I fly into St. John’s in the very early morning, then fly home late at night. What can you do for a full day in St. John’s when you can barely walk1?
St. John’s is a lovely town with super nice summer weather. If airline schedules mean I have to spend a day here, it’ll be a great time no matter what.
St. John’s harbour
Lost luggage
Right after landing, I head for the WestJet counter. The backstory here is that my luggage was lost in my fly in three weeks ago and it was found only two weeks into my trip. By then I had already got new gear from scratch. I asked the airline to hold the lost stuff for me in St. John’s so I could pick it up on my way home. That’s where I’m at.
My lost pack was there unharmed. WestJet personnel was super nice as always. This doesn’t detract from all the hassle I had to go through but it does help to take it as it comes. Given that I found myself with two fully loaded packs to fly home with, they offered me to check both in for no additional charge.
Back home
After kissing and hugging my lost pack, I left everything in storage and headed for downtown.
The Harbour
St. John’s harbour wouldn’t be better engineered if designed and built on purpose: a deep bay protected from the open ocean by high hills with a narrow, deep entrance suitable for big ships. The one thing I find great as a visitor is that it’s easily accessible, right in front of downtown and the dockland area is mostly open to the public. You can see fishing ships, cargo ships, big ships, the real thing, not just recreational stuff. Ships are so beautiful.
St. John’s harbour
I love walking around town when I’m visiting but this is obviously not a good idea with my injured leg. I need a plan that doesn’t involve walking and I head down to the pier for the whale watching tours. This is some real added value for me, it’s not common that I can see whales. Actually the only ones I’ve seen in my life where in my previous visit to Newfoundland, not far from St. John’s itself while I was hiking on the East Coast Trail and I could see a whole bunch of them playing around in a cove, right from the trail. That was a beautiful thing to see, whales are just magnificent and it was particularly emotional to see them as I didn’t expect them, it just happened. I can imagine taking a tour boat will not feel the same but I’ll see them closer and I’ll forget the pain in my right calf for a while.
I checked with Iceberg Quest Ocean Tours and there was a sailing coming up. Icebergs are on about March to June, whales will do for August.
Tour boat
The whales
It was a lovely experience. The sailing alone was great, I could relate the coastline to my own previous experience of hiking it when I took on the East Coast Trail back in 2003, this time from a different perspective. I could recognize many of the features and places where I hiked and camped along the way: Fort Amherst, Freshwater Bay, Cape Spear, Maddox Cove, Petty Harbour, all there to confirm it’d been for real.
Fort Amherst lighthouse
The ride itself was nice enough but then the whales showed up. Orca whales swimming past and underneath the boat. I couldn’t help feeling a bit as an intruder, coming over this way to see them but at least it’s clear the whales are in their place and I’m the visitor. In a way they seem to enjoy the visit as they come really close.
Whales are an odd meeting. So different from us, from a world so far apart yet at the same time so similar to us. I’d love to know them better. For the time being, I’m delighted to meet them live and see them become so real.
The Iceberg Quest crew were super nice, mixing well some interesting, informative talks with leaving passengers enjoy the experience on our own. They extended the tour beyond one hour over schedule when we saw a group of orca whales in the distance and went over to meet them.
The colors
Back into town, I force myself to stop listening to my leg complaining and I take a walk through the quiet downtown streets. The wooden, colorful houses are too beautiful to miss. This is urban art at its best as a side effect of what cities should be about, a welcoming place for the people where you can just be around and feel harmony in the diversity.
Apparently, you can only park a car in front of a house with matching hues:
The homage
There are some statues that I find meaningful: the famine refugees on the bank of the Liffey in Dublin, Tom Crane and his dogs in a Dingle village, wise man, fellow countryman Pio Baroja adopted by the same town that adopted myself, to name a few. They show appreciation and care. I find one in St. John’s that I particularly like featuring the Newfoundland shepherd dog.
The Newfoundland Shepherd
It was difficult to take a pic with no children jumping over it. It’s only fair that children want to play with such loving and faithful dog and I can’t think of a better motif for a statue in a St. John’s park.
The pubs
Downtown St. John’s pubs are rather touristy but still charming and you don’t want to leave without trying a Quidi Vidi on tap.
Public house in downtown St. John’s
I came to Newfoundland for the wilderness and I’m so glad I could also enjoy the town vibe. Newfoundland is the cold island with the warmest people, a place off the beaten path, in-between remote and accessible, that I once visited and loved. It was great to be back.
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