Upon arrival at the Cape all we could see was the car park and the sound of a fog horn. We saw some people and walked towards them which led to a track. One hundred metres along the track was a huge “discovery centre” with displays of birds and other wildlife. It’s funny to think that we didn’t even see this building on a large grassy cape. We commenced the 1.4 km walk from the interpretative centre to Bird Rock, the third largest gannet nesting site in North America and most accessible. A couple of hundred metres in and we stopped to peer over the edge. We could hear the ocean crashing against the rocks at the bottom of the cliff but couldn’t see a thing because the fog was thick. The wind was also so strong we were a little concerned we might be blown over the edge if we got to close. 
Further down the track, we came across a flock of sheep on the side of the hill. One large ram in particular sat in the middle of the path and wasn’t moving for us or anyone that came across the path. 
We finally made it to the end of the track where the gannets nested and the site hosted some 70,000 birds. The birds nested here as the isolation of the rock meant they were free from predators. We could see the birds with there chicks sitting on the rock and flying overhead. It was amazing to see so many birds in such close proximity. They were getting buffeted by strong winds and mists and after sitting out on the rocks for a while getting covered in mist.
We headed back to the interpretative centre to warm up before heading out to the nearby lighthouse. Oh what, you can’t see it – neither could we until we almost stumbled across it. We only heard it. 
While we there we told some people how to find the interpretative centre in the fog. On the way out a weasel run along the road next to us for about 10m before going back into the low scrub.We stopped in the town of Placentia, which was originally the French capital called “Plaisance”. We had a traditional roast dinner in a little cottage style restaurant. Everyone seems to say “You’re Welcome!” when complimented.
We headed back to St Johns – a long 400 km round trip. The fog still hung around and Dan who was driving also had to contend with rain so heavy that the wind screen wipers could barely keep up. Driving conditions were treacherous and we aqua planed down the road a number of times although weather conditions dictated that we were driving well under the speed limit. It made moose spotting difficult also with poor visibility though one did run across the road in front of us, stopped looked either way and then belted up the hill on the other side. Too quick to capture in a photo but slow enough for us both to see it. We made it back to St Johns in one piece!
We went to dinner in George St which is packed with heaps of pubs, mainly Irish. We ate at O’Reilly’s with an approximately 70 year old man putting on an awesome tap dance demonstration to traditional Newfoundland music. An Irish band of around six provided some great music and Dan bravely tried a Caribou Bourguignon. Stringy meat he said, but not too bad.
The centre had information on the cod fishing (now completely over fished) and the hatchery that has fallen into disrepair. They had a tank here with a few fish, including some wrasse, cod and some cool halibut (like a little flounder). Tan picked up a scallop (didn’t look as tasty as the one from the night before) and I played with some crabs in a small touch tank. The scallop coughed which gave Tan a small fright!
We have decided that everywhere we go we put a bit of Australiana in all of the visitors books along the way. Yesterday at Cape Spear it was “Noice” and Dildo is was “It’s a ripper!”.
As we arrived in Heart’s Content, which had a fishing boat in dry dock and lots of lobster pots, we wandered into the Heart’s Content Telegraph station. 
In the mid to late 1800’s, Asia, Africa and Europe were connected by a wire telegraph system. The New World, the Ameirca’s was internally connected and after a bathimetric survey it was decided that the Atlantic Ocean, here a relatively flat plateau, could sustain an underwater wire link from Ireland to Newfoundland. A grat idea. They successfully laid the cable and after about 6 weeks it failed. The fellow was a hero and then a villain. With opportunity in mind he raise more money and laid another one. Success!! Not long after that he grappled the mislaid cable and repaired it! Two transatlantic cables in a couple of years. More cables were laid with the last one in 1894. It is amazing to think how valuable this link become in times of war and to transmit weather details for ships about to cross the Atlantic. The lead covered cables are still visible in the shore line, though they fell into disrepair in the 1960’s. The station museum had the whole gamete of telegraph equipment and it made me laugh to think of the switchboard and Dad’s first job as young fella in Foster. We entered "It's beaut" in the visitors book.
Tan was keen for a drive and the last time she drove on the wrong side of the road was in Tuscany where she nearly hit a pheasant and met two cars on a narrow gravel road ( which was enough for her to not consider driving in Europe again!). As we were driving along the coast road in and out of small towns and cove, I spotted a moose. “Tan, stop, moose!”. Here we were stopped on the side of the road, looking at a cow moose slowly chewing away of the hawthorne bushes. It was wonderful to see this creature in it’s somewhat natural environment. Actually, moose were introduced at the turn century and since then the four have turned into around 125,000. Great for wildlife lovers but not so great for a couple of aussies in a pissy little car. Moose strikes here average one a day for the island of Newfoundland. 
After a bite to eat in Winterton on the pier with it’s ducks and jellyfish we made our way to the northern points. Grates Cove was a lovely spot, “God’s Country” as it was described by an old fella chatting to his mates on a chair overlooking the area. We agreed but it was clear and sunny and not in freezing fog and cold of winter!!!
Next stop was Baie Verte, with it’s pretty church and lovely coast line. The houses here are different, weatherboard and often white or brightly coloured. The colours are probably needed as winter and the fog would be a bit much in the cooler months. We made our way home along the other side of the pensinsula and eventually got back to St Johns, a quick drive was 350km!!!!
That night, we ended up at Kasbah with an awesome meal of stuffed chicken and I had Snapper with a tops Greek salad. A great introduction to Newfy! Surpising to us both, Tan had an AFD (Alcohol Free Day).
We flew Westjet and with time difference arrived at the airport and organized our accommodation at the Abba (gotta love the name) Inn B&B and picked up our little red car (none of course which had been organized prior to our arrival). Back in the saddle driving on the wrong side of the road, Dan scarily handed me a map to assist him in finding where he needed to go (you would think after nearly 12 years he would have realized I can’t read a map and have no sense of direction) but we found it – yah!!
We dipped our hands into the water to feel the freezing Atlantic Waters and then headed off for lunch to try some traditional food. Dan tried the local, cod fillets, scruncheons (deep fried pork crackling) and a local beer. 
We noticed in Newfoundland the strange accent from the Irish influence so it sounds like the people have a combined accent – very strange.
The weather was beautiful, the seas were smooth and views were impressive. There was some equipment left from the WWII – Dan decided to do his best Cher impersonation on one of the cannons.
Up the top of the hill at Cape Spear was an old lighthouse (now a museum) and a new working lighthouse. The old lighthouse if you look closely looks like it has a lot of windows to comply with British architecture standards at the time, however, it was just to cold and impractical to have that many windows so if you look at the photo closely, some of the windows are actually painted on.
We then drove to Petty Cove which is a small fishing village. The views here were beautiful and apparently quite a few movies are made here because it is so beautiful (other than my Bollywood film of course).
We headed off to a local Irish pub (very heavy Irish influence with all of the pubs etc here) and met a lovely Central Newfy girl, who was hard to understand (although she told us it was her posh voice so people could understand her). She looked after us with a massive serving of some of the best scallops we have ever had and also treated us to moose soup and cod tongues (!!). I was first to try the moose, and it wasn’t bad. A bit like beef. I’m not that keen on trying the seal flipper stew – a local delicacy though!
We checked out a power station in the US from Canada and then moved onto Whirlpool Pool. The mass of water running down the Niagara River come into this right angle and the water swirled in a large anti-clockwise flow. After a few shots we found a squirrel. Yes, another one but we were prepared as we had some muffin from the hotel. This little fella was wrapped with a bit of free tucker. With a honk of the horn we dragged our heels back to the bus.
Niagara is a bit like Las Vegas or so we can gather with lots of hotels, theme parks, tourist traps and maybe a few less bums. Oh, and casinos and replicas of replicas such as the CN Tower. Well all of that wasn’t for us. We went right to the honey zone and were dropped off at the Horseshoe Falls on the Canadian side. Canada is the best place to view both the falls, luckily for us. The water as it flows towards the falls is quite turbulent and there are some great rapids. The sound of the water cascading over was loud and the mist was spraying everywhere. Our first glimpse of the full Horseshoe Falls was breath taking. This is truly a modern natural wonder of the world. They say 1,000,000 bath tubs of water flow over the falls every second which is much less now as up to 80% of the water is diverted in hydro electric plants. This is good as it stops the erosion of the falls back up river. 
After viewing the falls and watching the classic “Maid of the Mist” boats work their way under the mist of the cascading water it was our turn. We donned our blue plastic ponchos, a definite fashion statement, complete with draw string hood, and we were off. The first and less impressive falls is the American Bridal Veil Falls where 10% of the total water flows over. The base of the falls is complete with lots of rocks which make it appear like a set of Class 5 + rapids. We got our first touch of mist from these falls which was refreshing on this 29 degree day. 
We steamed (slowly) towards the chasm of mist, camera ready, at Horseshoe Falls. The view was absolutely amazing and the sound of the water falling was pretty loud. The sprinkle of fine mist couple with the wind generated from the water cascading was cool. It become more cool when we got a little closer and pleasant mist turned to drenching rain and strong winds. Trying to take photos at this stage was pretty difficult as the “rain” was pretty intense. We got a few and one awesome video which we might try and post one day. As we idled with the flow away from the falls and recounted our experiences, we both decided that this is must do if you are ever in Canada. A remarkable experience. 
After getting off the boat, we had a beer and a hot dog and then walked back along towards the Horseshoe Falls. With the sun in a different direction, rainbows started to form dazzling rings.
After a rest in the green grass we hit a winery. We sampled (scoffed) down some wines and famous ice wine. Ice wine is made after the fruit is frozen for a period of three consecutive days and somehow this helps keep the sweetness. It tastes like a sticky botrytis Riesling and it wasn’t that bad. We got talking to the lady and all the others started heading back to the bus. We weren’t budging as we wanted more. We bought a sample of this expensive $65CDN a bottle red ice wine (unique to the area) and it was very nice. The bus tooted the horn and lady asked if we wanted a plastic cup to savour to the taste. Tan necked it no worries and we were off. I think the bird was a bit bemused by the two Aussies but hey we weren’t coming back here for a while!!
Back in Toronto, Dan was super keen on going to Wayne Gretzsky’s bar as this guy is a (ice) hockey legend. It was great but we were more excited to see Lancie’s yellow jersey from the La Tour de France. After a couple of tins and a few photos of the memorabilia and the need for Tan to study up on hockey we were off. Some tea at a jazz bar and that was Toronto for us!!
We went to Nathan Phillips Square, which in summer is a lovely lake in the middle of the city. It was difficult to believe with the temperature being 28 at the end of summer that the lake freezes over in winter and becomes and ice skating rink. We were told the season changes quickly after a few blisteringly cold days. 
We walked past the beautiful old stone building, Trinity College, of Toronto University where we helped ourselves to look through all of the rooms including the dining room that looked like something off a Harry Potter film set. The university and gardens were stunning and we saw our favourite animal at the moment, the squirrel (we may be beginning to sound like we have a bit of a fetish here). There was only one here, but when we left the university on the way out we saw stacks of them and had fun with them and watching one in particular take it a pigeon it had just had enough of. 
On the way home we walked through the aptly named Baldwin Village on Baldwin Street and stopped off for possibly the world’s largest mango daiquiri and beer for Dan which seems to be going down much easier now! The street was packed with heaps of restaurants and café’s which service mainly the uni students. 
After quite a few km’s under our belt we headed back to the hotel and Dan took a dip in the roof top pool and sunned himself afterwards. With the sun starting to set over the city we headed up to CN (Canadian National) Tower which is the largest building in the world at 553m. The lift ride up was pretty awesome with the glass frontage. We got up to the top and watched the sun set over the city with the Tower changing colour and the city lights emerging over Toronto. There was also a glass floor which you walked over and looked down over the city. A little on the scary side when you first walk over it (waiting for the thing to smash and fall to your death). The tower is considered one of the seven modern man made wonders of the world.
