I've been neglecting my website and my blog for too long so I decided that this would be a perfect place to share some of my amazing adventures from a recent vacation with the hubby to always-spectacular Newfoundland.

Just to give you a little history -- no, I am not from Newfoundland (although I'm convinced that maybe in a past life, I was!) but to me, it feels like home when I'm there.  A few years back, hubby and I bought a little shack there on the lower portion of the Great Northern Peninsula, in a little town called Daniel's Harbour. Every summer we go back to our little haven for a couple of weeks and spend most of our time working on it but this time we decided to take a little time to just be tourists and enjoy as much of the awesomeness of this amazing place as we could squeeze into a weekend (which turned into a four-day weekend).

The plan was to head all the way across the island to St. Johns, about an 8 or 9 hour drive, and spend a couple nights there exploring the city and surrounding areas then head back but this time we planned on making a few stops along the way.  In the beautiful city of St. Johns, we explored the city mainly on foot including the amazing little community known as The Battery, had a drink at the Duke of Duckworth (the bar featured in Republic Of Doyle), and found ourselves enjoying the city so much that it was hard to leave.

Next stop was Twillingate to see some icebergs and also to see if we could find the "Midnight Shadow" as my son is a big fan of the show "Cold Water Cowboys".  When we arrived at the harbour, there was no sign of the boat but I guess the locals are getting used to people looking for the boat so they were quick to tell us where we could find it.  :-)  

Without a doubt, the highlight of this trip was our visit to Burlington, a tiny little town on the Baie Verte Peninsula.  Those of you who have seen the tv show, Majumder Manor, will know the place I'm talking about as its the future location for THE Majumder Manor, the creation of Shaun Majumder (also from This Hour Has 22 Minutes).  Having seen the first season of this show, and anxiously awaiting the second (which starts Monday night!) hubby and I decided that Burlington was to be a definite stop on the trip home.  Once there, we saw a sign that said "Greenhouse" so we followed that road down, not really knowing where else to go (not that there were many choices).  When we got out of our car, a gentleman who had been in a pick-up behind us got out of his vehicle and headed towards us, which didn't really surprise us as almost all Newfoundlanders are friendly and will often come over and chat with us but you can imagine my surprise when we realized it was none other than Shaun Majumder himself!!  I tried to keep my cool and be nonchalant but I was ecstatic and on the inside I was just dancing around, jumping up and down and shouting like my name had just been called on the Price Is Right!!

So, after chatting for a few minutes, Shaun graciously offered to take us to see the location of the future Majumder Manor and we got to see the luxury tents AND a new "pod" still in the process of being built.  We spent the next couple of hours doing just that! What a truly amazing place! He even offered to let us stay in one of the tents but, at the time, we were feeling a little pressed for time as we had already stayed out an extra day, thanks to the magnificent icebergs and the "Midnight Shadow" in Twillingate.  We soooo regret that decision now!  How awesome would it have been to stay in that tent and wake up to an iceberg right outside your door?!  In the very near future, they plan to start renting the tents as an alternative to your typical hotel stay so I urge anyone who is considering a trip to Newfoundland, to consider checking them out.

Oh and did I mention that, seeing how awe-struck we were with the whole Majumder Manor concept, Shaun asked if he could do a little promotional video interview with us?  I opted out (too camera shy!) but Pat happily obliged.  We realized afterwards we weren't really sure exactly what it was to be used for but, oh well. lol  :-)  Or did I mention that I needed a wide-angle lens to do the tent shots but had left my camera bag back in the car.  As luck would have it, Shaun is also a Nikon shooter so we switched lenses for a bit!  I'm not sure why I think that would be interesting to you -- but its fun for me to see the photo of Shaun with MY lens on his camera! Do you think I was a bit star-struck?? lol :-)  

Ok, just one more Shaun tidbit -- I had seen the photos he posted earlier in the week of himself swimming with a beluga whale so I mentioned how awesome I thought it was.  I was thrilled when he told us that there was a harbour just down the road a few minutes (Middle Arm, I believe) where the beluga has taken up residence for the past month or so.   So, off we headed in hopes of seeing the whale.  When we arrived at the harbour there were a few young boys there who asked if we'd like to see the whale.  One of them just flapped something in the water in a few times and almost immediately, this beautiful baby beluga came close to the dock and jumped and twisted and turned and rolled around in the water right in front of us. I was so amazed I forgot to take pictures for a few minutes but eventually snapped out of it and managed to get a few.  A young kayaker went out paddling around the harbour and the whale followed him everywhere -- literally stayed right beside him!  The boys told us if we stuck around until after supper, they were going to put their wetsuits on and go swimming with "Milo".  As one of them commented "Who needs to go to Florida to swim with the dolphins when we can swim right here with a whale who can come and go as he pleases?" 

I have rambled on, haven't I? lol Well, I hope you enjoy looking at the photos from this incredible, amazing, spectacular place called Newfoundland. As always, please feel free to comment either here or on my Facebook page as I aways welcome feedback!  Thanks for looking!

J.