Maritimes - Day 18

Our well travelled van made it to the eastern-most point in North America today, as we arrived at Cape Spear, just outside of St. John's.  So far this trip, we have put 7100km on the van, even though Google tells me we are only 5000km from home.  The extra is our diversions to different areas and the trip through southern Ontario.

Cape Spear has great views of the ocean, a lighthouse, and the remains of the gun batteries and bunkers that were built to defend St. John's during World War II.  Alex liked the tunnels and concrete, and the lighthouse was pretty interesting, as it had a house built around it that was occupied until 1997.

Our next stop was Signal Hill.  Now, the road to Cape Spear was pretty hilly, and I wasn't super excited about driving it, but the road to Signal Hill is certifiably insane.  Not only is there a right hand turn onto a road in St. John's at the top of a steep hill, but the entire road up to the hill is just going vertically.  The van struggled to go up at points, but we made it to the visitor center, where we stopped for lunch.  Then it was up even higher to the building and paths area at the top.  We took in the views for a bit and then walked a steep path down to a recreation of a gun battery that would have protected the narrow straights that are the entrance to St. John's harbour.

Once we were done with the views, we drove back downtown and found a parking lot to park in, so that we could walk around and see St. John's.  We shopped at a number of stores, found a bunch of the brightly painted houses and spent an enjoyable afternoon in the sun.

As we got ready to leave, we realized we had forgotten to go to the Terry Fox Mile 0 memorial.  Unfortunately, it was too far from our parking lot to walk, but it appeared we had driven right by it on our way to Signal Hill.  We headed that way and made a couple of u-turns in pier entranceways before we discovered it, down at the bottom of the road with the scary hill and right turn, and with no parking anywhere.  The only way to go was up to Signal Hill (again!) and then back down, where we found a parking spot on the scary hill.  I'm not certain I've ever parked my van on a hill that steep, nor have I ever used the L gear in my van before.

Regardless, we found our way down to the memorial and then headed home for supper.  I must say that the St. John's harbour area isn't that interesting, as it is all locked behind fences due to customs.  However, the rest of the stuff was fun.  Technically we start our trip home tomorrow, just with a very long stop in Halifax and PEI.