmithing event in Canada where blacksmiths and metalworkers get together for a few days and do workshops etc. It’s in a different Canadian city every year so we’ll have to check into perhaps going to the next one in 2021.
We headed back to the campsite and BBQ’d dinner and then went back into town for the show. The actors are mostly university students and the show was a collection of skits and songs reflecting Newfoundland history and culture. Following the show, we headed back to camp and called it a night.
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