Day 1...officially: St. John's - Holyrood

finding the start of the T'Railway and giant black slugs


(the mother of all slugs)

daily stats
weather: rain
found items: 1 rubber ducky (how appropriate...)
total riding time: 5 hrs 27 mins
avg speed: 11.6
max speed: 39.5
total kms: 63.26

after spending the first hour of our trip looking for the start of the T'Railway downtown St. John's, it didn't turn out to be what it was supposed to be.
it started off nice, and for a while we thought if we could take the trail all the way to Clarenville, we would never have to climb a hill (insert post-thought ridiculous laughter here).
from Mount Pearl onwards, it was like biking through a gravel pit.
bad news for our hybrid road tires.
so we hit up Route 60 into Conception Bay South.
and so the hills begin.
and so does the rain.
after stopping in Manuels to buy some Newfoundland wine to have with dinner, we stopped for a cup of coffee to think out our options and plan for the rest of the day.
we had made a great investment in rain gear before leaving home and so even though our clothes were dry, our things....soaked.
we went into Holyrood looking for somewhere to stay...nothing promising, so we decided to take a chance on a recommendation from the woman who sold us the wine in Manuels.
she told us about a new trailer park/campground that had just opened a few months prior, and so it wasn't on any map yet.
in the rain, we climbed a 5 km hill--straight up a mountain!--praying that the Blue Fin Trailer Park would be there.
Bobby and Helen welcomed us with open arms and true Newfoundland hospitality.
Bobby had seen us coming in, came out to greet us and immediately offered to let us stay in the new rec building that had just been plastered, to get us out of the rain.
he even apologized that the building wasn't finished!
two of the most wonderful people.
we even got to dry our wet things in a dryer and have a hot shower.
after eating spicy and warm indian food while sitting on buckets and drinking wine, we passed out on the cement floor...and we thought we'd need those thermarests for the rock. ha.

*note to self: send Bobby and Helen a thank you card.
*note to others: stay at Blue Fin.