Our ship advised us the night prior to arrival in Corner Brook that our dock was taken up by another vessel, so I fully expected to see a huge cruise ship sitting in the harbor. I was surprised to see a break-bulk ship that was continuing cargo operations. The cruise lines in Corner Brook share a dock with commercial shipping. Good to know.
In Corner Brook I could not find a local tour company for a private tour, so we had a tour with the ship, which meant we are going to be with a large group on a bus, which we just love!
Our first stop was the “Captain James Cook National Historic Site”. Before all of Captain Cook’s historic voyages he spent five years (1762-1767) conducting a complete survey of Newfoundland. His maps were so accurate that they were used for the next 100 years. This experience served him well on his three subsequent voyages in the Pacific Ocean. The Newfoundland locals love every tidbit of information they can gather about Captain Cook!
This statue is of Cook supposedly using a sextant. As somebody who has actually used a sextant a few hundred times, this is not how you hold it, but I digress. Suffice it to say he definitely knew how to use one.
This is the view from the Captain Cook site looking back down towards Corner Brook. The steam you see is from the paper mill, still in operation. The ship in the middle left is the one that took our dock. You can see the fall colors are in mid change here!
We then made a short stop at Bottle Cove. We were supposed to only be here for 15 minutes, but this was the best stop on the tour. We made it back to the bus a bit late. Oops!
The cove is particularly gorgeous! This would be worth of at least a 45 minute stop so you could explore the area.
Despite our 15 minute time frame, I needed to run out to get a decent shot of the outer part of the cove. This spot was marked “Captain Cook’s Trails End”. Not entirely sure why it’s called this, and I could find nothing online, but he met his end in Hawaii, not here.
This is the entrance to the cove, with a sea cave in the background. Such a beautiful spot….and only 15 minutes? Come on man!
So our new buddies from the ship, Kenton and MP, joined us on our adventure beyond 15 minutes. Kenton ran up to the top of the local hill versus my venture to the cove entrance, and he took the following photo. Thanks Kenton!
We then drove a short distance Lark Harbour, named after one of Captain Cook’s fleet, to a church where the local community was selling their wares, and we spent 45 minutes there. This was disappointing…particularly when we could have spent more time at Bottle Cove! We ended up walking around and found this war memorial to the handful of fallen soldiers from this community during WWI, WWII and Viet Nam.
On the way back to the ship we stopped at a local fishing village. I thought the mixture of the fishing vessel with the fall colors was worthy of the blog!
A short stop here. It seemed there was much more to see, so Newfoundland may be on our itinerary in the future. Next up we visit Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island.