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Spillars Cove Trail
Puffins, Puffins they must be cute with such a cute name.
After the Bona Vista Lighthouse viewing, we decided to do Spillars Cove Trail.
This will always be one of our favorite hikes, not only for the coast cliffs but for the cute little curious colorful puffins. There was almost no one on this trail except John up on that flattop tide.
We found ourselves off trail to the rock edges and observed a few puffins flying into the cliff rocks.
Just standing still as they flew in, they seemed to observing us; they seem to be social creatures as they moved around and poked and prodded each other.
Then they started to be a bit interested in us, moving closer and allowing us to do the same. Then there was a bit of a puffin squabble.
Before we knew it, they were only about 10 feet, putting on quite a cute show.The way they move is just so calming.
It will always be a once in a lifetime showing for us, and the incredible cliffs were also so captivating.
Dungeon Provincial Park
An incredible boondocking site. The only gate was a grazing animal grate on either side.
We had observed the horses on the first day, and then when we awoke from boondocking, they were there again only a bit more spirited and nosy.
I wish I had carrots for my white horse.
John went down to their grazing pasture and pet them. Such a great way to do Grass maintenance and there were also cows for all the yummy Newfoundland Ice Cream.
Bona Vista Lighthouse
More incredible cliffs
These adorable little colorful birds have been the source of economic sustenance for many boat tours between the Icebergs, Whales and Puffins.
The Cape Shore Trail beginning at the Bona Vista lighthouse – a great place for Puffins on the Rock Ledges, but they are on an island of rock.
You had to stay on your side of the rocky cliff with 100’s of feet drop into the crystal clear waters of the ocean;
the puffins island was on the other side. SO you can never really get too close like we had done on the Spillars Cove Trail.Such incredible scenery.
Hikes / Places
Skerwink Trail, Port Rexton
Another one of those breathtaking coast cliff trails of Newfoundland, this 3.2 mile 203 ft elevation gain was stunning.
First down a gravel multi-use trail for about ½ kilometer before breaking off through the pine forests which was not so common on many trails so far. It smelled like Christmas.
And between the trees that had nicely cut away by the wonderful Newfie Trail Elves, rocky craggy cliffs were in lovely view from the trail along the cliffs.
There were some super steep drop offs to the green ocean below that I dared to peak over as John waited nervously.
The trail had all the step and rail accoutremants that so many of the trails in Newfoundland have to make it a very stressfree walk, unless you peak down the rocky cliffs several hundred deet below.
We had opted to do this hike late in the day for wind purposes, although it still was somewhat gusty as we returned. We overnighted right in the Trail Parking Lot opening to a lovely green field. When we got started in the morning the parking lot was full and people were parked all along the roads for this very popular trail.
Elliston Puffin Viewing Site
The green topped rock island is only reachable by those with wings, but like the Lighthouse set up, there is part of the rock that you can stand on and observe them from some 100 feet or more.
They are on the move flying down to the ocean where they are evidently quite good divers to get fish.
Our hike on Spillars Cove with Puffins only 10 feet away took away from the allure of the Elliston Puffin Viewing Site. Elliston also is the root cellar capital of Canada or Providence one of those.
Elliston Municipal RV had poor cell and no Wi-Fi, but it seemed to have a beach that would be great to launch a paddle board if it were not so windy, which is almost never the case in Newfoundland.
Port Rexton Brewing
Harvest Host was on the way to the Bona Vista Peninsula so we overnighted there and stayed in small gravel parking area across from a church up the gravel driveway from the Brewery. It was a two-stop night at the Brewery. In the initial check-in session, guitar music lured us back to a small community room with sofas and a dart board. Three friends on a conference in St John’s had picked up the guitar from the inviting stand and were doodling. We sat and traded a few songs with them before they were off to their dinner plans and hike. Time for us to take a nap. Headed back down for some fries and beer as evening approached – the Rexford had pretty good Wi-Fi and my photos were getting to the cloud thankfully. They even knew who Elephant Revival was. They had super nice voices and two sang together in their university life – they had met up again for an Aneasteasoloagy Conference in St. John so were do a bit of side travel in Bona Vista.
Clarenville – WiFi, Water, LPG, Laundry
I needed to find a place to get my 700 photos of puffins and awesome scenery in the cloud before I dropped my phone over a cliff, that was the first task at hand. Library was super slow, but the Bakery 56 was perfect with speeds in the 90mps range not 2 or 3 like so many places. It was a new business with a delightful view, coffee, food, comfy cushioned chairs and lots of outlets to get all our devices charged as we had been boondocking for several days now.
Another task at hand was laundry and the Shepherds Laudrumat was perfect (must bring soap and $3 loonies per load. $3 to dry too). Was not crowded at all, and I left John there as I tried to find good Wi-Fi and stopped by the Sobey’s for groceries. This is where the guy at the Tellus store told me about Bakery 56.
Thankfully we were starving and could properly support this local business because we sat there for several hour between a few downpours, and my 700 photos got to the cloud.
This town is full-service with a Canadian Tire and Walmart and also an RV service area and RV Propane fill. Many of the gas stations only do stand-alone tanks. We should have found a dumpstation there. The other issue we were having is that many campgrounds have boil requirements for water, and this was the first time we had been totally out of fresh drinking water. Luckily the Foodland in Bona Vista has one of those you bring container fill stations so we did just that. Much of the tap water had a brown tinge probably from tannins, but not what you want to drink. We stopped at Elliston Municipal RV Park and as they said they would return the next day we just swiped some brown boil only water for our tanks as we were running low too.
Travels with Vinny VanGo 
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