21.6km

I set an alarm for 5 and 5:30 today. When the alarm went off at 5 AM I looked outside and it was still dark so I went to get my head lamp and it was dead. That’s kind of disappointing that I only really got 4 evenings out of it. Especially since I only have it on for 10 or 15 minutes just to get my tent arranged on the inside at bedtime. I plugged that in to charge and decided to doze until my second alarm at 5:30. 

Once the headlamp charged a bit I looked over the maps again for today. Today is probably going to be my most logistically challenging day as there aren’t very many recommended campsites. I will be finishing the easy trail, doing a couple kilometers through a community, another moderate trail and then almost 6 km through another community and then another moderate trail brings me to St. John's.

Unfortunately, the final trail of the day is located near the city landfill and the landfill doesn’t have the appropriate measures in place. It really needs to build walls that are high enough to block the garbage, I do believe it’s under discussion. Right now the wind blows all the garbage into this trail. I don’t really want to camp on this trail because the landfill will attract scavengers and who wants to sleep near garbage anyways.

There's a website I’ve been getting a lot of my camping and trail information from, ECT thru hike. He has a camp site the 1st km or so on Sugarloaf, but it’s very lowly rated. Everybody I’ve talked to who has done the trail this summer says to ignore anything that lowly rated because it’s overgrown.

I also have to make sure I’m full of water before I go on that trail as well because with the landfill there I can’t drink any of the water even if I filter it. So this leaves me in kind of an awkward spot where I either do 16km and hope his campsite works out, do more and find a flat spot that isn’t surrounded by garbage, or power through past St. John’s to another campsite. However, walking through St. John’s is almost 7 km downtown. Yes, I go faster through the city but I can’t guarantee I can get out to where there will be a campsite past the city before dark. I don't want to get a motel for the night because it's expensive, I'm also worried once I stop it would be hard to get going again.

This is why I wanted to ensure I got up early today, because there is a chance that I will need to go really fast through St. John’s  and try to get to the other side and find somewhere else to camp. It also means that I might not be able to do anything about my shoes. If you remember from my earlier post, even though I only wore them a few times before this they are coming apart. 

I passed Outer Cove Beach this morning and saw a sign saying that is where Terry Fox dipped his leg in the Atlantic Ocean. I always thought it was in St. John’s because they have a statue in a tribute to him there. I’ve been to the one there and the one up in where he ended.

Cobbler‘s Path was a beautiful trail, very scenic, and started off really easy. I was actually thinking it should’ve rated easy until I got to the hills. Most of my time has been spent right alone the coast but this trail cut through the woods and was a lot less scenic for a while. I do find the inner forest trails softer and flatter for walking and gives my feet a break.

This is a historically interesting trail since it took me past a WWII battery, San Juan Battery, and past a smaller one at Middle Cove. I believe they were both American run and you can still see quite a bit of the buildings. There's an observation post, underground bunker and the larger battery. You can see one of the abandoned buildings here;

This was also an interesting path as it comes to a dead end at private property. I think it’s a new thing, the sign looks brand new and you can still see where the trail used to go. 

Once I got to the other side of the cove, I looked back I can’t even see a house there. I get blocking off your land if it disrupts your life but if you don’t live there...

I also found my first geocache today! I’m not looking for them but I did notice this one, do you think you would have?

Today has had the most road walks yet, which sounds nice but is misleading. I can go faster and don’t have to worry about falling off a cliff. However, the ups and downs hurt my toes, I suppose something is always bound to be hurting my feet on this trip. 

Sugarloaf was a disappointing trail, as expected. The community has nicknamed it the garbage trail because of the landfill. I had low expectations for this trail in the first place because of that but it was really sad to see. It first started with just some plastic bags up in trees and then it just kept getting worse and worse. There’s even a point where you could smell the dump and if you’ve ever smelled the dump that’s not exactly what you want to smell when you are walking a beautiful coastal trail.

It really surprises me that nobody’s holding them accountable for this. I don’t think any other provinces would stand for something like this, but I think Newfoundland has a lot to learn it comes to dealing with waste. To my knowledge the majority of Newfoundland doesn’t do compost and recycling, there isn’t even a glass recycling facility in the province. And talking to people makes me realize that it’s quite common to just go dump garbage in the woods somewhere.

It’s really disheartening to see a trail like this because you know what the majority of that garbage is blowing into the ocean. It’s not just Newfoundland making this decision to affect themselves but it’s going so far beyond that. And even if they do build this wall that’s under discussion all this damage will be done. They’ve been talking in Facebook groups about doing cleanup crews on the trail until the wall is built but it is just going to blow back over.

I’ve been trying to become more and more low waste, especially in preparation for this trip. Seeing a trail like this really makes me want to push more for it. I really wish single use plastic would be banned.

Once I got close to Quidi Vidi, the trail cleaned up a bunch and got really beautiful again. It was really amazing look off where you can see the harbour, the town, and St. John’s. It’s cool to look at St. John’s  and know some of the places I went to last time I was here.

I had been chatting with a man at the Sugarloaf trailhead. I was sitting down having lunch and he saw my pack and was curious. When it came to where it camp that night he told me he had a great spot. Seeing as locals have helped me in the past I’m always eager to hear them out. He told me that as long as I didn’t mind setting my tent up on pebbles, I could set it up under the big bridge past Robin Hood cove. This way I would be in a sheltered spot...

I’ve been leapfrogging a good portion of the trail with a couple. They are much faster than me so whenever they got behind me I would stop to let them pass. But they kept exploring all the side paths and stopping for water and pictures. We chatted quite a bit as we did this and I was really enjoying their company. I caught up to them near the end of the trail as I was starting to get nervous about finding somewhere to sleep. The man actually called me over and told me he found somewhere. He showed me this little sheltered flat spot right near the harbour and overlooking it. It’s probably only 10 feet from a cliff down to the harbor but it’s got some really nice strong tall sturdy trees, and a big rock on the other two sides. It’s quite the little sheltered Valley. I went down and we walked around a little bit and felt the wind in the different directions and it seemed really calm there in comparison.

I stayed and chatted with them for probably 20 minutes or so. One thing we discussed was how the lady would never do anything like this because she would be scared, and I was saying how easily guys have it. And he was laughing joking about how he could just go sleep on the bench in the town if he was doing a hike like this. But then he was recommending me against certain places in town because I was female. He said there’s tons of places down by the lake but you’ll be harassed because you’re female. There’s places over here but if anybody sees you you’ll be harassed because you’re female. It was really great to have all this insight from a local and I did end up setting camp up in the spot he showed me.

We discussed a lot of different options in town, I showed them what my route was for tomorrow and they discussed whether or not there would be anywhere along it and we decided this was the best spot for me. I've talked a few times now about Newfie hospitality but it's really next level.

The woman asked if I was active in any of the Hiking Newfoundland Facebook groups and I said that I had posted things and I would continue to and she said that she would look for me because she would love to see how the rest of the trail goes. I really am enjoying little conversations with people as I go. 

I can hear the harbour waves crashing into the break wall and I can occasionally hear the wind but I don’t seem to be getting any of the wind at all here so I’m quite content. I had to wait a while to set my tent up because I stopped hiking probably around five which is really the earliest yet. At first I just sat down and texted people because I didn’t really want people to know I was camping here. I made dinner and ate it, and then I realized that so many people were out here picking blueberries that I probably wouldn’t really be able to hide that I was camping here. My tent is probably in view of three or four houses anyways. I’m still technically on trail land so it is legal and I know they're used to hikers coming through. 

Once I set my tent up I went around took some pictures of the sunset. It is probably the first sunset I have been set up for and could enjoy, but it was mostly hidden behind clouds. Eventually I got bored and laid in my tent and read and did a bunch of stretches for 45 minutes. I don’t really want to go to bed too early because I’m worried it would become a nap. I’m glad I did decide to stay on the trail and not trying to find something closer to the town though because even from here it’s quite loud. I can hear a lot of cars, dogs and motorcycles. Hopefully it doesn’t get crazy windy and the waves lull me to sleep.