Tag Archives: Boston

Newfoundland and Labrador: Back Seat Memories (II)

In the first part of this story I didn’t talk about our stopping in Montreal, where I visited my Canadian Alma Mater, McGill University. After spending the weekend with friends, we’ve started our two-up motorcycle trip moving towards Baie-Comeau and then Labrador City. This itinerary took us through Churchill Falls, Happy Valley-Goose Bay, Red Bay, Blanc Sablon, St. Barbe, Flower’s Cove, L’Anse aux Meadows – back South towards Gros Morne National Park, Corner Brook, Bay of Islands, Deer Lake, Twillingate. Of course, the pretty town of St. John’s followed this long sequence. We didn’t stop, as initially planned, in Terra Nova National Park and also skipped touring the Bonavista peninsula, because the weather was incredibly miserable, cold, and foggy. Locals said this is how the weather mostly is on the island, one just gets used to it. Yet the month before, July, was simply gorgeous, all nice and sunny, incredible blue skies, as many local mentioned.

After St. Johns, we rode to Placentia and embarked on a 16 hours ferry to Nova Scotia (North Sydney). Spent some interesting time on the Cape Breton Island, and then headed South, just East of Moncton, on Hwy 1, through Saint John, took the picturesque route 172 South towards Deer Island, followed by Campobello Island, all connected through small local ferries. The weather was golden. You could almost smell the fall, but it wasn’t there yet. Once at a small US crossing point, Lubec, we went past the border and continued down the coast. Eventually made it to Boston two days latter.

CowHead-NL

Now let’s go back to the story. This gorgeous sunset caught us on the shores of Cow Head (Gros Morne area), where we checked into a B&B right on the bay. The light outside was just amazing. It was incredibly quiet and it took me a little bit to realize that – for the first time in days – the wind had been silenced. As if everything that’s movable was emerged into a sacred ritual of sun admiration. Picture-like surroundings were merging into our eyes and, at the time the sun was just half above the sea, the light was of a vivid orange.

Pure happenstance, but we stayed in Cow Head during the Annual Gros Morne Theater Festival, showcasing Newfoundland talent. We wanted to go to the Neddy Norris Night, a great show by all reviews – but ended up feeling lazy and not going. And that’s too bad. If I will ever go back to Newfoundland, I’d like to stay in this little place for at least a week during the theater festival and breathe in the great atmosphere.

Corner Brook is nothing but a bigger city. All I remember is having a great dinner, some amazing sushi at Newfoundland Sushi (we had a Dory Load of Sushi for Two). The next morning, after a great hot breakfast our host at the Green Garden B&B graciously made for us, we hopped on our Honda CBF1000 and took a loop trip to see the Bay of Islands. It started like a fun day, beautiful blue sky, puffy clouds, nice sea food for lunch, all until we realized we have a flat on the back tire. But my hubby was ready and trained to use his super-kit and got it fixed in less then 1 hour, right there on the side of the highway. I can’t really give any technical details, but what’s certain is that today, more than 8,000 Km latter, he’s riding with the same back tire on. I guess he did a good job. TwillingateNFThe shore you see in this picture is in Twillingate – one of the most picturesque outports in Newfoundland, located on the centre edge of what is known as Iceberg Alley. Unfortunately, we haven’t seen any floating icebergs as July was too hot and they all melted. Yep. But to make up for that, we went to one of the local wineries, Auk Island Winery, and had tasted several amazing wines. Nope, I’m not going to tell you what happened after, but we did get a bottle of Aurora, a medium-dry white named after the Northern Lights, to enjoy at our B&B that night.

In St. John’s we had to change our Honda’s chain and sprockets. We knew this was coming since we were back in Corner Brook, where we stopped at a motorcycle shop, had them ordered and had the appointment booked at Honda 1 in St. John’s. It was a really great service and they had it ready for us in one hour, so we didn’t have to sacrifice too much time out of our site seeing. St. John’s is considered by some to be the oldest English-founded city in North America, but it was incorporated as a city only in 1921. It’s amazing to see how both old and new mingle in this small town, considered, of course, the largest city in Newfoundland. St.JohnsNFWe went to Cape Spear Lighthouse, and also to Signal Hill, and didn’t miss the famous George Street for some nightlife excitement. We had a good time, but I wouldn’t go that far and say that ‘this place is like no other’. Two days latter we headed to Placentia and embarked on the ferry to Nova Scotia. This was a fun trip: 16 hours, it’s almost like a cruise, only a lot more expensive – considering it’s just a night and you have to pay for all the restaurants.

Cape Breton Island was truly exquisite. If you ever plan to go to the East coast but only have a week or less, definitely do the trails here. We had a little bit of a story with the Canadian Automobile Association (CAA) and lost a day practically because of extremely bad customer service, but decided that we’re going to stay one more day and will complete the trails as we initially wanted. NSThe host at The Maven Gypsy B&B on the Cabot trail was originally from Vancouver, and I actually felt quite excited to finally hear some good ‘vancouverite’ accent. Accommodation was a great, welcoming atmosphere, plus really good breakfast – a bit pricey though. Well, I guess that’s what one pays for such a great location. There is so much more to say about all we’ve seen on our way to Boston. I really liked the two islands: Deer Island and Campobello Island. I’m not sure how the winter looks around there, I would imagine is a bit less romantic and more isolated, as one of the ferries is not working and the other has pretty irregular hours in the winter. But those definitely are gorgeous places to visit! Boston01Boston was phenomenal. We stayed at Marriott this time, left our motorcycle parked at the hotel and hopped on subway using a 7-Days pass. There is no way I could possible single out one thing I liked most about Boston, but probably the way people gather, talk, eat, smile, and listen to street performances made me think of Timisoara, the Romanian city of my Alma Mater university. Or maybe it’s just because there was something magical about it, something that made me forget about future plans and, like a gigantic hand, managed to hold me in the present – a beautiful one, where I was in a place like this with someone I love and it just felt good. It felt so good.

After Boston we split ways. I took a flight back to Vancouver, where my husband arrived one week latter after riding the motorcycle all the way back to BC. He had a nice tan and a victorious smile on his face, “I made it” he said, and went for a 20-hour long sleep.

Magdalena Mot