A short walk through St. John’s advanced us to the next trailhead we’ll start from in two days.
With only 10 km to hike today, we didn’t get a very early start. We got breakfast at the Casablanca bakery, down the street from our lodging. We both got French Toast with berries; it was very delicious.
After a quick Uber back to Quidi Vidi Village, where we stopped yesterday, we continued hiking after 11:30 am — one of our latest starts ever.
Today is hike isn’t technically one of the East Coast Trail’s sections, rather, it’s the community walk through St. John’s, though about a third of this was through the Signal Hill National Historic Site.
Signal Hill, the high point near the narrow entrance to St. John’s Harbour, has been used for nearly 500 years for a variety of military and communications purposes, including announcing ship arrivals, hosting gun batteries in defense of invasions, and serving as the North American site of the first trans-oceanic telegraph transmission.
After a short road walk, we reached the Burma Road Trail, the start of our walk through Signal Hill. By the time we got there, it was clear we were going to see a lot of people out walking today. It’s a weekend, and there are a lot of easy hiking trails here.
Burma Road Trail, formerly a road built by American servicemen who manned coastal batteries on Signal Hill during World War II, led us to the Ladies Lookout Trail, which leads to the summit of Signal Hill. Local legend says this trail was once used by “women of St. John’s [who] came here to watch for ships carrying their sons, husbands and lovers,” which is how the trail got its name.
This was a little more rugged and steep, but still quite easy climb up to the top of Signal Hill, with great views to Cuckolds Cove along the way. The cove is one of the few near on the Signal Hill peninsula that doesn’t have sheer cliffs, making it useful for fishermen (and also militaries).
At the summit of Signal Hill, we had great views of the surrounding area, including the Cabot Tower, situated just below the summit. It was a pretty cool looking stone tower, and we didn’t even think to consider going in. (The tour bus parked nearby is probably what dissuaded us.)
We could also see the Fort Amherst Lighthouse, located across the harbor. The lighthouse is still in operation, though the military buildings are no longer used and have fallen into disrepair.
We returned to St. John’s via the North Head Trail, which took us to the city via a path along the St. John’s Harbour.
Once back in town, we followed roads along the waterfront and past the ports. We stopped for a snack at a food truck serving smoothies, largely because we saw some other people walking past with really good looking smoothie bowls topped with lots of fruit, and we wanted what they were having. (Also, it was kinda hot out and we wanted something cool to drink.)
Continuing on, we passed an old railroad depot turned into a museum, crossed a bridge over a small river that took us to the other side of the harbor, and followed the harbor back out towards Fort Amherst and its lighthouse. This was pretty uneventful, and gave us a little bit of insight into the character of St. John’s, but I don’t really think this was representative of the current city, and most of what we saw was the port and it’s related infrastructure and storage, so it wasn’t really terribly fascinating for us.
Following the harbor, the road reached a public parking lot for the lighthouse and the next section of trail, Deadmans Bay Path, and then continued on as a private drive for residents and the lighthouse, and a walkway to access the trail. We passed the trail, and ended our day at the lighthouse, taking in the views and a short break at a picnic table.
Then, we returned to the parking lot and got an uber back to St. John’s, to an outfitter. CareFree got a new windbreaker, sleeping pad, and a small set of binoculars to watch whales with. I wasn’t going to get anything originally, but decided to get a new rain jacket since my old one is barely keeping water out anymore.
For dinner, we returned to Casablanca to get cheeseburgers; they also were great.
Tomorrow will be a relatively lazy day; all we have to do is resupply for the next section of trail, three days to Bay Bulls.