June 30, 2019 - St Johns, Newfoundland

June 30, 2019
(Will post more photos later...)
We passed another snug night in our camp, listening to the fog horn’s mournful honking... today, the plan was to head to St. John’s so we packed up camp, loaded up the bikes and went to head out and... Lynn’s trike wouldn’t start.
Crap.

The battery had died but we couldn’t figure out why. He didn’t leave any accessories on and, in the end, he guessed that the battery was just tired and not recharging very well. Thankfully, last Christmas we received a Cobra charging unit - a little battery about the size of two decks of cards - from Lynn’s son Dean and his family. This morning, we put it to it’s first test. We unloaded his bike, took his seat off and dug through a bunch of electronics to get at the battery and hooked the Cobra up to it, held our breath and gave it a try and.... vroooom!
YAY! We were so relieved because by this time, we were the only ones left in the campsite so it would have been a pain in the neck to find some help.
We put Lynn’s gear back together and off we went.

We had a good run into St. John’s. It’s was only about 300 kms which is a short day for us. We pulled into the lovely Pippy Park Campsite which is essentially RIGHT next to the downtown core of the city. It’s this beautiful wilderness oasis (kind of like Stanley Park in Vancouver) in the middle of an urban area and the campsite is very nice. We set up our camp and headed off to see a few sights.

The first stop was Cape Spear which, if one is on a Cross-Canada trip, is a must as it is the most easterly point in all of North America. We rode out there (about half an hour) and walked some of the trails, checking out the lighthouses and the remains of the garrison that was built for WWII.
From there, we headed back into St. John’s, along the waterfront and up Duckworth to Signal Hill which has a magnificent view of the St. John’s harbour.

Signal Hill has a long history - it’s been part of the harbour’s defence from the 1600s to WWII and it was also the place where Marconi received the world’s first transatlantic wireless signal in 1901. Today, there is a network of walking trails that crisscross the hillsides, all with spectacular views of either the harbour or the open ocean.

For dinner, we headed downtown and went to The Duke of Duckworth, a very tiny British pub on McMurdo’s Lane, a steep set of stairs that comes up the hill from the waterfront.  We got the last table and, while we ate, at least 50 people came in hoping for a table for some of the best fish and chips in the city. We opted for the pan fried cod (as opposed to the deep fried) and it was FABULOUS. That along with some local craft beer and we rolled out of there very happy campers. Literally. Because after dinner, we headed back to our Pippy Park camp and hit the rack.