travel dates: July, 2023
The time has come: back in July of 2023 it was almost time for us to leave Newfoundland and here in real time I’m writing my very last blog post in this series…about our two night stop in Corner Brook as we made our way back to the ferry in Port Aux Basques.
Corner Brook is the second biggest city in Newfoundland…which means it’s approximately 1/18 the size of St. John’s. St. John’s has around 180,000 people, and Corner Brook around 11,000. What I’m getting at is that the second biggest city in Newfoundland is a pretty small city by most standards.
But it’s a charming small city and worth a stop both for the things there are to do in and around Corner Brook and maybe to take care of some practical tasks that are easier to accomplish here than in more rural areas. Like, say, if you really need an oil change because of how you drove your van all the way to Newfoundland and then all over the island. Or also groceries or whatever. Here is Milo looking thrilled about his first ever visit to a Canadian Tire:
We stayed at Kinsmen Prince Edward Campground and RV Park, operated by the local Kinsmen club (which I gather is like a Lion’s club or whatever and seems to be a very common way for campgrounds to operate in Newfoundland). Some of the sites were not as nice, but we had a very private pull-through:
Some earlier version of our itinerary had us staying in Corner Brook near the beginning of our trip instead of at the end. In that scenario, we’d have had cool weather and lots of energy and we’d planned on heading west out of the city to do some hiking. There are lots of interesting sounding hikes within an hour or so of Corner Brook. But instead we found ourselves here after 5 weeks of exploring Newfoundland and during a heat wave, so that we had trouble motivating ourselves to do too much.
After the aforementioned oil change, though, we did brave the heat to see some things in the town. We did a short hike on the downtown Corner Brook Stream Trail It went past a pond with unfriendly swans:
This was a pleasant walk (or would have been if it hadn’t been so hot), but very much an urban trail kind of situation, so don’t go expecting the same kind of experiences you’ll get in more rural areas:
Our ultimate destination was The Newfoundland Emporium, a sprawling antique/souvenir/used book shop and a fascinating experience. The selection is…eclectic. We did buy a cool vintage Scottie figurine.
But mostly we wanted to meet a real life Newfoundland dog, and we were promised that we could do that in the form of dog-in-residence, Maggie:
Unfortunately, the Emporium is not air conditioned and Maggie was feeling the heat, too. She was not as perky in real life on this particular day as in her photo:
We get it, Maggie.
In fact, by this time we were pretty much done with the heat, so we walked back to the car and set off in search of some elusive Newfoundland air conditioning. We found it plus much adorableness (and a punny name!) at Sugar and Dice board game cafe. This place was great! They sell baked goods and sandwiches and coffee and stuff, which you can eat/drink while playing one of their many board games. I guess board game cafes are A Thing, but I don’t know of any near home, so this was a fun new experience for us. And did I mention that it was nice and cool? The food was good, and the decor was super cute. I want to make a wall like this in my house now:
Maybe I could make giant sugar cookies while I’m at it:
We hung out, cooled off, and played an exciting game of Ticket to Ride:
We finished off our single day in Corner Brook with a visit to our final Newfoundland brewery: Boomstick Brewing Co.
The web of businesses here was a little hard to unravel: basically it’s a brewery taproom inside a restaurant inside a hotel. So there’s a boutique hotel called Hew & Draw, with a restaurant called Best Coast Restaurant, and we ate there where we could get our Boomstick beer (and also food). There’s also a small retail place there where you can buy cans of the beer, but IIRC it was closed when we were there. Anyway, it was a cool place and a good last meal out in Newfoundland.
And the next morning we headed back toward the ferry (we had one more night on the island, at the same campground where we spent our first night, but Corner Brook was our last hurrah as far as getting out and seeing new things).
The end! Of all the Newfoundland posts! I’ve very much enjoyed revisiting our trip through writing these posts, and I hope the info is useful to people and convinces everyone that Newfoundland is 100% worth the effort. I can’t wait to go back!
2023 Newfoundland Trip Posts
Visiting Newfoundland: Overview and General Thoughts
Grand Codroy RV Park and Codroy Valley
Water’s Edge RV Park in Gros Morne
Gros Morne National Park: South
Port Au Choix and the Great Northern Peninsula
Gros Morne National Park: North
Sanger Memorial RV Park/Grand Falls-Windsor
Fogo Island/Brimstone Head RV Park
Pippy Park, St. John’s Campground Review
Four Days on the Bonavista Peninsula
Before you wrote all this I was never interested in going to Newfoundland. Other places in Canada, yes, but not Newfoundland. Not that I will get there unless my arthritis improves dramatically. Does that ever happen? (If I could walk there I’d be fine. Sitting in vehicles for more than an hour is awful, however.)
That makes things tough! Newfoundland is very sprawly
It’s getting there that’s the big problem. Hundreds of miles. I can’t fly either, because my fragrance allergies mean at least 24 hours recovery time after being shut in a tin can with other people’s laundry and bath products, and it’s just too horrible to be worth it.
I travel vicariously through you. 🙂