The Long Way Back Part One

I'm not a big fan of the shortcut.  All the good things happen when you take the long way back.

So instead of taking the direct route on the TCH back to St. John's on the day before our early morning flight we left before noon and headed out for an adventure, keeping an eye peeled for wandering moose on the road, of course.

So off to the east coast of Trinity Bay I went.  After having a good laugh at the roadside ghouls in Blaketown that I featured in my Halloween post it was on to Dildo.

Oft visited for its name alone, the small village has a population of about 1200 residents.  Cory was too tired to wake up and appreciate its charms, so I looked it over from the car on my own, and even got out to battle Pokemon and captured the gym for Team Valor while I was there.  Dildo Days at the end of July sounds great with boats filling the harbor and fireworks after dark.  Maybe next year?

After Dildo my next five minute stop was in the town of New Harbour.  I spotted a cool mural depicting the Newfie Bullet which was a passenger train that crossed the island from St. John's to Port Aux Basques before the Trans Canada Highway was built.  It ran on the longest narrow gauge railway system in North America with a total track length of 906 miles.

The next thing that caught my eye was the Lassy Wall in Spaniard's Bay.  Built around 1830 it is located on the Conception Bay Highway and the purpose of the wall was to shore up the bank between the highway and Church Hill.   It was built by the members of the community who were paid in molasses, hence the name "Lassy Wall".  I like molasses, but I don't know what I think about it being used as currency.  However, I wouldn't want my community crumbling beneath me either so there you go.

Sometimes icebergs make their way to Spaniard's Bay, but that's not what I found in the water.

A seal!  Cory woke up long enough for a quick look but he wasn't as excited as I was.  Here's a closer look, he was checking me out too.

I filmed a quick 12 second movie, take a close look behind the seal and tell me what you think was in the water behind it! Not being an expert on marine life I will not hazard a guess myself.  My sister in law thought it was a whale but surely the water wasn't deep enough unless smaller whales frequent the area...

Our next stop was Bay Roberts but I found so much to photograph there that I'll keep you in suspense and share our adventure there tomorrow!