Newfoundland - St. John's

Rocky Harbour to St. John's: Travel Distance: 710 km
AirBnB Accommodations: $ 648.71 CAD for 5 nights

Newfoundland and Labrador is one of the best places to see and appreciate nature in all its glory. Dramatic coastlines, sweeping barrens, thick boreal forests, and ancient rock formations – the natural, wild beauty of this place surrounds you at every turn. The sun rises here first, on the most easterly point on the continent. Newfoundland is closer to Ireland than it is to Calgary or Vancouver, and having their own time zone is just one example of the off-kilter

nature of this place.

With more than 29,000 kilometres of coastline, it's is the place to head to spot whales, seabirds, and icebergs (all in the summer months). There are 22 species of whales alone that can be seen from Newfoundland, including the world's largest migrating population of humpbacks. During the summer months Iceberg Alley (north of Gander) is the best place on the continent to see these 10,000-year-old majestic giants.

The island is known for their sweet wild and cultivated fresh berries. They grow blueberries, partridgeberries, blackberries, and bakeapples - also known as cloudberries. You can buy bakeapple and partridgeberry jams and jellies in a number of stores and farmers markets around Newfoundland. Something that we might have to pick up to take home to try.

Today we travelled from Rocky Harbour in Gros Morne National Park to St. John's on the eastern coastline. We originally planned to stay at Gander but our previously booked AirBnB accommodations fell through. It is the only AirBnB that has been cancelled on us in all of our travels. We are pleased with using AirBnB along the way and most places have proved to be as good or better than we thought. It has been nice to be able to check into a "home"

rather than a hotel and have a bit of room to spread out. It has also been great for Roxy to be able to kick up with us and settle into a routine.

With our accommodations falling through in Gander we looked at staying at a "cabin" in Glovertown, a bit further down the coast. We knew ahead of time that rain and gale force winds were forecasted for Newfoundland, however, the storm was much more than what we anticipated. Crazy rain, blowing winds and wind gusts from 100-120 km/hr made it difficult to stay on the roads. Given that the storm wasn't going to let up until tomorrow afternoon we decided to keep driving to St. John's; avoiding the storm at the northern coastal regions.

We kept our speed down to 60-80 km/hr and took a small break for lunch to relax for a while before continuing on in our journey. Luckily we could cancel our accommodations at Glovertown and our accommodations in St. John's was free for tonight.

It was a long day in the car, but worth it to arrive into St. John's a day early and able to relax and kick up for a few days here.
Tomorrow we hope to head out to do a little exploring.