We found ourselves in Bay Bulls, but not to check out the scene of the recent police standoff0...
Our business in Bay Bulls today included getting off the Highway 10 Irish Loop, and going past the town church towards the local graveyard, where the Bay Bulls Lighthouse Trial starts.
We tried to hike to this lighthouse previously, but ran out of daylight in a failed attempt.
We were cutting it close yet again, but an added advantage of hiking at this time of day, was how the evening light painted the coast in such a stunning fashion.
In addition to the sun-painted coast, I was also enjoying the frozen waterfalls located in the shady crevasses along the way. It couldn't have been much more than 40°F, but we were both very happy that we could still comfortably hike this trail in late November.
That in itself, is quite ridiculous for Newfoundland.
On our previous excursion, we made it to here - Columbine Point. The two of us were hurrying & trying to get to the lighthouse in time...and neither of us could imagine that there was much more of the 3.5km left on that trip.
Upon looking at a topographic map, I noticed that we still had about 800m to hike - and realized that we were smart to have turned around (as we did have to hike in the dark last time...and this trail is somewhat dangerous in sections).
A 3.5 km hike is nothing to make into a novella, especially when this is part of the East Coast Trail & thousands of people hike it every year.
I know you're shocked, but we successfully made it to the 1908, 38 foot Bay Bulls lighthouse.
It should be stated though, that whenever you fail at something, no matter how certain you're that you'll succeed the next time, you're happy to see it through & accomplish success.
The Bay Bulls Lighthouse used to have more appeal to me, because the door to the lighthouse was rusted open.
Thankfully we still found a way inside, even though the Coast Guard broke the door from it's rusted-open position.
There are a handful of these cylindrical, early 1900 lighthouses in Newfoundland. Since I had already been to a couple of them, I handedly knew the location of the trap door to the balcony.
On one side of the lighthouse is simply the 38 foot drop to the ground, but the other side starts to ease out over the cliffs on the ocean side - which is a little unnerving, as you walk and look down at the waves crashing upon the shore below.
On the other side, you can see the ruins of the keepers' house.
As we were still cutting it close with daylight because we had to drive across the island to get here today, that meant that we couldn't dawdle at the Bay Bulls Lighthouse for very long either.
We had to get on our way.
We still ended up hiking by moonlight for a bit, but eventually returned to the car, drove to St. John's, showered & hit the town.
We went to the forgettable bar at Memorial University this night. I eventually learned that they didn't have energy drinks & was told this with smugness, as if I shouldn't even be considering drinking energy drinks with alcohol.
Fine then jackass, brew me some coffee!
Waking up in the morning, we were headed back to our side of the Island before long.
I've recently started wondering about driving every highway in this province; so since we had all Sunday to get home, we decided to check off NL-205 (which isn't much of a highway, it simply travels 15.7 km through 3 communities).
The NL-205 ends here in St. Jones Within. I always thought St. Jones Within was a funny name, until I was at a party in Ontario and someone explained to me that their pastor was from "St. Jones Within...now that's St. Jones Within, not St. Jones Without - because they're within the bay."
Well I'll be damned. That makes sense.
We also drove into Hatchet Cove to finish off the NL-205.
There were a few abandoned houses, but the village's guard cat was all too threatening.
We thought better of it.