Voyage of the Vikings Cruise - Cruise Day 5: Corner Brook, Newfoundland

Today we are in Corner Brook, Newfoundland.  We slept in this morning and didn’t get out of bed until 10:00.  Oddly enough the clocks were moved forward thirty minutes last night as Newfoundland is one of the few places in the world that has a time zone with only a half hour difference.  Since our shore excursion was leaving at noon and we would not be getting lunch on our tour, we filled up on snacks at the Neptune Lounge and visited with some of the other suite guests until it was time to be off on our tour.

The name of our excursion was "On the Trail of Captain Cook" and we follow the path of some of his explorations up the Newfoundland coast.  There were two bus loads of us and we left just after noon.  Each bus did a slightly different schedule so there was not a large group of people getting off at any one stop.  Our guide was Glenda who was a lifelong resident of the area and she was both knowledgeable and entertaining.  The weather was quite cool and overcast when we started out, but we soon saw blue sky ahead and it turned into a beautiful day with blue skies and lots of sun.  The scenery was wonderful as we passed through many small fishing villages and made our way up the coast.  Here are a few pictures Val took from the bus.

 

We stopped at Little Port and had a chance to walk around and take some pictures of the beautiful terrain and fishing boats.   

We went on to another scenic area where we had time to hike around a bit and go down to the beach.  It was just a beautiful day with blue sky and the deep blue water.

Unfortunately, at this point things started to go wrong.  When we were all back on the bus, the driver was having trouble with some control on the bus and we were unable to go on.  The second bus had pulled up as this was where we crossed paths and we all loaded on to that bus with many of us standing in the aisles for a short drive down to the town of Lark Harbor to a local church where we waited for a new bus to be brought in.  The church was a planned stop anyway and the local church ladies prepared snacks and displayed their local crafts.  We ended up waiting for two hours until a replacement bus showed up and it turned out to be a school bus.  This delay meant we would miss the second half of our tour.  This was disappointing, but it was just one of those things that happen when you travel and you have to make the best of it.

There certainly could be worse places to be stuck in.

 

Patiently waiting for our bus.

 

Everyone was patient and made the best of it instead of complaining and criticizing, which made things easier for everyone.  I have to commend our guide who under a bad situation stayed calm and kept her sense of humor which certainly helped keep everyone happy.  We finally made it back to the ship late, but luckily since this was a ship’s excursion, they didn’t leave without us.  Despite it all, I think everyone had a good time and thanked our guide Glenda for all her effort when the tour ended.

Almost there, you can see our ship docked in Corner Brook.

Soon after we got on the ship, it cast off and headed for our next port.  We went up on deck and watched as we left Corner Brook and took a few pictures.

Open sea ahead.

After the ship left the harbor and not having had much to eat today, Val and I made our way to the Neptune Lounge for snacks.  We took it easy until dinner as we sailed through the islands and peninsulas of Newfoundland into the open seas.  We did our usual thing of dinner and the casino and then called it an early night as we have to be up early tomorrow.   

Val ponders the menu and decides what to eat tonight.

Tomorrow we’ll be in Red Bay, Labrador and we have an excursion that leaves at 7:30 so it’s an early morning for us.  Thankfully after tomorrow, three of the next four days will be sea days so hopefully we can catch our breath a bit as it seems like we have been continually in motion since we left home.  We ended the day with a late, but beautiful sunset.

Believe it or not, this photo has not been enhanced, the sunset was that intense.