Wayward Newlyweds – Day 22: St. Pierre/Terra Nova

We really are in France!

We woke up with the light. It was damp, and still windy, but we were dry and more or less warm. We slowly got ourselves packed up, and everything back into the duffel. We wandered back towards town, and found a café that was open early. We had a traditional French breakfast: a baguette, butter, preserves, orange juice and coffee. A lovely little meal to start the day. We then went to the ferry dock for a public washroom, and asked if we could store our duffle there until we caught the ferry at 2:30pm. They suggested we head over to the tourist info center, as they would store bags for free! So we headed over there, dropped off our bag and went a wandering.

We started off in search of a bakery. We found a sweet little one which only took cash. We had not managed to get an euros (as this is really France, they work in Euros), but they said they would also take Canadian Dollars! So we got a baguette sandwich, two croissants and some macarons, and wandered along the waterfront.

There was a suggested walk out to the main light house for the harbour, which we did. It was fun to see all the little sea birds, as once again, it was low tide. We made it out to the light house and had a poke around. Then we had our baked goods. Holly smokes those croissants were amazing!! Fluffy and buttery and delicious. The macarons were pretty awesome too! Then we walked back, and Dodd did some poking around in tide pools. Found tons of snails, a jelly fish, and the husk of an urchin. Once we were back closer to the actual water I decided it was passed time to get our feet in the Atlantic. After some searching, a few sharp rocks slippery rocks on the feet and we were in. First touch of Atlantic waters of the coast of France.

Once we had our feet in the water and had a little sit down on the ‘beach’ we thought it might be time to find a touristy shop for a post card or two. We started poking around. There were a few shops that seemed promising, but everything seemed to be closed! The streets were quiet, like they had rolled up the sidewalks. It took a while, but suddenly I understood: We are in France, the French have their main meal in the middle of the day, so shops etc close around lunch time and reopen later in the day! Once we figured this out, it made sense, however it was a bit of an annoyance for us, as most places were opening back up at 2:00pm and our boat was leaving at 2:30pm.

We asked at the tourist info, and they found a shop that reopened at 1:30pm. We had about 45 minutes to kill, so we got some fancy flavoured soft serve (pistachio for me, maple for Dodd), and hung around the dock square in the now sunshine as the fog had finally burnt off. Around 1:15pm we started our way towards the shop, only getting slightly lost (it’s a small town, hard to get too lost). We got our postcards, then headed back to the tourist info to grab our duffle and hang out in the ferry terminal waiting for our ferry.

Once again the ferry ride was quite pleasant. A bit more rolly than the first, but we survived just fine. We got off with no problem, and Dodd went off with the shuttle to pick up the car. We got some bits and pieces repacked and set off back to Terra Nova. We got there around dinner time, and had a nice evening there once again all of 5 spots away from our first site.

All in all our France excursion was well worth it. We would highly recommend it to anyone! Our advice, plan ahead, book ahead, and if you like, go camping but dress warm and bring extra blankets!

Cheers

Sláinte

Skol