After an awesome night's rest at the cottage, we continued our Newfoundland saga at around 11 am the next day and headed towards Botwood (about 1 1/2 hours away). If you remember my last post, this whole trip has been about trying to sneak home and surprise Stephanie's parents, Ivan and Sylvia (pictured, left). Everyone else was in on it: Mom, Dad, Nan, Steph's brother Stephen, etc, etc.We arrived in Botwood at about 12:30 pm (just in time for lunch!) but found no at home when we arrived. After a little investigation at Ivan's work place, we discovered that he had the day off and him and Sylvia were gone to Grand Falls-Windsor for the day--about 30 minutes away. On the bright side, at least we knew they weren't gone camping for a week! Instead of heading off to find them at various family locations in Grand Falls, we decided to try and keep the surprise alive and travel around the local area a little. 
I remembered a little trail called The Pendragon in a smaller community next to Botwood called Northern Arm. The next picture to the right is the trail's entrance. This simple little path, with plenty of plant life to cling to Ernie, lead down to a gazebo on the shoreline overlooking a local bird sanctuary. As soon as we got to the water we were welcomed by a sign for the Muddy Hole birdwatching area, featuring pictures of various species we might see. One such bird was a Sandpiper and we did indeed see one of those before we left.
The trail was quite nice--tucked away along the shoreline, occasionally dipping a little deeper into the forest. Everything was SO green and fresh and there were little convenient areas to rest and take in the scenery along the way--like this little bench where Steph and Ernie took a breather. We definitely enjoyed our walk; it was hard not to in such beautiful weather, I guess. I'll take 25 degrees Celsius with no humidity any day!
As nice as our stroll was, we were getting pretty hungry. Like I said earlier, we arrived in Botwood at 12:30, so by now it's probably more like 1:30. That's far too late for a vacationer to leave lunch! Luckily, I remembered a great little take-out spot about 2 minutes down the road...the Bayview.
The picture to the right is of the sign next to the take-out (which had become an "eat-in" as well
since I had last been there!). One item on this sign may stand out to you...not your typical menu listing...a little "strange" maybe. Unless you're familiar with Newfoundland the thought of eating cod tongues must sound very peculiar! Believe it or not, they are considered quite the delicacy to many who live there--and "many" includes me! I just had to take a picture of this sign when I saw it. Something told me that this might possibly be the one and only time I would have this opportunity--not a whole lot of cod in Ontario (let alone their tongues).
After filling up on seasoned steak bites, fries and a double quarter-pounder, we took a little trip further down the shore to an even smaller community called Point of Bay. This is where I lived for the entirety of my high school years. I think that a little over 300 people lived there when I was around but I had a feeling the population had dwindled significantly upon this visit.
Much more of a retirement town now, I'm not sure that I saw a single child while passing through. This would have been quite strange when I lived there. The inset picture is of a small island just off the coast of Point of Bay called Grassy Island. Creative, I know...almost as creative as the name of the other small island nearby, Woody Island. This picture was taken from the local wharf, which I was pleased to see was being taken care of a little more these days. We continued on a little past the town limits, chatted with some old friends I ran into and then headed back to Botwood. By now, it's about 3 pm--surely Steph's parents had returned.
Just to provide a further small cushion of time for her parents to return, I swung the car down near an area called The Base in Botwood, where I knew there was a retired Canso water bomber aircraft--I wanted to get a picture. You'll notice the plane is a couple shades of grey in this photo, but when I had last seen it, the Canso was a bright orange
and green. These could be seen occasionally flying around during the summer when I was younger--probably patrolling the parks and many untouched wilderness areas. I kind of miss the old colour, but she still looks pretty cool.
After I had my fill of the water bomber we returned to Ivan and Sylvia's place but they were still not there. To make a long story short (too late for that, you say!), we got a spare key to the house from Steph's Aunt Mary, placed a "Surprise" sign on our car outside and watched movies inside until her parents returned...at 11:30 pm.
The trail was quite nice--tucked away along the shoreline, occasionally dipping a little deeper into the forest. Everything was SO green and fresh and there were little convenient areas to rest and take in the scenery along the way--like this little bench where Steph and Ernie took a breather. We definitely enjoyed our walk; it was hard not to in such beautiful weather, I guess. I'll take 25 degrees Celsius with no humidity any day!As nice as our stroll was, we were getting pretty hungry. Like I said earlier, we arrived in Botwood at 12:30, so by now it's probably more like 1:30. That's far too late for a vacationer to leave lunch! Luckily, I remembered a great little take-out spot about 2 minutes down the road...the Bayview.
The picture to the right is of the sign next to the take-out (which had become an "eat-in" as well
since I had last been there!). One item on this sign may stand out to you...not your typical menu listing...a little "strange" maybe. Unless you're familiar with Newfoundland the thought of eating cod tongues must sound very peculiar! Believe it or not, they are considered quite the delicacy to many who live there--and "many" includes me! I just had to take a picture of this sign when I saw it. Something told me that this might possibly be the one and only time I would have this opportunity--not a whole lot of cod in Ontario (let alone their tongues).After filling up on seasoned steak bites, fries and a double quarter-pounder, we took a little trip further down the shore to an even smaller community called Point of Bay. This is where I lived for the entirety of my high school years. I think that a little over 300 people lived there when I was around but I had a feeling the population had dwindled significantly upon this visit.
Much more of a retirement town now, I'm not sure that I saw a single child while passing through. This would have been quite strange when I lived there. The inset picture is of a small island just off the coast of Point of Bay called Grassy Island. Creative, I know...almost as creative as the name of the other small island nearby, Woody Island. This picture was taken from the local wharf, which I was pleased to see was being taken care of a little more these days. We continued on a little past the town limits, chatted with some old friends I ran into and then headed back to Botwood. By now, it's about 3 pm--surely Steph's parents had returned.Just to provide a further small cushion of time for her parents to return, I swung the car down near an area called The Base in Botwood, where I knew there was a retired Canso water bomber aircraft--I wanted to get a picture. You'll notice the plane is a couple shades of grey in this photo, but when I had last seen it, the Canso was a bright orange
and green. These could be seen occasionally flying around during the summer when I was younger--probably patrolling the parks and many untouched wilderness areas. I kind of miss the old colour, but she still looks pretty cool.After I had my fill of the water bomber we returned to Ivan and Sylvia's place but they were still not there. To make a long story short (too late for that, you say!), we got a spare key to the house from Steph's Aunt Mary, placed a "Surprise" sign on our car outside and watched movies inside until her parents returned...at 11:30 pm.
They were surprised.
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