I woke up at 5 AM to a knock on my door. It was Yannick, all dressed and ready to go. He had actually followed through on our plans and was on time! Half awake, I quickly changed out of my sleeping clothes and we headed to Signal Hill.

According to Google Maps, Signal Hill was a 1.4 km walk from the hostel. We made it to the summit of Signal Hill (Cabot Tower) just after 6 AM. Unfortunately, all we could see was fog covering the entire city of St John’s. We spent some time walking around Cabot Tower reading all the information panels since it was the place where the first Transatlantic transmission of the human voice was received in 1920. Afterwards we sat on the fortress walls, admiring the view, and just chatting.

It got cold after a bit so we decided to walk around. We followed the path down from the Cabot Tower to the Queen’s Battery while admiring some old guns that were on the trail used for defence back in the day. The fog was starting to lift too, and we got some incredible views of the Fort Amherst Lighthouse across the water, and St. John’s. We even saw a tiny iceberg in the distance!

It was a bit cold outside and we were getting hungry, so we walked to the Battery Café to get some coffee and food. We got there before it opened, so we walked to Jellybean Row and back, still chatting. There were a few more people at the door, waiting, and one of them was Pier-Ann. She was really friendly, and just so happened to be from Montreal, which gave Yannick an opportunity to speak French (I’m sure he missed that lol)

We went to the back of the café to sit with our coffee and scones, and had a beautiful view of the St. John’s Harbour. It turns out that Pier-Ann is a student at Memorial University studying something related to plant biology. She had moved here for her studies, then ended up meeting her boyfriend here and now they have a house. She was at the café because she was helping out as a French language conversation assistant to two older ladies. Yannick and I met the two ladies and briefly introduced ourselves, then went back to the hostel because I had to pick up my car.

Another reason why I came to Newfoundland was because I really wanted to see Gros Morne National Park, which was on the other end of the province. In order to save some money while doing so, I decided to rent a car off Turo and sleep in the back of it for five days or so exploring the national park . The host, Jarvis was really friendly and super communicative, and he dropped the car off right in front of the hostel on time. He also tried to make the car a bit more comfy since he knew I was car camping. I did a bit of work at the hostel after that, then went to run some errands with Yannick which included going to the bank, buying a butane stove, and buying a sleeping bag and pillow off Marketplace.

I drove us to Quidi Vidi after, which was essentially just a small village with a brewery, but the most notable thing about were the cliffside houses that were built on wooden stilts. There was a hiking area nearby which Yannick and I ended up at and it was fun, walking around, taking in the scenery, and simply just getting lost with someone else who appreciated the adventure and spontaneity.

I had a brief meeting that I took afterwards, then I dropped Yannick off at the grocery store. He was a bit tired since he didn’t get good sleep the night before, and was also very hungry. I also needed to start heading out for the 7-hour drive all the way to Gros Morne.

The first thing I did was go to Costco to buy some cheap food and to get some cheap gas. I really like going to Costco in general and it was cool for me to see the differences in Costco‘s all over the country. Some of the more unique items that I found here included fish cakes, cod tongues, pork scrunchons, and just cod everything.

I was starting to get really tired, but wanted to drive a little bit to make the drive the next day less strenuous. I ended up driving to Topsail Beach, in Conception Bay, parked in the parking lot, ate my hot dog and rotisserie chicken, then crawled into the back of the car for some well needed sleep.