Great Big Sea at St. John’s

From Halifax, we flew into the lovely seaside city of St. John’s and found ourselves one and a half hours ahead of the time in Toronto -- Welcome to the Newfoundland and Labrador time zone! 

We picked up our rental car and made the 20 minute drive to our hotel where the Blue Jays game was being shown in full swing on the hotel lobby TV.  Because of the timing of our flight, we were starving, so we headed out past George Street, the touristy bar and club district in St. John’s and instead went along to Duckworth Street, where we settled on the Duke of Duckworth pub.  St. John’s is extremely hilly, and this pub was located along a long staircase that joined upper and lower streets.  The Duckworth was packed full of patrons cheering on the Jays.  Colin had a local beer, the ‘Quidi Vidi 1892’, while Melissa tried ‘Duke’s Own’, another local beer along with our pub meal.  Unfortunately the Jays lost this game, but we had really grown to love the Duckworth, its patrons (a lot of which had that Newfoundland lilt to their voices) and in particular the scrumptious food (their fish and chips with dressing and gravy sure hit the spot). Unbeknownst to us, this very place was featured on the hit Newfoundland TV show 'The Republic of Doyle' where it is the local watering hole and is in fact “owned” by the brother’s Doyle.

According to the weather report hurricane force winds and rain were forecast all day. As a result, we both rose early, before the weather turned bad and walked 2kms from our hotel to see the memorial commemorating the spot (Mile Zero) where Terry Fox dipped his foot into the Atlantic and began his courageous run across Canada on an artificial leg. Given the distance and imminent bad weather, we considered driving to this site, but to honour Terry’s memory we instead decided to walk there and back, past the boats in the dock along the natural harbour. We were both touched, seeing the statue and reading his words and other peoples tributes to this Canadian hero. We look forward to visiting another memorial near Thunder Bay which commemorates where Terry was forced to unfortunately cut his run short, before achieving his goal.

Once the brunt of the storm had passed and we were surrounded by blue cloudless skies, we went out to see a few local sites. First up was Cabot tower on Signal Hill, where on 12 December 1901, the very first transatlantic wireless transmission was received from the UK. Again we were blasted by some very fierce winds, but with the sun shining, quite a pretty view was afforded us of the St. John's harbour and the surrounding seafront. 

Next up, and to Colin's absolute pleasure, we traveled out to see the lighthouse at Cape Spear. This was of particular significance because the original lighthouse building and the light keeper's residence have since been restored to the period of 1839, and are open to the public for viewing.  Cape Spear is the eastern-most part of North America.  As the Aussies would say, it’s ‘East-As’!

Lastly, we visited Quidi Vidi, a picturesque historic fishing village. These days the location is home to Quidi Vidi brewing company, where the previously mentioned local beers are produced. It is also home to some of the finest restaurants in Canada.  We really grew to love St John’s, with its hilly surroundings and chilly weather, its ‘jelly bean’ coloured row houses and its laid back inhabitants who are always friendly and willing to sit and have a pint. Melissa compared it to San Francisco where she once fondly lived and worked.

Next up: Living large in London, UK