Unfortunately, our month and
a half excursion around Newfoundland is over today! We would have loved to have a couple more
days in St. Johns to see even more of the capital city of this fascinating
province of Newfoundland and Labrador! We
drove 2993 miles in our exploration of Newfoundland!
Today, June 20th,
2015, we’re heading back to Nova Scotia on the Marine Atlantic Ferry docked
just down the hill from our campground on the old Argentia Navy Base
docks.
It’ll be a 14-16 hour overnight
transit back to North Sydney, Nova Scotia, where our Newfoundland journey
started originally. This morning we’re
cleaning up our Sprinter-based Airstream Interstate RV vacuuming inside and
washing the exterior. We filled up the
fresh water and dumped then had lunch.
2:30PM and the CB comes to
life with George’s voice directing the caravan of Airstreams to move out toward
the Ferry dock. At 3PM we survived our
RV getting power washed in a tunnel to be sure none of our vehicles or RVs
brought nasty Newfie bugs over to Nova Scotia that could harm their
agricultural industries. We parked in
the Ferry parking lot in 2 lines and waited to be loaded on board. At 3:13 PM we drove on board the M/V Atlantic
Vision and parked as directed by the Ferry crew on Deck 5. We then unloaded our duffel and walked up to
the Purser’s Office to get our stateroom assignment. We’re in Room 8020 and almost all of our
caravan people are in staterooms along this same corridor. The rooms are small but complete with 2
single beds, a bath and shower, a desk and chair and a window which was almost
obscured by wear or salt. We went outside
on the deck to take a couple of photographs as the ship left port (and
Newfoundland) and then to the lounge area to read for a while. At 7 PM, we all went up to the Buffet
Restaurant and had a pleasant very good buffet meal with our friends, which was
paid for with a meal ticket from our Caravan.
Afterwards, we walked around, looked for the gift shop which was closed
for the whole crossing but the bars were certainly open! We then found our way to the movie theatre
and watched the story of physicist Stephen Hawking titled “The Theory of
Everything.” Very interesting! Back to our room and a comfortable night’s
sleep with the motion and vibration of the ship speeding through the water.
The next morning we were up at
7:30, took showers in the room and packed back up. 8:15 breakfast muffin and
coffee or milk down in the cafe. The
ferry docked at 9:15 AM at North Sydney and we drove off at 9:40 Newfoundland
time, ½ hour earlier than Nova Scotia time.
 |
| Back to the mainland--Nova Scotia! |
We drove up to Glace Bay and arrived at 10:10 AM at the Marconi National Historical Site and were surprised that it was closed until July 1. The significance of this site is that on 14 December 1902, "Guglielmo Marconi changed the world forever with the first official transatlantic exchange of radio messages at his wireless station here at Table Head in Glace Bay. His work would ultimately usher in the age of global telecommunications." (from Parks Canada website) Four 200' tall wooden aerial towers transmitted the signals from Glace Bay to Cornwall, England where Marconi had a similar station.
So we drove into town to the Glace Bay Miner’s Museum, which was
very much open and yes, they had mine tours going! The first coal mine here was in 1720, the
first in North America, and the last underground mine closed in 2001. All the
way to the 1930s, there were 12 large underground mines in Glace Bay, employing
8000 men and boys, digging out 300 million year old bituminous coal. There is some open pit coal mining going on
now.
The Miner’s Museum sits next to the ocean on top of an old coal mine, called the Ocean Deeps Colliery. Glace Bay was a huge coal mining area with many of the shafts going as far as 6 miles out under the Atlantic Ocean! This museum tells the story with huge equipment displays, many miner portraits, exhibits describing strikes, miner’s unions, the company store and major accidents in the mines and much more. We enjoyed a visit here when we were in the Maritimes about 8 years back on the Airstream Nor by Nor’east Caravan in the Maritime provinces.
The mine tour is wet and damp and you dress in a cape over your clothes and a hard hat to protect your skull from low rock ceilings. Our tour leader was Eric Spencer, a retired coal miner for 55 years, who gave a super tour even showing us the underground garden the miners had for fresh greens to eat and the pit ponies that lived in the mines who pulled the ore carts!
In some parts of the mine, you have to duck walk with 42” ceiling heights! Great experience!
We were disappointed that the “Men of the Deeps” retired coal miner’s choir with miners aged from mid-30s to late 70s, wouldn’t be performing for several more weeks. We saw them on our earlier visit and the performance is spectacular starting with their entrance in the totally dark theatre coming out in coveralls with hard hat and miner’s headlamp and singing in wonderful harmony! Alas, not this trip! We had lunch and went grocery shopping at the large modern Atlantic Superstore in town.
The Miner’s Museum sits next to the ocean on top of an old coal mine, called the Ocean Deeps Colliery. Glace Bay was a huge coal mining area with many of the shafts going as far as 6 miles out under the Atlantic Ocean! This museum tells the story with huge equipment displays, many miner portraits, exhibits describing strikes, miner’s unions, the company store and major accidents in the mines and much more. We enjoyed a visit here when we were in the Maritimes about 8 years back on the Airstream Nor by Nor’east Caravan in the Maritime provinces.
The mine tour is wet and damp and you dress in a cape over your clothes and a hard hat to protect your skull from low rock ceilings. Our tour leader was Eric Spencer, a retired coal miner for 55 years, who gave a super tour even showing us the underground garden the miners had for fresh greens to eat and the pit ponies that lived in the mines who pulled the ore carts!
In some parts of the mine, you have to duck walk with 42” ceiling heights! Great experience!
We were disappointed that the “Men of the Deeps” retired coal miner’s choir with miners aged from mid-30s to late 70s, wouldn’t be performing for several more weeks. We saw them on our earlier visit and the performance is spectacular starting with their entrance in the totally dark theatre coming out in coveralls with hard hat and miner’s headlamp and singing in wonderful harmony! Alas, not this trip! We had lunch and went grocery shopping at the large modern Atlantic Superstore in town.
Then we were off to
Louisbourg about 40 miles away, the reconstructed old French fort from the 18th
Century that was a major French seaport and the capital of the Ile Royale (Cape
Breton Island). Our campground was right in town on the water with a very
friendly manager. Our friends Nick and
Emily Fisher were here too. We paid for 2 nights and the 3rd night
was free! Unfortunately at 6 PM it began
raining, ugh!
June 22nd—rained all night and all day today and hard! Cold and windy—yuk! We stayed in all day and worked on our blogs
with good campground wifi. We ate our
last fried clam appetizers from the Rocky Harbour Fish Market along with ham
and pasta and watched a DVD movie.
June 23rd—looked out the window and blue sky and perfect
weather again so we’re off to the Fortress of Louisbourg National Historic Site.
Nick and Emily were taking off for Halifax, the capital city of Nova
Scotia. At the fort, we took a one hour
guided tour with Hilda, who really knew her stuff and stuffed us full of old
history!
The French came here in 1713 after ceding Newfoundland to the British in the Treaty of Utrecht. They began construction of the fortifications in 1719 and finally completed them in 1745 just before the first of several sieges. The town was supported by the cod fishery. Modern reconstruction began in 1961 to restore about ¼ of the former Fortress and its buildings. Re-enactors pose as shop clerks, soldiers, cannoneers, fishermen, bakers, housewives and more , taking you back to the 18th Century!
In the afternoon,. We took a “Time Travel” tour and learned about soldiers, lacework, operating a household in the day, and the tavern where we had delicious hot chocolate and molasses cookies!
We enjoyed seeing the King’s Bastion, an extremely ornate building and walked all the streets inside the Fortress.
This is a great place to visit to learn more of the English and French history in the Maritimes and Newfoundland. We had a very interesting 8-1/2 hour visit and were happy to head back to the RV Park and a nice fish taco dinner in the rig.
The French came here in 1713 after ceding Newfoundland to the British in the Treaty of Utrecht. They began construction of the fortifications in 1719 and finally completed them in 1745 just before the first of several sieges. The town was supported by the cod fishery. Modern reconstruction began in 1961 to restore about ¼ of the former Fortress and its buildings. Re-enactors pose as shop clerks, soldiers, cannoneers, fishermen, bakers, housewives and more , taking you back to the 18th Century!
In the afternoon,. We took a “Time Travel” tour and learned about soldiers, lacework, operating a household in the day, and the tavern where we had delicious hot chocolate and molasses cookies!
We enjoyed seeing the King’s Bastion, an extremely ornate building and walked all the streets inside the Fortress.
This is a great place to visit to learn more of the English and French history in the Maritimes and Newfoundland. We had a very interesting 8-1/2 hour visit and were happy to head back to the RV Park and a nice fish taco dinner in the rig.
June 24th—raining hard again this morning. We wanted to see the S&L Railway Museum in the ornate old railroad station before leaving town.
It was open with interesting exhibits as Nick had told us—he always scouts out any railroading venues! We’ll continue with our rainy journey off to Baddeck in Blog 28.
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