Newfoundland and Labrador Adventure self drive 14 days / 13 nights

Overview

Departures from June 1 – September 30

Experience the real Newfoundland! Visit both the highlights and the special places few travelers ever see. Abundant wildlife, deep fjords, wild islands and untouched rivers form the landscape. People live mostly in towns and villages where they have fishing ports on the ocean. This rugged lifestyle has produced a culture unique in Canada. Newfoundland offers a dramatic landscape, the most friendly people and nice, comfortable accommodation and good food. You explore the dramatic eastern edge of the North American continent...a land of huge expanses of wild country, icebergs in August heat, and just enough development to allow you to discover this pioneer land.

Day 1 - Arrival in St. John's

St. John’s is a combination of booming oil town and picturesque wooden buildings from the Victorian period. Pubs & restaurants are abound, and it seems as though the streets are never empty. Here you can shop in tiny boutiques, or old time fisherman’s outfitting stores or stroll along the harbour.

Overnight Murray Premises Hotel, St. John's, including breakfast.

Day 2 - St. John's - Trepassey (150 km)

Travel through the scenic Avalon Peninsula. You may wish to take a whale or seabird–watching boat tour, enjoy a lighthouse picnic, or spend time searching for the caribou herd which makes its summer home on the coast here.

Overnight Trepassey Motel, Trepassey.

Day 3 - Trepassey - Argentia Area (225 km)

Visit the lighthouse at Trepassey and the waterfalls at Cataracts Provincial Park. Cape St. Mary’s is an internationally important seabird preserve on the southern tip of the western Avalon Peninsula.

Overnight Rosedale Manor B&B, Placentia, including breakfast.

Day 4 - Argentia Area - Trinity (210 km)

The Bonavista Peninsula is one of the most historic and beautiful parts of the province. Some say that this is where John Cabot (Giovanni Caboto) landed in 1497 and claimed this ”New Found Land” for England. Whale cruises are available in the Trinity area.

Overnight Fisher's Loft Inn, Port Rexton including breakfast.

Day 5 - Trinity - Gander Bay (240 km)

Terra Nova National Park features mountains and islands jutting into Bonavista Bay. Excellent walking trails and a boat tour provide chances to view the magnificent landscape. Continue to the boat landing where you will be met for a short ride to your lodge on the Gander River for the night.

Overnight Harbour Lights Inn, Twillingate including breakfast.

Day 6 - Gander Bay - Notre Dame Junction/Grand Falls (225 km)

Follow the ”Road to the Isles”, which takes you by a series of little causeways to remote Twillingate on Notre Dame Bay. This is one of the best areas for observing icebergs in early summer, and boat tours go out to the icebergs several times most days. Outports are the landmark of Newfoundland. Explore them and the islands of Notre Dame Bay.

Overnight Carriage House Inn, Grand Falls-Windsor including breakfast.

Day 7 - Grand Falls/Notre Dame Junction - Gros Morne NP (280 km)

You travel through the vast, empty interior of Newfoundland, go past old company towns by the Trans-Canada Highway, through forests once inhabited by the now vanished Beothuk Indians. Moose are frequently seen by the roadside. You spend the night in a village surrounded by beautiful Gros Morne National Park.

Overnight Neddies Harbour Inn, Norris Point including breakfast.

Day 8 - Gros Morne NP - Port au Choix/Plum Point (170 km)

Travel in one of the country’s most beautiful National Parks. Long fjords, rugged rocky coastline, and windswept mountains create fabulous scenery; excellent roads and walking trails invite you to explore. Take an optional boat trip on Western Brook Pond, a landlocked fjord lake then follow the coast to Port aux Choix, where a National Historic Site tells of prehistoric occupation.

Overnight Sea Echo Motel, Port au Choix.

Day 9 - Port au Choix/Plum Pointe - L‘Anse-au-Clair (90 km)

Labrador! One of the world’s last frontiers lies just across the Strait of Belle Isle. A 1½ hour ferry trip brings you to Blanc Sablon, Quebec on the Labrador border. It is only a short drive to your hotel in a scenic fishing outport.

Spend 2 nights at Northern Light Inn, L'Anse-au-Clair.

Day 10 - Southern Labrador (150 km)

An 80 km paved road takes you along the southern coast. One of Canada’s most impressive lighthouses is located in L’Anse–Amour, as well as the earliest known funeral monument in America... 9000 years old. Continue through small communities with Indian crafts, and across clear flowing salmon rivers to Red Bay − the site of the remains of a Basque whaling station from the 1500’s.

Day 11 - L’Anse-au-Clair - Quirpon Island (150 km)

A morning ferry returns you to the island of Newfoundland, where you travel to Quirpon close to L‘Anse aux Meadows to take a boat trip (about 30 minutes) to your overnight accommodation in a lightkeeper’s house.

Spend 2 nights at Quirpon Lighthouse Inn, Quirpon Island.

Day 12 - Explore Quirpon Island

Watch for icebergs and marine wildlife and walk the island’s shores.

Day 13 - Quirpon Island - Gros Morne National Park (370 km)

From Quirpon Island you return in time to visit L‘Anse aux Meadows National Historic Site, a reconstruction of the fi rst Viking settlement in North America. Travel south on the Viking Trail to spend a last night in Gros Morne National Park.

Overnight at Neddies Harbour Inn, Norris Point including breakfast.

Day 14 - Gros Morne National Park - Flight - St. John‘s - Departure (60 km)

A last chance to take in the scenery of Gros Morne National Park is followed by a short drive to Deer Lake airport, where you drop off your rent al car, and enjoy your flight back to St. John’s.

Price

Price from £1610 per person based on 2 sharing, including 13 nights moderate accommodation (best available but in remote regions accommodation is simple), boat transfer to/from Quirpon Island and to/from Gander River Lodge, Breakfast, lunch and dinner at Quirpon Island Lighthouse, ferry from St. Barbe – Blanc Sablon/return, Flight from Deer Lake to St. John’s and 15 days car hire.

International flights not included and start from £552 per person depending on the departure date and availability.