Month: July 2016

We left St. John’s with plenty of time to space to get to the ferry terminal in Argentina, Newfoundland. We arrived and were one of the first units in the lot. We checked in at the gate and then proceeded through the “spray down” building. They spray to remove Newfoundland “dirt” that is apparently a risk to agriculture if brought back. Mom things it was just because there weren’t really car washes in Newfoundland.

The ferry looks huge compared to the Apollo to Labrador.

*eyeroll*

Mom successfully navigated the ferry and parker perfectly. They waved her within a few inches of the white car but left ample room to get out the door! We were parked right just to the lead for the Fantasy RV Tour group we have been playing leapfrog with for the last 4 weeks.

We went and found our cabin and dropped out belongings and then set out to explore. The amenities were nicer of this Atlantic Vision  than the last few ferries. The lodge reminded us of a Disney ship. We made some friends and sat and played games on our phones and talked video games for a while.

We were first in line for the Eggs Buffet. They don’t serve eggs at night. We had some yummy food and it was well worth the $11.50 for a kids dinner and $22.50 for an adult. We stuffed our faces with veggies, fruit, meats and desserts. Lots of desserts!

The ship then had movies showing in the theater. We raced down to get chairs for Wreck-it-Ralph.

After the movie we walked around a bit and then headed to the cabin or the evening. It was so foggy outside the fog horn was blowing every few minutes. Mom said it was peaceful and she fell right asleep. We did as well.

Up early with the sun and off to explore without the fog.

We were happy we weren’t on the exposed deck. The cars were very moist looking, either fog or sea spray.

We had some milk and granola bars and then hit the game lounge. We checked out Battleship and passed the last few hours playing that.

 

 

Today we headed back to Signal Hill to see the Tattoo. Thankfully the fog lifted a little and the rain held off a bit. We watched the different youth regiments march onto the field.

The band played several songs and then marched off and the rifle squad came on. They did a firing demonstration.

The third group were the soldiers undergoing training exercises with fake mustard gas. They shot from the prone position as well as a machine gun off in the far back.

We had a great time.

Next we drove back to Cape Spear hoping to see the lighthouse without all the fog. No dice! We ate lunch in the parking lot and grabbed our XPlorer books and were off.

We found lots of secret entrances to the bunkers.

We visited the site labeled  as the “Most Easterly Place in North America”. This is now disputed but it was neat nonetheless. The odd part was you could go at least 50 yards in all directions from this point. So where is the real point?

 

This was next to the sign. There is a trail below us that would be more to the east. *shrug*

More of the WWII bunkers.

I thought it was strange to see such large cannons near a lighthouse! But this was an armed post in WWII.

Searching on a rock reading my book with the almost lighthouse in the background. This is the new lighthouse installed circa 1940.

This is the original lighthouse. It is the oldest standing lighthouse in Newfoundland.

We explored the old lighthouse and learned a lot of the tasks kids had to do. These were yokes for hauling water from the well.

Mom found a VERY old book for cooking.

Mr Warre, aka Chris, was the lighthouse keeper and had us preform all the chores for  and with him.

He was part of our campfire last night and we had a great time with him today at the lighthouse. Mom just sat back and watched and laughed as we mad Chris singing moose alpaca again in front of the droves of people at the lighthouse.

The fog lifted a little and we could see the new lighthouse but it was roped off for maintenance so we couldn’t get too close.

We headed to a local park, Bowring Park, that we were told about by a parc Canada employee. There were lots of duck ponds, a splash pad, a HUGE playground and tons of pokestops! We had a great time running around and exploring.

This is a photo Mom took of her trying to catch real life swans with her poke balls. Sadly, it didn’t work.

This marbled pidgy was taunting us as well.

We gave up on Pokemon and played at the playground until we were exhausted. Mom was shocked we willing left our technology.

 

 

This morning we drove out to Signal Hill. We were fighting drizzling rain all morning. The Signal Hill Tattoo was canceled for the day due to the moisture.

We hiked several trails in the area and some some spectacular sites from he tops of the hills.

We had to be different and try to scale the walls along the trail. Mom didn’t mind because we were getting some exercise.

St. John’s is quite a unique town. It reminds us of San Fransisco both in topography and buildings.

Looking down into the harbor. There is a section of town called the jellybean houses. They are all bright colored and attached homes. The entire city seems to scream unique!

We went to the top of Signal Hill and learned about the cannons and the signal tower, Cabot Tower. We got to send a morse code message of our name from the tower and learned about signal flags.

The hill was used to let companies know via signal flag when their ships were coming into port.

We explored the Queens Battery and learned about the barracks and the cannon duties. Part of the XPlorer program was to find odd things in the barracks. We found a modern toothbrush, a flashlight and a padlock!

We also had to identify the oldest cannon.

Today they still fire the NOON cannon. We hung out and watched the cannon. It was really loud and echoed off the hills.

This is Cabot Tower (the signal tower).

Next we went down the road to the GeoCenter. The GeoCenter is a building built around and into the hillside. This area used to be a quarry. The building offered a look into the history of the Earth’s rocks. The displayed of the rocks were superb.

We also did a program on stars. B dazzled the interpreter with his knowledge of mythology, stars and nebulas.

We discussed fossil fuels in depth with each other and looked at the different types of oils.

We watched a video on how oil is obtained in the ocean. This display was put on by Exxon.

Another room was dedicated to the Titanic.

The rock samples and fossils captured out attention for a long time.

Finally we explored the rock wall. You could spray the wall with water so make things stand out. It was very cool.

We also watched a 3D movie called Meerkats! It was super funny and reminded us of Meerkat Manor.

We spent the afternoon hunting Pokemon and exploring downtown St. John’s. The pokestops led us to see amazing street artwork all over downtown.

A park filled with Pokemon Masters! There must have been 150 people scattered between three stops all with lures.

This gem was tucked in before two buildings. An area we NEVER would have wandered to without the game. But there were droves of people playing the game and wandering down the paths with us so we were safe.

Several years ago they commissioned artists to make the signal boxes art work! The entire city is packed with amazing art on signal boxes.

We ate a quick dinner at No Name Pizza…so good it doesn’t need a name. It really was!

Then we headed to Cape Spear for an evening campfire sign-a-long. The fog set in very dense. We could barely see and were soaking wet from the moisture in the air.

The sing-a-long was great and the two staff members were very talented. We sang and laughed. We even taught them Moose/Alpacca! We had hot cocoa and s’mores over the fire.

 

We spent yesterday working on some school work, cleaning the motorhome and catching up on laundry. It was a down day and we never left the campground.

Today we drove to St. John’s, Newfoundland. As we neared the city B explained “Mom there are tall buildings, are we in New York?”. haha Such a smarty pants. We have been in nowhere land for so long it was shocking to see traffic, buildings and actual businesses other then grocery stores that sell barely anything.

We arrived at Pippy Park and love our nice pull through space. It has wifi so blogs will get caught up. We explored Pippy Park by car and on foot. This lead to lots of Pokemon hunting in the park.

We visited the Fluvarium which is basically a building that has the river running through it. The facility teaching about freshwater ecosystems and fish.

We explored the river tanks and then the salmon ladder outside.

We even were compared to birds. I am the wingspan of a medium osprey.

Then we hiked some trails in the park and headed off to explore the city a little.

We found a shopping mall and Mom had Thai food. She was so excited to have food with flavor. She ordered spicy and was grinning ear to ear with happiness. FOOD WITH FLAVOR! Considering it was “mall food” Mom said it was amazing.

We found Costco and restocked some essentials and then went back to Pippy Park for more walking around and hunting Pokemon. The best part of this game is that it is making us walk a lot more when we would normally have down time.

Tomorrow we head to explore the National Park sites in St. Johns.

Today we hiked around Ochre Hill in Terra Nova National Park and then hiked up to the fire lookout tower. The views were amazing in the area. You could see for miles (kilometers!) in all directions even though it was overcast.

Next we headed to the campground in Terra Nova to attend a program called Bear Aware. It was a fun interactive program about how to be bear safe when camping.

After the program we hiked the campground trail in search of evidence of beavers. We found quite a lot of downed trees that were obviously beaver work!

We got closer to the water and found many beaver lodges scattered around the sound.

The weather was finally warming up and the sun came out so we headed towards where we are camping and a little past to a place called Sandy Cove. It was a lovely little beach sheltered from the larger waves.

We found hundreds of jellyfish. Mostly moon jelly and younger lion’s mane jellies. We soon had a hoard of kids following us and joining our science lessons of jellyfish.

We taught kids which were safe to touch and then then set about helping get them back in the water if they got stuck as the tide was going out.

We ended the evening with some really warm, long showers and a movie on the tv after our journals were updated from the day.