Extreme East Quest 2008: Day 8 - Corner Brook to Extreme East

Our plans for Newfoundland had to be changed. We had scheduled our return on a ferry from Argentia, NL to North Sydney, NS on Tuesday morning, just after midnight. That would give us all day Monday to explore St. Johns before making the short drive to Argentia to board the ferry for a 13 hour crossing. But that ferry crossing was cancelled and we were booked on a ferry from Port-Aux-Basques to North Sydney on Tuesday afternoon. That meant that we essentially lost one day because it is a 571 mile drive from St Johns to Port-Aux-Basque.

With all that in mind, we left our hotel in Corner Brook and drove directly to Cape Spear, a distance of about 440 miles along the Trans Canada Highway. The scenery is spectacular along the route with mountains in the early part, changing to large fresh water lakes and then salt water inlets and coastlines.

We stopped along the way to hunt one geocache, a traditional one hidden in a thicket of birch trees along the Trans Canada Highway named "Birchy's Bathroom" (GC13HJC).

We ran into rain showers along the way but decided that if at all possible, we would go directly to Point Spear and attempt to find the cache. We made better time than we expected and arrived there around 4:30. A sign pointed us in the direction of the cache.

In a short time, Hannah said I see it! What she saw turned out to be litter but soon we had the cache in hand. After signing the log, we found the eastern most point in North America sign and here is what the GPS was reading there.

After finding the cache, we made a visit to the current Cape Spear light. We were lucky enough to be there after the light was operating but with enough light to get photos.