Sept 4

Time seems to pass so quickly on this trip.  Days go by and I realize I haven't said anything for a week.  But we're busy! 

In fact, after leaving St. John's we had a long drive back across Newfoundland to the Port aux Basques ferry, so several long days.  And admittedly, internet coverage has been spotty at best.  Not so bad as my cell phone which has only worked for 3 days in Nfld - most annoying.  But other than that, we've had a great time on the rock. 

Fabulous food - we've eaten moose, caribou, lobster, and fantastic desserts like bakeapple cheesecake and partridge berry pie.  Decent coffee has been harder to find though, and on more than a few grocery stores we've had to resort to Kraft cheeses and Post cereals - challenging.  Scenery - spectacular.  People - delightful.  But they have some idiosyncrasies.  They are really lousy campers (or good ones, I suppose, depending on your point of view).  They go out for a week with all the bells and whistles, set up platforms for dining, all manner of barbeques, dangling strings of cute lanterns, at least 4 tents per site, kids' ride-on toys, blow-up toys, noisy toys, and generators to power it all.  And they stay up all night partying, I think because they've invested so much effort in making camp!  We won't be sorry to leave that behind.

The history on the east coast has been the most surprising to me.  Cabot landed in Bonavista in 1497, St John's was a thriving port in 1550, the French had a sophisticated city enclosed by 2 miles of fortifications at Louisbourg in 1744.  Not forgetting that the Norse had already come and gone some 500 years before all that, and three successive first nations occupied much of the coast over the past 8000 years.  All this long before Cook arrived on the west coast to find a sparsely occupied virgin land.  It's astonishing how much older everything here is.

We're sad to have finished our visit to Newfoundland, but there's so much more to see.  We've arrived in Cape Breton, and will have a few days to do some hiking in the National Park before moving on to PEI.  If today is any indication we're in for lovely end of summer weather - it was 26 C today, and plenty warm enough for a swim at the wonderful long sandy beach at Ingonish.  Every day we swim I expect it will be the last for the summer, but so far it's only been improving.  Let's hope that continues for a while. 
Tata for now my lovelies.