Saturday, March 25, 2017

Thursday, September 1 – Cape Bonavista






Today’s adventure involved driving north from Port Rexton to Cape Bonavista Provincial Historic Site.  Along the way we drove through Elliston, “The Root Cellar Capital of the World” and home to the Sealing Museum. We didn’t take time to stop.

First view of Cape Bonavista lighthouse

Cape Bonavista Lighthouse


  The Cape Bonavista lighthouse is open to visitors, and you can climb up into the light tower and view the original seal-oil fueled Catoptric Light.  It’s no longer used (there is a modern, automated light adjacent to this tower), but it’s rather interesting to see and hear how it operated. The lights had to be refueled regularly, and the rope-wound device had to be rewound every two hours all night long to keep it active.  Not a fun job, but the living quarters were much better than many of the U.S lighthouses we’ve seen. 

The Capotric Light and the current modern one


John Cabot statue & Jim






 We walked down to the John Cabot statue below the lighthouse.  This spot represents the best guess of the Canadians as to where Cabot first came ashore in North America some 400 years ago.  The views from Bonavista Point are just spectacular.








 From here we drove nearly 200 miles back to Gander, where we stocked up, refueled, and ate out for a change. 
View along the TCH-1 as we headed towards Gander

Jungle Jim's restaurant



Camped for the night at a very nice motel/campground called "Country Inn Motel & RV Park".
We had seen several ads around Newfoundland for "Jungle Jim's", a chain somewhat akin to the type of atmosphere and fare as Chili’s, but with a Newfoundland feel!  Food was OK.

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