Wheelin' and Rockin' with DIanE

Another mechanical issue in Twillingate. Oi! We pulled into the provincial park and oohed and ahhed over the views and our wooded, lakeside site. We hooked up, opened up the slideouts, tested the propane and started planning for an afternoon in Twillingate. Not to be! I turned on the kitchen water tap and…..nothing. We waited a few hours for the park staff to try and figure out the problem. The upside was that I had an interesting chat with the maintenance guy and heard a local’s perspective on Come From Away and curling native, Brad Gushue. By the time the problem was dealt with, it was late in the day. We did go to Twillingate, but instead of hiking, enjoyed some local beer, live music, and mussels. Not a bad substitution.

One of the sights that I was most looking forward to on this trip was seeing an iceberg. On Sunday morning, we headed out with Iceberg Quest Ocean Tours. This outing was advertised as a two-hour tour of whales, birds and icebergs. The tour was closer to three hours. I hadn’t realized how quickly icebergs can move location, so the length of the tour is really dependent on how long it takes to get to one on any particular day. It was pretty incredible to see the iceberg come into view as we rounded the point.

The seal sunning himself on the iceberg was a bonus.

After grabbing some seafood chowder for lunch, we headed out for our first hike in the area. Most of the trails in and around Twillingate are referred to collectively as the Rockcut Twillingate Trails. We wanted something challenging, so chose to do the Horney Head Cove Hiking Trail. This trail is a 9 km loop up to the Long Point Lighthouse, down to the coast, and then inland. The approximate time estimate is just under 3 hours. We figured that we’re speedy, so planned for 2.5. We quickly realized why this hike is identified as ‘hard’. There were very steep climbs on loose rock, and the path forward wasn’t always obvious. The effort was worth seeing the beautiful coves and landscape.

We reached the lighthouse, still making pretty good time. Little did we know what lay ahead. The lighthouse parking lot is rather large. We could find only one sign that pointed us in the direction of the hiking trails. Our trail wasn’t one of the ones named. We consulted maps, lighthouse staff, and online reviews with no luck. We had to assume that our trail continued from the same point that the others started. We saw more beautiful sights, but with no sense of whether we were going in the right direction. Thanks to Google Maps, we knew exactly where we were, but not how to get to where we needed to be. We finally made our way to the highway, planning to walk along it until we came to the place we had left the truck. About 1.5 km along the road, we found a marker for our Horney Head Cove Trail. Still ever optimistic, we left the highway and took the trail. More beautiful sights, but more steep climbs, over an additional 2.5 km. It was very surprising to find out that we still managed to finish in 3 hours. High fives all around for a win!

One last morning in Twillingate: We got up early and did one more hike before packing up and heading off to our next destination. We did the Lower Little Harbour Trail where we saw this natural arch in the stone. Once again, there was one bad wrong turn, but this hiking duo is learning to use our complimentary skills to navigate out of the woods, literally.😁

— Diane