From The Land Of Haw

Day 6 Newfoundland Vacation

August 27, 2021

Our day started travelling South on the East side of Bonavista Peninsula from Elliston down to Champney West by Highway 230.

Although the day was overcast and had a light mist and some rain, we were able to get some good pictures. Here is wood stacked to dry before cutting and the common native Newfoundland plant, the Garden Lupin on either sides of it..

Champney West is a harbour of interest because after coming off the highway into the community, you pass over a causeway with a bay on each side of it. Once you cross over the causeway you continue onto the peninsula to find more residences, a church and other buildings. The two sides make up one community but give the impression they are two separate communities.

This picture shows the view from the causeway down to the mouth of one bay .

More wood waiting to be prepared for winter and the every popular quad waiting for its driver. I think everyone has one.

This picture and the one below are showing

views overlooking the harbour.

These are the docking facilities at the causeway. I bet it would be interesting to hear the story on the damaged guardrail at the bottom of the photo.

These Garden Lupins were at the end of their season, I can imagine the colour of the countryside when they are at their peak. They are everywhere, in yards of homes, ditches and fields.

Someone is going to have to dig potatoes soon,

the plants and their blossoms look hardy.

Port Rexton above and below.

The Port Rexton Brewing Co. was closed so we were not able to get a few pints of their craft been for the evening.

Another wind shelter.

Then on to Come By Chance. The names of communities and harbours are so different than we are accustomed to.

A name given by Captain Cook, I wonder.

This was the last stop on our full road trip, we decided not to go into the community but followed our car's navigationally system instead, it took us to the location of the oil refinery.

This picture and the one above shows the port where ships came in with crude oil collected from the offshore oil well drill sites to be processed at the Come By Chance refinery.

This operation was not cost effective in the long run, so the refinery was closed and all crude was and still is, being shipped to other locations world wide for refining. It is cheaper to transport the crude to the buyer directly from the well and they in turn refine the oil at their location.

The closing of the refinery at Come By Chance meant the workers were now unemployed.

In the early 1970s with the building of a 16,000 cubic meter per day oil refinery. The $120-million petroleum complex included two 95 000 m3 crude-oil storage tanks, a railway spur track, a deep-water oil terminal, and the refinery itself, which produced its first oil in December 1973. It was permanently closed in October of 2020.

The refinery has recently been bought by United States-based private equity firm "Cresta Fund Management" with the purpose of converting the refinery to make renewable aviation fuel and diesel from used cooking oil, corn oil and animal fat.

The new facility is expected to produce 14,000 barrels of renewable fuel per day by mid-2022 and more than 200 people will work at the repurposed refinery initially, and more could find work through further phases, as the refinery has potential to grow.

Pictures above and below are the last

of the wind shelters we saw on our road trip.

Although it is not brightly coloured,

I think this is the nicest one of them all.

It was off to St. John's to complete our road trip via the Trans Canada Highway and check in at the Double Tree Hotel.

After we were settled into our room we took a walk on Water Street and found a nice pub where we could eat dinner outside and ordered what else? Yes COD!

Allan loves his deep fried fish and fries,

me not so much. I like pan fried fish and mashed potatoes.

This night shot is of the old Court House on Water Street,

and this is a portion of Water Street. It looks deserted but only because there was a music festival directly behind on George Street, the party street of St. John's.

The end of another informative and much enjoyed day. My next blog post will include both Saturday and Sunday in the one post.

Day 5 of Newfoundland Vacation Thursday August 26, 2021

Dildo to Elliston

Our first stop of the day was at Arnold's Cove on our way to the Bonavista Peninsula.

Arnold's Cove is on the westerly tip of the Avalon Peninsula and rests on the shores of Placentia Bay.

After Arnold's Cove we travelled the Trans Canada Highway on the Bonavista Peninsula to Clarenville, where we took Highway 230A and other subsidiary highways to Kings Bay.

I was amazed at the size of the rocks used for the breakwater along the edge of the marina.

After King's Bay we travelled on to Bonavista.

We ordered fish and brewis for lunch at Walkham's Pub, OMG this is tasted so good with Black Strap Molasses! The main ingredients in this dish are hard bread, salt cod, salt pork finely chopped, potatoes and onion.

Bonavista was established in the late 1500's making it one of the oldest communities in North America. The settlement became very important to Newfoundland because of its proximity to the rich fishing and sealing grounds to the north of the peninsula.

Bonavista is a beautiful town with a population of almost 2000 residents. The age of the settlement brings with it a uniqueness we can only bring to memory because I was so impressed with the sights and views that I did not get one picture of anything else other than food!

That Manitoulin Islander's "first time off the rock" caught up with me, I was eyes and mouth open, the pleasure processor

put the brain's thinking processor on pause I guess.

What else can I say?

We found ourselves in a funeral procession as were were leaving Bonavista and heading to Elliston. I didn't think it would be appropriate to take pictures, it could have brought bad luck if we were superstitious.

Another pile of wood for winter's heat. The forests here are made up of coniferous trees and those forests seem to be sparse. The trees do not grow as tall as ours do in Ontario, I guess it is due to the high winds they endure and possibly a shallow soil depth.

Another day with beautiful views along the way.

From the beginning of the trip on Monday through to Friday we saw many wind shelters along the roadsides in communities. That gave us an idea of how strong and cold those winter winds coming off the ocean must be.

The exciting part of visiting Elliston was to see the Atlantic Puffins on Elliston's Bird Island.

Well, we were a bit late in seeing them as they had already started to migrate North. I jokingly say there was only one puffin but we took several pictures of him. There were only a few on the Island though, the late flyers I guess. Who knows why, perhaps a male without a mate, an older bird unable to make the journey North, there are no doubt other reasons.

I am using this photo from the internet to give you

a close up look of what they look like since

my pictures were not close enough to do that.

Regular visitors at the site said when they are in full colony they often fly in close to the bird watchers, strut around and put on quite a show. Sadly we didn't experience that, but we did get to see real puffins. Nice! Yes there were more than one.

Below I have listed a few fun facts about puffins:

They usually have one partner in a lifetime
The female lays one egg a year
They return each year to the same burrow to nest
They dig their burrow to approximately 3 feet deep, they also have been known to raise their young between rocks on steep cliffs
They live up to 20 plus years in the wild
Just before mating season their beaks become brightly coloured, in the fall the beaks outer layer sheds leaving the bill smaller and duller in colour
They must be able to see the ocean in order to fly, flight is difficult due to their shape and size. The bird must flap its wings 300 - 400 times a minute to stay in flight, their speed will reach 55 miles per hour
A group of puffins can be called a colony, a puffinary, a circus, a burrow, a gathering or an improbability
They are social birds and form immense colonies
They winter in South of Ireland, South of Iceland and at the entrance of the Labrador Sea
The puffin is an excellent swimmer, and can dive up to 60 meters looking for food (196 feet!)
Puffins spend most of their lives out at sea resting on the waves when not swimming

Of course there are the puffin shaped lounge chairs for sale.

Artists have an array of paintings.

Elliston boasts itself as being the Root Cellar capital of the world with over 130 of them in the area.

Root Cellars are unique but not unknown to some of us on Manitoulin. It was the only place people had to keep their vegetables from freezing in winter and cool in summer.

Here are bins located inside the cellars and used for storage of vegetables. I still find the cellars to be dark and creepy.

You will find more on root cellars at this site, copy and past to your search bar: https://townofelliston.ca/2visit/geopark.html

The Newfoundland landscape can be best described as a mixture of bogs, barrens, rock outcrops, water bodies and low fertility, highly acidic soil. It must have been very difficult to grow anything, those people had to have been determined with a strong endurance to have lived and survived raised families before the delivery of such foods to their area.

The "Home From The Sea" site is a tribute to the many men who lost their lives in two separate disasters during a 1914 storm.

The Sealers Memorial honours the crew of the SS Newfoundland who froze to death in March 1914 when poor communications led them to be stranded in a blizzard, as well as the crew of the SS Southern Cross, which sank in the same storm. In all, 251 sealers died.

The slab of rock is engraved with the names of all the sealers, and a bronze statue depicts the huddled figures of Reuben and Albert John Crewe, a father and son who froze to death in a grim embrace.

We visited the "Home From The Sea John C Crosbie Sealers Interpretation Centre" and found it to be very informative. It is hard to believe the sealers endured so much, unbelievable.