After my long flight, arriving after midnight and then my hours of trying to get my phone back so I could access my room, I finally got to sleep at 4 am or so. The time difference of 4.5 hours probably helped that night but it did not help the next day.
I set my alarm for 8 am, ready for a vigorous day of exploring St. John's. Well, that lasted about 10 seconds while I reset it for 10 am. next alarm, I looked out the window. It was pouring out! Buckets! Back to bed. I woke up at noon. Got up, took a shower, got dressed. Looked outside, I think the weather was even worse. Plus, I was still so tired. I lay down again and didn't wake up until 5 pm! With some pretty impressive wet-bed head.
After the night before, I couldn't bring myself to walk around downtown again. so, I ate some leftover sandwich I had taken on the plane, watched something on tv and was back in bed by 10. A VERY disappointing first day, to be sure.
The next morning, I managed to actually get out of bed and moving by 9 am. I wanted to head up to Signal Hill. First stop, breakfast. I found a place on my route that had a very high rating. It looked like a total dive from the outside. Excellent!. Not touristy at all. I ordered as many Newfoundlander foods as I could: Fish cake and a touton with molasses. I skipped the bologna and went for an egg instead. The fishcake was a mistake. It was deepfried mash potato with a bit of fish. The touton looked like an english muffin when I googled it. But it turned out to be a giant ball of deepfried dough. With molasses. Yum.
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| photos from my phone are sideways |
I got waylaid by Quidi Vidi hike. It was very foggy. I figured there wouldn't be any view from the hill so I would do that later. Quidi Vidi is a lake and a small fishing village that is very close to downtown St. John's. About 3 kms away, although, I took a longer route. I actually got waylaid quite a few times that day. I had barely started on the road toward Quidi Vidi before I saw the Anglican cemetery. A beautiful old cemetery that reminded me of Ross Bay in Victoria. How could I not walk through. The weather was holding, at least it wasn't raining. I exited the cemetery on the other side and found myself on a walking path along the lake shore. Google maps didn't tell me about this. As well as shortest and fastest routes, they should include 'most scenic route'. I walked along the lake. Very lovely. I noticed a sign for the "Cuckold's Trail' which the sign seemed to show went directly to Signal Hill unlike Google maps which had me backtracking all the way back into town. I kept heading Quidi Vidi and I even managed to find the village of and, more importantly, the Quidi Vidi Brewhouse and restaurant. I had a beer and fish and chips. Lots of deepfried food that day.
While I was eating, I looked up the Cuckold trail. It looked pretty simple. hahah. First I couldn't find it. A woman walking by started talking to me and she said she was going on a walk with no particular destination so she would show me where it is. She ended up walking all the way to Signal Hill Rd with me. She gave me some history of the trail, pointed out her friend's lobster traps down in Cuckold Bay, way down below, and talked about rising house prices (the ties that bind us all). So, this short cut is basically a path over a mountain. There are two ways to go, the stairs up and over or the path that is still steep by mostly goes around. I went for the path (the Burma trail).
When we got to the end of the trail, Bernie, my walking companion, pointed me toward the route up to the Queen's Battery (guns) and Cabot Tower at the top of the hill. The fog was still around but it wasn't as bad so I headed up. The top of the hill has views of the ocean (when not foggy) and the city (which the fog was not covering by then).
Here are a bunch of pictures.
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| The fog finally lifted. |
Oh no! I hope the pics are retrievable in some hi-techy way!
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