Sorry, but if the text on some of this seems to be in a white highlight!!! I have no idea why :) and we have to get going, as Beck is cooking dinner and we'll be in trouble. We are in a little cafe in Twillingate. Just been watching locals catching Capelin in the surf.. and it is unseasonably hot! Look up capelin on google :)
Bear Cove is a nice place to stop and take int the view of yet another lovely rocky bay, dotted with brightly coloured square two storied houses and a few small fishing boats moored to various designs of wharf structures. I was taking all this in when up walks Mr "I’ve lived here all my life and now I am retired".
As far as I could tell, there was no “good morning” or “hi, where are you from” he seemed to just launch into a low muttering cascade of what were clearly words being strung together with quite a speed and such an accent as to make it almost impossible for me to pick up on more than a small percent of what he was saying. I had to just stand there and drop in the odd “oh really”, “yes” or “I’m sure” just to try and be polite. However, the longer he talked (and he did a lot of it) the more I began to pick up on what he was conveying.
Apparently, he’d grown up in the little settlement of Ferryland (no kidding, that is a real place!!) and had had to move away once the fishing was stopped, and then I got some history about the Catholic church being banned, and Mass being a covert operation behind the church in a grotto somewhere, people processing (again covertly) and then about the lack of capelin (a small fish that used to arrive by the gizzillion annually to spawn on the rocky beaches) and I am sure I missed quite a lot of other interesting information, when after about 15 minutes, he quietly mumbled a goodbye, and wandered back to his car.
I did get that he always drove out there in the morning for a little walk and to watch the sea. No names exchanged, no handshake just a wee break in his probably predictable day. Pity I couldn’t get past his extremely strong Irish sounding accent.
We have been, for the past 4 days in the “Irish Loop”, and Ferryland was first settled in the early 1600’s, then the French destroyed it, and somewhere along the line, Lord Baltimore (yes, of the state of same name) set up a settlement, and in some form or other it has managed to continue until the present day.
Yesterday Ferryland was doing a lot more than “continuing” as the annual fair was on. The main attraction was the music, which is definitely Irish in origin. Apparently (I actually missed it) on of the highlights was a young bloke who won the “Accordian Idol” and had a voice like Johnny Cash!
I did walk out to the very pretty lighthouse, and saw a few minke whales. They are not my favourite, as they don’t really produce a spout, and mostly, you just see their back and small dorsal fin as they cruise along chasing dinner, as opposed to the humpback which seems to be a lot more visible, produces a large misty spray with each breath which is powerful enough that you can here them from quite a distance.
Also, visited Cape Race which is famous for being the first place to hear the distress call from the Titanic, and also the closest land to the ship. At pretty much the same spot we walked across what is pretty much tundra, to a site where some of the oldest fossils ever found are clearly visible. We got to wear special little slippers and walk around the site. I guess if you were really into fossil’s, it would be a real treat, but quite frankly, being that there were no huge dinosaur teeth or suchlike, I would have preferred a nice coffee! Well, at least while I had a look at the fossils!
RK news.. Not much really. Just one hare, and some unidentifiable small rodent thingy! Not quite as interesting as the USA squished things! We did see a large bull moose, but he was not inclined to get near the road, which is a good thing, as the outcome of hitting one of those is not good!
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