The first part of our trip to Newfoundland took us all the way across the province from east to west. We started in St. John’s and toodled around that area for a couple of days. Then we set our sights west and drove to Gander. Everyone has heard of Gander Newfoundland now because of “Come From Away”, the great musical based on the events that unfolded there after 9/11. We were excited to have our own “come from away” experience, but Gander is a pretty quiet town when the residents aren’t looking after thousands of stranded airline passengers.

We stayed in a chain hotel along the Trans Canada, called TCH in Newfoundland. Dale went to get a haircut in a local salon and he said it was like being in a foreign country, listening to them speaking amongst themselves. He asked them what the must-do things in Gander were and they were perplexed. After saying we should see the North Atlantic Air Museum, they were at a loss of what else we should do. Dale took in the museum and said it was very interesting. The next day we headed to Twillingate, which turned out to be the best part of our trip to Gander. It was an hour and a half drive north.

Dale was excited to see the harbour, because he watches the show “Coldwater Cowboys” and the fishermen in the show are based in Twillingate. We stopped at the harbour and Dale hopped out. Two of the featured ships were at berth and one of the skippers was on his boat. Dale had a celebrity sighting! I stayed in the car and, as it happened, took a call from my brother.

We also drove up to the lighthouse in Twillingate, where the view was amazing. The road up to it wasn’t marked but we just kept following the most likely road and suddenly there it was. We got out and took some great photos before we headed back down into the town. There were not a lot of shops in the town. It was clear that people had to be pretty self sufficient to live in a place so far away from anywhere really. I’m sure people there have skills many of us have forgotten or never thought to learn in the first place. It must be a hard life, and not one I’d like to experience. It may be beautiful now, but I’m thinking being in Twillingate in January would be the last place anyone would want to be. It may hold that ranking with other remote Newfoundland locales.

We had a place in mind for our late lunch/early dinner which was how we were doing our meals for the first little while in Newfoundland. Around  3:30 we arrived at Doyle Sansome & Sons Lobster Pool. Although it was very late in the lobster season, they had a few left. We enjoyed a simple, delicious meal of lobster, fries and green salad. For desert we had cake with vanilla sauce, a lighter version of a caramel sauce.

The next day we drove to Deer Lake, again along the TCH. There wasn’t much to see, although it was interesting to notice the change in the forests as we moved inland and farther west. Deer Lake was small and not very interesting, in fact the owner of our B&B said the best places to eat in town were the Irving Truck Stop and the motel restaurant. Our first night there was quiet.

The next day we drove south along the coast, first to Corner Brook then to Stephenville. Our drive took us up to the highest elevations in Newfoundland, the Louis Hills, which lie between those places. Corner Brook was not at all interesting but Stephenville was. As we drove into town we saw many long buildings and several groupings of similar very basic homes. I wondered aloud if this was a military town and then we came across some signage that indicated it was. We pulled over and googled the town. What in the world did we do before Google? It turns out Stephenville has a very interesting history, and that it was once an American military airbase. I’ll let you do your own search on it to find out more.

On our way back to Deer Lake we took a little detour to St. George. We had no real interest in it except that a fellow guest at our B&B told us he was originally from there. So, as we were in the neighbourhood we thought we’d check it out. I’m sure it was special to him but it really didn’t make an impression on us.

We drove also through tiny Botwood. The sign to it advertised that they had murals. We had some trouble finding them at first, but then suddenly, there they were. They were all related to Botwood’s history.

After an adequate late lunch/early dinner in Corner Brook, we drove back to Deer Lake. We stopped off for some ice cream before calling it a night.