Newfoundland South Coast Adventure: Hermitage and Seal Cove

Wednesday, July 6: Ferry from Gaultois to Hermitage at 8, 10, 12, 5:15 or 6:45, 1 hr 30 min, $1.20

It was decidedly cooler back in Hermitage when we debarked from the Terra Nova. I had booked three double beds and a cot at for $80 plus tax, each. (880-4444 Shirley housekeeper, 883-2427, Laura and Ward, 883-2209) at Hickey’s Inn.

Locals directed us to a house, but it turned out to not be the correct location. After a call asking for directions, we found the second location on the corner of the main road behind the school. The place was a bit iffy looking from the outside with no windows on the front and no landscaping. But inside, there were new hardwood floors, fresh paint and a pool table for the children in a huge foyer. The place is mainly rented to visiting workers – there were three staying there with us who had come to build a new water tower.

Picnic in Hermitage

Staff were very friendly and we were welcome to eat anything we found in the fridge. Homemade bread and jam, pie, cake. We made our own breakfast with eggs, bread, cereal provided. We had to buy our own milk, but the supermarket is not a far drive. We had supper at Light Keeper’s Diner across the main road, just a five-minute walk from our inn.

We also had use of a washer and dryer. It turned out to be a great place for one night.

Seal Cove Beach with its dinosaur rocks

The highlight of our time in Hermitage was actually our side trip to Seal Cove, about a 20-minute drive down the road. The beach there is covered with gargantuan beach rocks that resemble dinosaur eggs. One token seal bobbed in the bay. We could have continued down a bumpy dirt road to the resettled community of Pass Island, but the van was heavy with seven passengers so we stayed in Seal Cove and walked a beautiful boardwalk through a bakeapple bog as far as the government wharf. Highly recommend the side trip to Seal Cove.

Newfoundland South Coast Adventure: Rencontre East

Newfoundland South Coast Adventure: Rencontre East

July 2 – 10, 2016

Travellers: Four adults, three children

Saturday, July 2 – St. John’s – Pool’s Cove – Rencontre East: Drive down Bay Despoir Highway to Pool’s Cove. Take 5:45 pm ferry to Rencontre East (1 hr 45 min). Or drive down Burin Peninsula to Bay L'Argent. Note: If you choose to take this route, you will not have a vehicle to get you across the Connaigre Peninsula to continue visiting south coast communities to the west. 

We took the Northern Seal coastal boat to Rencontre East where Paul Tricketts (709-690-0811) met us at the wharf to go to Ackley House which we had booked through VRBO for $488 for two nights. Three bedrooms in completely renovated (spring 2016) old blue house with full kitchen and two bathrooms. Ackley House is on right side of harbour as the boat sails in to Rencontre East. Rencontre East has two stores, one of which has a liquor express. Paul has a second rental home called Chart House built right on the wharf near a small waterfall in Little Harbour Brook behind the community. Both vacation rentals are for a minimum of two nights.

We hiked around Downton's Pond on the boardwalk in the rain. To get there, go left at the cemetery, left at fork and pass by the dump.

Downton's Pond Trail, Rencontre East

 Unlike other communities we visited on the South Coast, Rencontre East does not have boardwalks (except around Downton’s Pond). Instead it has dirt paths which get mighty muddy when there’s a lot of rain. 

Paul shows us molybdenum sample from Ackley Mine

We also took an Off the Grid boat tour up Rencontre Lake with Paul and in driving rain. We walked the 15 minutes or so into the boat launch and had one stop at Ackley Mine to pick up some molybdenum samples off the beach outside the mine. Molybdenum was discovered here in 1882 and an American, John W. Ackley, living in a cabin on the shore next to the mine, attempted to set up a commercial operation in the early 1900s. This was not successful, Ackley did lend his name to the granite in which the molybdenum ore occurs. Molybdenum is silver and used to strengthen steel.

It was raining too hard to stop at Paul’s cabin for a mug up. Luckily Paul has a washer and dryer and kitchen with essentials in the house so we were able to dry our clothes and drink something hot to warm up.

Stone Jug, Carbonear

Stone Jug
232 Water St., Carbonear
Reservations after 6 pm: 709-596-2629

Winter hours: Wednesday - Sunday for Lunch and Dinner starting at 11:30am

CLOSED Monday and Tuesday

Finally made it to Carbonear’s Stone Jug, built in the 1860s by Irishman John Rorke. Have been trying to make time since last summer when my 87-year-old mother went and enjoyed it. The first time she was in there, she was 12 and on her way home to Western Bay from a hospital stay in St. John’s. She was thrilled to reacquaint herself with the original monolithic dark wood staircases that had greeted her 75 years ago.

Fantastic woodwork and stone walls at the Stone Jug 

About 50 European chandeliers are on display
at Carbonear's Stone Jug Restaurant

Not sure if the Harry Potter door in the stairs is original but, every now and then, staff either appeared or disappeared through that door as if by magic. Not surprising as The Stone Jug was a busy place last Saturday night. The greeter told us they were more booked up than New Year’s Eve and we saw at least two parties get turned away. Luckily I had the foresight to make a reservation and although we arrived early we got seated right away.

From the moment we stepped inside a warm feeling came over me, not so much from the temperature, but from the 10-man band playing down in the back corner. 

The Stone Jug Band

Unassuming, and playing everything from accordion to hammered dulcimer, I recognized several of the musicians from lazy days at Auntie Crae’s when you’d duck in out of the Water Street wind tunnel for a cup of something hot and be treated to a concert by some of the province’s most talented musicians. If all goes well the Stone Jug band hopes to play every second Saturday from 3-6 so you’re in for a treat if you stop in for a pint or an early supper. Check out Stone Jug's Facebook page to be sure.

As we were dining with our eight-year-old, our supper was not a drawn-out affair but a quick hamburger and pizza. Although my burger was superb, Piatto does not have to worry about going out of business. Despite the bland pizza crust and toppings, we had a wonderful time. 

The third floor party room

Ocean View. Apparently the building was called the Stone Jug because that's what it resembled from the water.  

Children's meals are accompanied by a pirate patch and hat.

What the menu lacked in taste, the venue made up in atmosphere with dozens of original chandeliers from Europe spread over three floors. The top floor is not open to regular restaurant customers but I was invited up for a look-see. Fantastic place for us muggles to experience the magic of the 1860s. If you have a birthday party, fundraiser or corporate function this is the place you want to book.

Bowie Blog

David Bowie may finally meet the Spiders from Mars

In the 1980s my brother and I went into button production, making rock star images into badges we could wear on our jean jackets, or in my case, a canvas messenger bag from the Army Surplus Store that I dyed purple. Although my messenger bag displayed four tiny store-bought John, Paul, Ringo and George pins, it held a place of reverence for my homemade David Bowie pin. Bowie’s image wrapped around sheet metal cut to size and laminated. All through high school and CEGEP in Quebec I was obsessed with Bowie. I had all his albums on vinyl of course. I wish I still had them today.

Living in residence in Quebec, I remember having to get written permission from my parents in St. John’s to go see David Bowie in concert at the Quebec Coliseum.

 I watched all his weird movies. I remember taking the bus in Quebec City on a frigid Sunday afternoon in winter to go to the library to watch the 1983 British-Japanese prisoner of war film, “Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence”. With bulky vinyl headphones in position, the world around me disappeared. It was just me and Mr. Lawrence with his head disappearing into the desert sand.

Speaking of Christmas, my favourite Christmas recording is David Bowie and Bing Crosby’s “Little Drummer Boy”. This past December someone young enough to have not lived through Ziggy Stardust was amazed at what a good job was done in studio to combine those two singers’ voices as if they had been in the same room singing!

"We passed upon the stair, we spoke of was and when / Although I wasn't there, he said I was his friend, which came as some surprise / I spoke into his eyes / I thought you died alone, a long long time ago." (From 1070’s “The Man who Sold the World”)

Camille Strickland-Murphy’s Memory lives on this Christmas and forever

Camille Strickland-Murphy’s Memory lives on this Christmas and forever



Mollie Jameson, Camille (centre) and Hayley Drohan participate in Secret Santa



Camille Strickland Murphy left us too early on July 28, 2015 at the age of 22, but rest assured, her beautiful soul lives on this Christmas.

Every year for 11 years Camille and her friends would participate in a Secret Santa where each person would draw a name out of a hat and then purchase a gift for the person whose name they drew. The anonymous exchange which took place a few days before Christmas was always filled with laughter and good memories of sports and school, boyfriends and family. Even after many of the girls moved away they still found a way to pick names (using an app) and hold the event when everyone was home.



The Secret Santa friends



“Camille was intelligent, highly articulate, irreverent, ridiculously funny and a good friend to many,” reads her obituary. “She highly valued and built strong and enduring friendships. Even when her mental illness and related problems overcame her …, her good friends and their families continued to try to support her in any way that they could…”

Although Camille cannot be with her friends this Christmas, they continue to support her. This year instead of choosing names, 22 girls took the money they would have spent on Secret Santa gifts, plus a bit more, and pooled it together to buy a treadmill in Camille’s memory for the Newfoundland & Labrador Correctional Center for Women (NLCCW) in Clarenville where Camille had spent time. During her incarceration Camille, who lived to sail and was a super runner and downhill skier, often lamented the lack of recreational equipment in prison. 



“There was not a lot of opportunity to work out (for Camille),” says Maria Clift, who will present craft supplies, soccer balls, basketballs, volleyballs and footballs on December 24 to Shelley Michelin, Assistant Superintendent of the Clarenville Correctional Centre where the treadmill has already been delivered. “We felt recreational equipment would benefit the prison. The inmates would be in better shape. At some point it has to be about rehabilitation and not just about punishment. The way (Camille) would talk about (athletics) was like no one else, especially sailing,” says Clift adding that once word spread about the idea, many others contributed to the cause raising enough money to donate an exercise bike as well as a treadmill.

Camille doing what she loved best

So to Cecily, Noel, Keir, Lois and the rest of the Strickland and Murphy families, Merry Christmas. Please know that Camille has not been forgotten.

I Believe in Father Christmas and in Jim Fidler

On Thursday December 17, 2015 my favourite Newfoundland musician, Jim Fidler, released his first Christmas song, an original arrangement of the 1970s' 

I Believe in Father Christmas. 

The song was originally done by Greg Lake of Emerson, Lake and Palmer. The lyrics are by Peter Sinfield. The new artwork is by Lillian Fidler.

You can find the song on itunes where there's an option to gift the song to someone else. So feel free to spread the cheer. I Believe in Father Christmas is also available at jimfidler.com

This Christmas may there be peace in the Middle East

Shock at the Pond

Last weekend my husband and I went for a run around Quidi Vidi Lake. What a jolt we got when, instead of running straight along the path, we took the little side trail down from the boat house. The scene that greeted us was so shocking; it took a few minutes to absorb it all. Toys that had been dismantled and rebuilt in different configurations hung from trees and crawled along railings making Sid’s Toy Story experiments look tame. Each exhibit had a poem attached – inside a drawer in a doll’s chest or scrawled on a broken mirror in a unicorn’s mouth. Thankfully a poster on a tree explained the purpose of the exhibit - deconstructing the past in order to come to a better understanding of the present. Had we not taken that side trail we would have missed the whole thing. I have included pictures as a preview. You only have ‘til December 8, 2015 to take it all in.