Left St Johns fairly early Wednesday morning and did all day drive over to a tiny little town called Stephenville, about two hours away from the ferry.
Got there really late – slightly irritated because the town wasn’t where I thought it was and in effect added another half hour to the really early drive I was going to have to do the next day !
Although I got there late and tired, I was blown away by how nice it was. Its a really strange thing about what I think of (rather patronizingly) as small town Canada, that its small towns are either ok with a slight redneck feel, or they are just really lovely warm little communities, and this was one – I’m not sure which makes which, but its a strange difference.
Early morning drive to Port Aux Basques to get Ferry and see the most amazing country, through early morning grey mist and rain that I hadn’t seen when I arrived, because it was pitch dark !
Felt quite sad leaving Newfoundland, had really got to like it, but also glad to get back to the mainland, you do feel a bit cut off there, because you are !
Spent the night in Sydney again and did another six hour drive the next day onto Halifax through the bulk of Nova Scotia.
I’d been slightly dismissive of Nova Scotia on the way down I realize now, because the weather had been so foul – driving back the weather was amazing and just realized how beautiful it was.
The closer I got to Halifax, the more I realized just how like America it felt and after having been in Halifax a couple of days, do I understand why – sat through an hour long history video of Halifax yesterday as I viewed its most famous landmark, the Citadel.
This whole part of Canada is just a Canadian version of New England, of which it was once part, which is pretty obvious when you look at a map, but its cultural significance just hadn’t dawned on me – it has a really really lovely feel to it.
