We left Saint John early this morning and headed home. We had originally intended to stop overnight in New Hampshire, but in the end decided we’d rather spend the night in our own bed. Fortunately it was bright sunshine and blue skies all the way.
We stopped in Portland for a delicious lunch – lobster and crab rolls – and then took a scenic detour through Massachusetts which helped us avoid Friday night NYC traffic.
The trip has been good, albeit a bit more boring than we’d hoped. Geologically, Newfound is really diverse and interesting, but the landscape just doesn’t change all that much as you’re driving around. There’s like no people on the island, so it must look pretty much the same now as it did thousands of years ago, which is rather a cool thought.
Newfoundlanders are lovely people, extremely warm and friendly. Everywhere we went people were happy to sit and chat with us about whatever.
The biggest disappointment was the surprising lack of decent food. We weren’t expecting gourmet or anything, but we did think we’d have good fish. While we found a couple of better restaurants, most of the food was bland and not cooked well at all. I did fall in love with patridgeberries – also called lingonberries, which you’ve almost certainly seen in Ikea – sort of similar to cranberries but a little sweeter. The other native berry is called bakeapple (I can’t imagine why), but I didn’t care for it, it had a strange taste.
I will say if we never hear Newfoundland music again, we’d be happy campers.
Some stats on the trip:
- Two countries
- Six states
- Three islands
- Four boats
- Six hikes
- Five moose
- At least a dozen caribou
- I don’t know how many icebergs
- One minor truck repair in a Wal-Mart parking lot
- 4,251 miles not including the ferry crossings
And yes, we’re still happily married.
Thank you for inviting us along, it has been a beautiful trip 😉