Day Eleven: Grand Falls-Windsor to St. John's NL (via Dildo, Heart's Content, etc) July 16, 2013

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" So won't you smile for the camera

I know I'll love you better"



With our agenda for the day centered around visiting Dildo on Trinity Bay, it was only natural that we started with the music of Steely Dan singing "Peg".

The distances in NL can be pretty great. We drove for four hours before the interesting part of the trip, the peninsula east of Trinity Bay. The trip was to be a lark, but turned out to be one of the prettiest drives of the trip. Our journey (after the initial mostly uninteresting slog from Grand Falls-Windsor) took us from Lake Dildo through South Dildo and Dildo, then on through Heart's Delight, Heart's Desire, and Heart's Content, across the peninsula to Concepcion Bay, then on down to St. John's. Placentia will come another day. I am struggling to keep this blog report on a high level.

The Bay de Verde Peninsula, at least on the western side where we explored, consists mostly of a series of small fishing villages. We followed the coastline up from Dildo Lake, and hugged the coast along the way. Dildo is actually a lovely fishing village that goes back about 300 years. The origin of the name is uncertain, but there is at least some thought that Capt, Cook, known for humorous place names, may have named the offshore island with that name, and the fishing village just retained the same name. It has an annual festival known as Dildo Days, with an adult portion that is probably titillating.

We spent a great deal of time traveling the Cape Breton Headlands, and it does indeed have some nice views from the cliff tops above the water, but all of us agreed that the Bay de Verde Peninsula is prettier. Wildflowers bloom along every roadside, from yellow composites to Queen Anne's lace to varihued lupine. Houses are small, but neat and well kept. The fishing villages have well-kept boats floating at anchor or at the dock. At Heart's Content a small lighthouse sits on the point. Heart's Content is also the terminus point of the first transatlantic cable. It is obvious, both from this peninsula and from the drives to and from it, that this area was largely given its shape by glacial forces during the ice ages. There are large areas with multiple glacier-borne boulders and shallow ponds/lakes formed by glacial scouring. The coast gives majestic views of the inlets and sounds.

We finished the evening with dinner at a nearby restaurant, sitting at a window overlooking the port.

Tomorrow: whale watching, puffin watching from a boat.

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Photos

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Sign for Heart's Design