Days 25 & 26: Eastern Newfoundland

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My next stop was St. John's, the capital of Newfoundland. I spent two nights here. It's a port city with a lot of history. I walked a good chunk of the city, and visited its heritage sites, churches and museum. The city had many well rated restaurants, however I couldn't get into any of them because they were all fully booked due to all the tourists. I was also shocked as to how expensive the restaurants were. Even a simple decent restaurant would set you back $40 for a meal. A small take-out pizza cost me $18....it was crazy. My second day I took a day trip to Bell Island, which is the only part of North America that was hit by German fire during World War Two. It's also home to an underground iron ore mine, which is partly under the ocean. I was able to take a tour of the mine, which was really interesting and put you in the shoes of the miners. On my last day in Newfoundland I stopped in Cape St. Mary's on my way to Argentia to hop on the 15 hour ferry back to Nova Scotia. Cape St. Mary's is an ecological reserve and is home to thousands of sea birds, which flock here during the breeding season. The parking lot was 1km away from the cape, yet the moment I opened my car door I could already hear the cacophony of bird calls which lay ahead. Once I boarded the ferry I went to the top deck to check out the scenery. We were pleasantly surprised to see a large pod of dolphins swimming alongside the boat! There must have been at least 12 of them.

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