We started planning this trip to Newfoundland last year, almost exactly a year ago as a matter of fact. We wanted to go in July but on the off chance that the stars aligned and I got cast in a Festival play that won our zone and went to Mainstage in July (which actually happened OMG), we planned to go in August.

Of course, the night before we flew out I couldn’t sleep. Now that normally wouldn’t be a problem, but we had booked an overnight flight. We left for the airport about 3:30 on Friday afternoon and it was a good thing we had some extra time. We always have trouble with the check-in kiosks, and this trip was no different. The line-up for the agents was long and slow, but eventually we got through, dropped our bags and headed to security. One of the great things about flying domestic is that you don’t have to go through American security. We had a lovely, relaxed late lunch/early dinner. Our flight to Calgary was on time and the gate we were flying into was close to the one we were flying out of. The flight to St. John’s was a little late but that just meant that we were sleepier and ready to nap our way across the country. Luckily the seat beside us, in the exit row, was empty so we could stretch out and try to catch a few zzz. I think we might have managed about two hours, which meant that we weren’t totally messed up when we landed in St. John’s around 8:30 on Saturday morning.

Sunrise across Canada

After collecting our bags we went to the car rental booth. The couple ahead of us, from Pennsylvania, was having trouble. They had booked their car pick-up for noon and it was not noon. They were told they could pay extra, around $1200, to get it or they could take the shuttle back to their hotel and come back, via shuttle again, after noon. They decided to do that. We had to get the same shuttle, as we had booked through Hertz, which was off-site. When we got to the Hertz office, the woman inside was awesome. We were early too but it wasn’t a problem. Dale had his licence out but she waved it away. “I’s got everything I needs here b’y, and I knows how to do me job.” In minutes we had our car, a white Ford Edge, but we stayed to chat. She told us about the world famous Blueberry Festival in Brigus that we couldn’t miss and she was thrilled we were going to Quidi Vidi, which she pronounced Kiddi Vidi, to do some cod jigging. We got into the car, set the GPS for the cafe she recommended for breakfast and drove away.

Driving down into St. John’s – our first sight of the coloured houses.

Breakfast was very good. The server was hilarious. Dale ordered an omelette but didn’t want the hash browns. She looked at him, raised her eyebrows and said, “No hash browns b’y? And here I was thinking I liked you.” I redeemed us by asking for his hash browns, which she said she’d put on his plate to save me the extra charge. After breakfast we drove around for a while to waste some time. But just before noon we gave up and went to our hotel, fully prepared to beg for an early check-in. No begging was needed. Check-in achieved, we dragged our luggage and our butts up to our room, washed our faces, brushed our teeth and crawled into bed. Three hours later we awoke, refreshed but not fully recovered. We didn’t want to jeopardize our night time sleep. Pulling back the curtain, I could see that it had rained while we were out. Later we learned a sinkhole had opened up due to the heavy rain, on the road we had driven down to get to the cafe where we had breakfast.

Several hours later, as the rain had stopped, we decided to walk along Water Street and then go up to Duckworth Street to go to the iconic Duke of Duckworth for dinner. It was quite busy but we got a table out on the covered patio. It was cooler out there but not much, it was very humid after the rain. We maximized our dinner options. I had the pan fried cod with Greek salad and Dale had the deep fried cod with fries. We mixed and matched and everything was delicious.

The Duke of Duckworth, made more famous by the TV show “Republic of Doyle”

We decided to continue our adventure by going somewhere else for dessert and tea. The restaurant we stopped at had only cheesecake and I’m not a cheesecake fan. She recommended a bakery we had passed earlier in our walk, so we backtracked and went in. The lemon tart I had was delicious and Dale enjoyed the cowboy cookie he had, which was an oatmeal cookie with coconut, raisins, chocolate chips and peanuts. We wandered around a bit more, but we were surprised to see many shops were closed by 7:00 pm so we went back to the hotel, a little over 6 kilometres in all. Not a bad hike for an old gal with two bad knees.

Back in the room I had a long bath, and by 10:00 the lights were out and we were asleep. I did wake up to my iPad making a noise, so I got up and turned it off. And then Dale’s phone started to vibrate and flash on a regular basis. I tried to ignore it and I must have been successful because I fell back asleep. The sun was shining through the curtains when I woke up the next morning. We both felt fully revived and ready to experience our first full day in Newfoundland.