Monday 1 June. St Johns

We started the day with another big breakfast in Lorraine’s happy place, Dennys, before heading out into a truly dreary day. It was 3 degrees and the rain or drizzle didn’t stop all day.

First stop, after some kind people helped us work out the parking meter, was the Tourist Information Centre where I was able to get a great map of the whole of Newfoundland. The young man in there was lovely and gave us a few laughs. He was torn between wanting to live in a lighthouse and write poetry or run away with Margot Robbie. We told him we’d put in a good word for him if we bumped into her.

Back to the car and a 15km drive to Cape Spear, the most eastern point in North America. At one stage there was actually sleet on the windscreen. The wind was beyond bitter and I thought my eyeballs were going to freeze once we were out of the car. Lorraine decided to walk up the wooden steps to the lighthouse, while I was happy to photograph it from below. While she went up I followed the path to the cliff edge and checked out the stone marking the most eastern point. The wind on my face was actually painful so it was a relief to turn back and have a tail wind. Putting our coats back in the car was difficult as the wind was trying to blow them away as we were trying to get them off.

It was a relief to be back in the car and we decided to head to a nice warm shopping centre to look for some shoes for Lorraine. She found new Skechers and a couple of bargain priced tops. We had a hot chocolate then went back into the city to visit the museum. It was quite good and we learned a bit about the Irish settlers. At one stage, 2/3 of the population were Irish. There was quite a bit about local birds and animals too. By now I was really tired and happy to return to the hotel before having dinner in Moxies, the other restaurant attached to the hotel. We did not want to go out into that weather again!