We decided to head to Newfoundland since neither of us have been there and we needed something close by and cheap because we had to be in Ottawa in 5 days for reception #2.
So the only thing we planned out was our flight to Newfoundland, hanging around Gros Morne park, taking a ferry to Nova Scotia, and flying from Halifax to Ottawa.
We landed in Newfoundland at midnight and we knew that driving on the road at night meant being careful not to hit a moose. We discovered how remote of a place we were in, when the rental car guy showed us a map and used the Esso gas station, and KFC as landmarks when directing us on how to get to our hotel/motel. Newfie accent comes up when they talk amongst themselves. We found that when they talk to us, the pitch drops and they speak normal english..some of them.
One Tim Hortons.
The next Tim Hortons was 350 km away. No rest stops. No McDonalds or any other burger place. No Rogers phone service. 2 lane highway. The cops don't care if you're speeding.
No mosquitoes....yay!
We drove through Gros Morne Park where they use the honour system. no one every asked us for our park pass. Hiked Western Brook Pond and got to the ferry and discovered it only runs once a day and we missed the ferry. That's okay....so we hiked 3 km back to our car.
On a whim, we decided to drive north and go to viking land - oh yes. We ended up at St Anthony's in time for Viking Feast which is a dinner and theatre thing where people dress up as vikings and you eat lettuce, moose stew and some other stuff. Then the vikings hold court and people at each table are supposed to bring up "charges" to present to the viking court and we decide if the accused patron is guilty or innocent. That was funny. The people at our table wanted to bring charges against us because dennis told them we were from Toronto. I already told him ahead of time to just tell people we are from Ontario.
Windy and cold, but picturesque. We didn't see any icebergs in St. Anthony's but we took some pictures which we could imagine is probably what Scotland would look like in the highlands. We did L'Anse Aux Meadows the enxt day and apparently the actors from Viking Feast also work at L'Anse Aux Meadows Viking historical park. The original viking settlement looks like little grassy concave dips in the ground. Dennis walked by something and i would say "hey, you just walked by the iron work building" but he totally couldn't tell. The recreated village was more fun.
Caught our overnight ferry where dennis reserved us bunk bed dormitory style sleepers - 70 beds to a cabin. It was cold.
Arrived in Nova Scotia and I told Dennis we should drive the cabot trail. It was a bit underwhelming in the beginning but it eventually led us to the Cape Breton Highlands where we did some hiking. You know when you hike and you pass people, you normally greet them with a hello. Dennis wanted to say "Konichiwa" and "Bonjourno Principessa" to them. Thank goodness he didn't.
While hiking, all of a sudden I stopped and I told Dennis to stop as well. I looked around and then I see a moose within 10 feet of us, eating. Weird. Once again, no mosquitoes around here. When we finished hiking the highlands, we were torn between going to New Brunswick or going to PEI. In the end, PEI won out so we decided to drive towards Antagonish/New Glasgow. On the way, Dennis decides to stop at the tackiest looking lobster restaurant. Oh it was super tacky. We're talking a john mccain poster when you walk in, a utah flag, a lot of acadien posters and knick knacks all over the place and stuff about soldiers and duty. I expected a dude to come out with a shotgun. We each had a lobster and the guy at the restaurant comes out and says he wants to light fireworks for us. And you know what? He does light fireworks for us outside. It was such a weirdly fun experience. He's like one of those Red Green guys but with a Maritime twist. I said that if there was a movie character based on him, Johnny Depp should play him Dennis disagreed and said Christopher Walken. He gave us two apples to take with us on our way out of the restaurant.
We drove through New Brunswick to get to the bridge to cross to PEI where I took Dennis to L. M. montgomery's house, and to the Anne of green gables house and he was like "let me get this straight. I am paying money to go see a house of a fictional character?!?!" and i had him walk with me down lover's lane and the haunted woods. So this is love. We found the church that lucy M. montgomery attended. that was random. We also had Cows icecream because no road trip is complete, or any trip for that matter, without ice cream stops. We also had mussels http://www.flexmussels.com/ Very good cuz it was relaxing just to sit outside, light breeze, sunny, eating. we walked around downtown charlottetown too.
Went back over the bridge to nova scotia and went to towards Halifax. I saw a black bear on the side of the highway. dennis hit a bird while driving. went to halifax the next day and we quickly did a tour of the old citadel which was surprisingly fun - we caught the noon time cannon thing.
We learned:
1. We don't like the hyundai elantra - the power steering briefly went out and we had to stop in Bible Hill to figure out where to return the car. Then when we started the car again, it was okay again.
2. Don't tell people you are from Toronto.
3. Bring change for the toll booths. We ended up using american money because we ran out of canadian coins and bills.
4. Be prepared to pee on the side or the road if you are driving from gros morne to st. anthony's. There aren't any rest stops. I didn't pee on the side of the road but I can see how someone would stop to pee.
5. Bring long sleeve stuff, windbreakers, jeans.
Thanks to summer and eric for the gas card. We used it all up on the trip. We averaged about 500 km/day.
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