Day 16 – July 19th – Cataracts Provincial Park, Placentia, Dildo and Cupids

Day 16 – July 19^th – Cataracts Provincial Park, Placentia, Dildo and Cupids

Today we got a real surprise when we woke up, sunny skies!!  The temperature was a little cooler and the humidity had reduced.

Bridge Built in 1926

The Gorge

We decided to drive to Cataract Provincial Park to take in a river gorge.  We got to within 5 kilometres and met gravel road, no big deal, we drove along the road and ended up at this older bridge that crossed the river gorge we were looing for.  It had a very nice board walk and stairs that went down to the bottom of the gorge, crossed and went up the other side, very nice!!

Back on the road, we continued along this gravel road toward Placentia for about 30 kilometres and most of the time the top speed was under 20 KPH!!  What a road, we saw these little stakes and Joan thought maybe they’re going to be paving or doing something to this “Road from Hell”!  We found out later that it will be paved later this summer, too late for us though!

Castle Hill (Fort Royal)

Placentia is where the ferry from North Sydney arrives.  We went to the Castle Hill National Historic Site of Canada (Fort Royal) that was built by the French in the late 1600’s to protect Placentia, as it was a major town for the fishing industry of the day.  Placentia has wonderful natural harbours and bays for boats and ships.  Following an excellent guided tour of the artifacts and storyboards we took a walk about the grounds to explore the remains of the fort that consisted mainly of the rock walls.

What the Cannon See's at Castle Hill (Fort Royal)

Immediately following our walk about we all started to hear the dinner bell chiming at it was off to lunch at Phillips Cafe, which Trip Advisor highly recommended.  Unfortunately most everyone else from around there decided to descend on this Café at the same time.  They were so overwhelmed it took us over an hour to get a deli style sandwich.  It was good but unfortunately not worth that kind of wait.  Oh well, we were fed J.

We drove north along a much better road North to an Information Centre on the TCH (Trans Canada Highway) who recommended the Dildo Interpretive Centre and then over to Cupids to see the Cupids Cove Plantation Provincial Historic Site archeological dig going on at the original 1610 plantation site which is the oldest English Colony in Canada.  This relatively new dig (found in 1995 and is currently an active archeological dig site) is uncovering items and producing data that dates back over 400 years.

We then decided to head for home to enjoy happy hour and get rested up for tomorrow.