Eastern Maritimes Adventures
After we left Greenland, we had a mixture of at-sea days and port days. We had two days in Atlantic Canada: St. John’s, Newfoundland and Halifax, Nova Scotia. Between these two ports, we made our way briefly back to France when we visited St. Pierre.
It felt surreal to step out into St. John’s, our first Canadian port of call. It was our first time stepping foot on Canadian soil in over a year. The girls cried. They were devastated that we were back in Canada and our nearly 14-month adventure was almost at an end. The rainy day we had here didn’t exactly help matters!
We spent our time in St. John’s enjoying the downtown area: walking the shopping streets, admiring the pretty and colourful buildings, having a café break, hiking up to see the Irish cathedral (The Basilica Cathedral of St John the Baptist) and learning its fascinating history, and going to the Cat Café. We knew we were back in Canada because it was incredibly hard to find a café, unlike in Europe where it seems there are at least three cafes on every block! We bought an Exit escape room game to keep us entertained on our next At Sea day and had some delicious Vietnamese subs for lunch. They were such a staple in our lives when we lived in Calgary, and it was nice to eat them again and let the girls experience the deliciousness of these subs with us!
We also spent a good chunk of our day out hiking, probably around three hours. We hiked out along the coast and up to Signal Hill. It was a very pretty hike that we all loved very much, even though it was rather wet! By the time we got to the top, the rain had hit pause and the skies cleared enough to allow for a gorgeous view of the city. After admiring the views, we set off on another stretch of hiking trail. The girls were thrilled when we saw a sign asking people to be quiet through the stretch as there are bald eagles that nest in the area. We tiptoed through this section, keeping our eyes wide open to search for them, but didn’t find any. I told the girls it was probably the wrong time of year for nesting anyway. Eventually, our tired legs and hungry tummies told us it was time to hike back down to the road and walk back to town to get some lunch and a rest break.
St Pierre was another incredibly wet and foggy day. We ended up tendering and couldn’t even see the ship from land at some parts of the day due to all the fog. We still set off by 7:00 am to make the most of our day. This is an island that has fascinated Jon for a long time now, a piece of France next to Canada! The port tourism people here were outstanding! I’ve never had such amazing help before. We loved the detailed maps showing the various businesses, broken out by colour for food, shopping, etc. The map also included the hours each place was open. Genius!
Because we were so early, nothing was open yet but the bakery. We decided to set off on a hike first, and the helpful tourism people were able to point us in the right direction. While the hike was very wet it was a beautiful area. The lookout point at the end wasn’t the most exciting thing to see as it was so foggy. We still managed to enjoy ourselves a lot on our hike. The girls were thrilled that we were out of Canada and back on European soil again and kept waving the little French flags that they were given when we got off the boat.
When we finished our hike around 10:30 am, we walked into town. By then, the town was bustling with tourists from the ship. We went to a café to have a rest and get a drink and snack. We were excited to get some croque monsieurs to eat and some coffee and hot chocolates. However, the food, drinks, and service were incredibly lacklustre, and they never did bring Jon’s coffee.
We tried to go to the bakery next, but they were sold out of almost everything and we couldn’t buy anything. Not even a basic baguette. We walked around the streets, trying to see some of the other things in the town. Overall, the people on St. Pierre seemed very standoffish about having tourists on their island and we decided we would just head back to the boat early. Apparently, we weren’t the only ones who felt that way, as there was a huge queue to get back on the ship. We waited probably close to an hour to get back on the boat! And just like that, our brief return to Europe was over.
The next morning, we docked in Halifax at 10:00 am. However, thanks to union workers protesting, we weren’t cleared to get off the ship until 11:30 am. Their protest had absolutely nothing to do with our ship, but rather with the tendering of cruise ships (we were docked, not tendering – there was another ship there tendering, though). Once we got off the ship, we headed straight to the Discovery Centre. The girls were so excited to return to this children’s museum again, but alas it was closed for the day.
We walked around Halifax, reacquainting ourselves with the city. We have been here before, both pre-kids and with the girls in the fall of 2019 when they were four. We love this city and enjoyed walking and reminiscing. But also felt able to skip some of the main tourist spots, like the citadel and Titanic museum, which we have done in the past. We mostly enjoyed walking around the city, browsing a few shops, enjoying food at a café, a lobster lunch, and a nice cup of tea at a tea shop. We also rediscovered an outdoor play area we had forgotten about that the kids loved. While our time in Halifax was shorter than we would have liked, and we wish we’d been at a time when we could go back to our favourite little underground speakeasy, it was great to be back in Halifax!
Eventually, we made our way to New York City and ended our cruise. We made sure to get up at 1:00 am so we could see our entrance into the city and the Statue of Liberty. We are not big city people and had less than zero desire to explore NYC before returning home. We transferred directly from the cruise ship to Newark airport and were on the first flight back to Toronto, where we ended our trip as we began it, with a limo ride back home to London.
It’s hard to believe we were away for over a year. While we had our share of challenges along the way, because that’s just life, this year was overall a very positive experience for all of us. We met some amazing people along the way, bonded closer as a family, and got to delve deep into so many cultures and ways of life in so many countries in a way that would never be possible doing a 1-2 week vacation. We have all changed in some very fundamental ways and have been able to form stronger core values. We will have a busy and difficult time ahead of us as we reintegrate back into life in Canada!