One of the things I most wanted to do while we were in the Trinity area was hike the Skerwink Trail, considered one of Canada's top hiking paths. It was conveniently located within walking distance of the Fishers Loft Inn.
As you can see, we woke up to not super great hiking weather, but decided to go for it anyway. It says a lot about Newfoundlanders, too, that we asked a couple people how to get to the trailhead and nobody commented on the fact that we were going out to hike 3 miles in cold wind and rain. So off we set, down the hill.
Our loft suite was the entire third floor of the yellow house. The dining room is right next door in the green one.
Found it! The internet describes this hike as moderate-difficult and a bunch of people on TripAdvisor commented that parts were slippery. This all turned out to be lies. I mean, it wasn't like walking along on a flat surface but it was not hard or scary at all.
Ben insisted it was fine for me to wear skinny corduroys with my hiking shoes but I did not feel confident about it. Fortunately we didn't see any other people at all, not until the very end when a few guys were hiking in with boards and shovels to do some trail work.
The trail lived up to the hype. Gorgeous ocean views at every turn.
You can see even from this height how clear and beautiful the water is.
We took time at every single point to inspect the views.
Senior picture.
The weather wasn't really bad at all. It was a little misty but didn't actually rain until the very end.
When Benjamin crawled out to this point I was pretty sure this was going to be my last glimpse of him ever. Steep cliffs! I think he gets a special joy from freaking me out.
We got a little lost trying to find our way back to the inn from the end of the trail, and it was pouring in earnest by that point, but eventually we made it and went inside to get dried off and relax for a while. Then we set out for Trinity proper, where there are a lot of historical sites to investigate.
I had read that most of Newfoundland has not really figured out tourism yet, but Trinity definitely has. We found that to be true - it was the most developed of the small towns we visited, and even though it was May they already had the tourist sites open for the season. Here is the heart of the village.
We visited all of these buildings, which are either original to the 1700s or were rebuilt to the exact specifications of the originals. Trinity was for centuries a cod fishing village, and we learned all about the industry and the family who ran the business for the entire town. We met some really interesting characters in the cooperage and blacksmith buildings in particular. The blacksmith guys didn't seem to want us to leave - they kept regaling us with stories of local people and their adventures and telling us about other tourists they'd met over the years, too, all while working on cranking out their ironworks projects. It was neat! And weird! Naturally we were the only tourists around.
We found one of the four restaurants and were grateful to see it was open.
This was the view from our table. The weather was very bad by this point.
We both could not resist the fish & chips, and it was a good idea - I think this was the best fried fish of my life. I also got an iceberg beer, which is made in St. John's from the water of a 25,000 year old iceberg. It tasted just like regular beer, though.
We met some people at our B&B in St. John's and saw them again at dinner in Port Rexton. They told us they'd been up to see the icebergs at Cape Bonavista and that we should check it out if we had time. (Cape Bonavista is where John Cabot made landfall in 1497 as the first European to set foot in North America since the Vikings.) I felt like we had already seen some pretty good iceberg action but we didn't have anything else to do so we drove the 30 miles or so up to the end of the peninsula. I am so glad we did - the scene up there was one of the most amazing things I have ever seen in my life.
The pictures just cannot convey how extreme the conditions were - the freezing wind gusts, sleet pelting our faces, the ocean crashing into the cliffs and icebergs - it was something I will never forget.
I feel like we are so lucky to have gotten to see that; the icebergs this year are the best they've been in decades (a "bumper crop", per the blacksmith guys in Trinity) and we were there at precisely peak season. I never knew I wanted to see icebergs until I saw them!
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