I’ve been to Newfoundland three times in my life…once for an APEC meeting (1997), once for some HR recruitment meetings, and once for a larger vacation with my family. Back in ’07, it was the HR recruitment meetings, my second trip to the province. I was participating in some broader recruitment, and I volunteered to be the one to go to St. John’s in November. Andrea joined me for the short trip (free hotel room for her!), and we added a couple of days of vacation to the end. With only two days, we didn’t go too far from St. John’s.

We were staying at a nice hotel near the one end of the downtown, with a view of the harbour and Signal Hill in the distance.

The reverse view from Signal Hill is kind of cool too.

Of course, like all good little tourists, we had to go Cape Spear.

We then spent the rest of the day driving around the area south of Cape Spear.

On the second day, we headed north towards Bay de Verde, and then wrapped down around the peninsula towards Dildo.

We were driving a Pontiac Grand Am or Grand Prix rental, and I decided to go off-roading so-to-speak. Somewhere around Grate’s Cove at the northern tip, there was a road on our map showing a connection to Daniel’s Cove, etc. Basically, we wouldn’t have to backtrack and take the same main highway we had gone up to get there. So we followed the map. And yes, I do mean a paper map. The road started fine, a little dirt road, no big deal. About half-way to Daniel’s Cove, it disintegrated into an access road. A little bit further along, and it started to become an ATV trail. We kept joking it was the type of story that would be mocked for years about those damn people from away who stupidly took a rental car down a rut with no place to turn around, but it was nervous joking. We made it fine, in the end, but it was a trifle nerve-wrackng. Particularly when we came to a very large puddle with NO idea how deep it was. Stupid tourists.

When we finished our little tour, and we did the proper dinner at a fish and chip diner in western St. John’s, we agreed it was merely enough to whet our appetite. We definitely wanted to see more of the province.