1July 2026
After watching some whales in the morning at Ferryland Cove, we drove north up to Bulls Bay. There are boat tours that go to an ecological island of where all the birds flock, puffins and seagulls, etc. It was really cloudy, with a thick marine layer so we decided not to take the boat trip. We’ve seen puffins and I’ve got seagull shit all over my truck so I know what that looks like.
We parked at a small memorial park next to a creek there in Bull Bay. We walked the beds of this creek for about 45 minutes and maybe 50 yards.
Ann Marie found quite a bit of sea glass that had washed up from the tide. So that was a pretty cool stop, we talked to a few people about how nice their town was and they wished us well.
We moved onto the big city of St. John’s from there. We needed to stock up of food and beer, so we stayed at a historic Walmart parking lot. I can hear you laughing, nothing historic, but it sounded good.
After a nice quite night, headed to Signal Hill. There is a lot of history to it obviously, it’s the tallest thing around. We were able to get the Bigfoot up there and kinda “nosed” our way into a parking spot.
Saw a cool documentary which I recorded. I’ll put it on this post. but if you ask Ann Marie, the highlight of the day was a man with a pure breed, all black, long haired NewFoundland Dog was there.This midsize black bear weighed 175 pounds! The guy says if you want your picture taken hang on a minute and he told “Sable” to jump up on the ledge, which was probably an 18 inch wide a stone going around the walkway. Just just on the other side of the ledge was a 50 foot drop so obviously this “ bear” and this guy had done this before. He let each person go up and hug and kiss the “bear” and my wife was just as happy as could be. So when we walked away, we put five dollars into his hand, which he never asked for and didn’t even hint anything about money, but he was certainly kind enough to share his “bear” and anybody that shares a dog with my wife is good to go in my book.
So after Signal Hill, we drove thru town, read “very narrow roads” to Quidi Vidi, which is a cool very old settlement. There was not a parking place for Bigfoot within miles, so it was on to Pooch Cove which is on the northeastern side of the Avalon Peninsula where we stopped and stayed the night at a gravel lot adjacent to a ballfield. There was trail going out to the edge of a cliff with an excellent view of the cove, so we put our chairs out there and looked over the Cliff for a while and then went to bed.
The next morning we headed north on a grueling 15 km route, very dirty and gravely, pothole and washed out road that went up and over a mountain to get to the St Francis lighthouse. We scored a beautiful spot on top of a ridge overlooking Biscayne Bay. It was gorgeous the seagulls in the background where yawning and screaming. It was really cool. We spent the night there. I thought we were gonna get harassed by a truckload of teenagers partying, but they drove by us a couple of times and left us alone, which was good because we were on a side of a cliff, and my wife was hopeful that they weren’t gonna hit us and push us over, certainly not out of the realm of things that could happen, but I was pretty confident we were safe. What a view we had!
Isn’t it funny when you go somewhere for the first time it seems like it takes forever, and then when you come back on the same road, it’s like dang we’re here already? That was the feeling we had today when we left Biscayne Bay and traveled down that 15 km rough road. It didn’t seem to take as long, either that, or we’re just used to the bumps and bruises.
Now we’re heading south and the first stop was Bouline Bay. This is a very small town, the road went straight downhill straight into the bay, where the boat ramp is. I pulled off to the right side to steer clear of the boat trailer.We got there right when a fisherman was pulling his boat out of the water. He had his lobster traps out and we jaw Jacked with him for about a half an hour, very friendly and really very interesting.
I saw a water hose hang on the side of a building so I asked the guy if I can fill up my freshwater tank and he said yeah sure go ahead, so score!
We got another element!
As we were heading out of this little town, we had to drive up that 20% hill, from a dead stop. Not a problem for the BFT, she was in first gear revving up to 1800 RPMs (jealous uh FORDs) but then there was a pick up truck with a utility trailer blocking the road! Crap… so I stopped and thought, hay wait a minute, it was the community trash service. I rolled my window down and asked if I pull forward, open up my rig, and get a bag of trash? The young guy wearing an orange safety vest said sure no problem. I got out of the BFT and opened the Bigfoot and he waited for me at the bottom of the steps. I tossed it to him and there goes another element done and gone, how about that, Boon-docking is great!
We continued on to Portugal Bay, which is where the ferry runs to Bell Island. It is a 20 minute ferry and cost us about 13 bucks. It was a good short ride, and we sat there and talked to one of the locals for the whole time and told us all kinds of good stuff. The Bigfoot deboarded the ferry and made a right and a couple lefts and a few more rights,no we didn’t go into a square or a circle but we ended up at the eastern side of the Bell Island at the Lighthouse. (Are you seeing a recurring theme here?) which is where we will be for the night. The good news is the foghorns are facing away from us, so hopefully they won’t scare the shit out of us tonight, the bad news there is food there…
Tomorrow morning we’ll pack up and go take the mine tour and visit a bunch of other activities and we’ll go on the western side of the island and find us a place to stay for the night. I think we’re only spending two nights here but we’ll see what happens. There’s nothing like the smell of fresh saltwater air oh and tomorrow is Canada day July, also it is the first day of cod fishing. No license needed so you can go out there and go jigging. I need to dig my fishing pole out and the local guy says you don’t even need a lure. just throw the hook out there. Hmm, I’ve heard that story before. Look at they’ll bite it and I’m like I’ve heard this before.
We’ll see what happens. I’m sure I I’ll have a fish story for you one way or the other, y’all be goood!
Below is a video of Signal hill
https://youtu.be/BfkqE2Terqc?si=ZbO1FHT3deNrs_lK
Video of Biscayne Cove and Lighthouse