Last stop is relatively closed to Trinity, it is a historical town, Port Union. It has the distinction of being the only union-bult town in North America as a base for the Fishermen’s Protective Union. It allowed fishermen to sell their catch for money and improved their lifestyle significantly. The downtown area is a National Historic Site so for certain we are curious to see it but in fact the primary reason we are here is for fossils. Supposedly there is a good fossil site downtown, the only issue is if we can find it.
We start on the shore and everything looks like a fossil but at closer examination quite likely isn’t. We are getting frustrated, can we even find this mythical site in the few minutes we have here before it gets dark?
And the answer is yes when one of us with sharp eyes spots something unusual on a large rock, there is a whole collection of fossils, they look to us museum quality and are quite interesting.
The most special to us fossils are the ones that look like leaves and show the veins of the Ediacaran organisms that lived here. It must have been quite an alien sight, if we could only see them now.
Satisfied we spend a few more minutes exploring the town starting with the boardwalk. Of course if we would have started this way we would have seen the sign and then had an area to focus on when searching for fossils….
We return via the main street, the houses here are either painstakinly rebuilt and preserved or in various states of decay after they were abandoned.
But the downtown area itself is quite scenic with the red houses on both sides, most restored, it is quite a highlight and we are happy that we explored this way. And when we start the car we also pass with the car through this area and imagine how it must have looked during the heyday. And smelled….
From Port Union it is a short hop to Bonavista and our AirBnB, we even get there before sunset. We enter the house easily and set our luggage and then we really want to catch the last rays of the sun and see if there are any birds outside.
The patio is advertised as looking out to the sea, but that is a bit misleading. It does that but there is also a house in the way of the best views unfortunately.
Still it is a nice view especially at sunset, unfortunately there are no whales or interesting birds. What we find is a collection of lobster traps, likely just kept for ornamental purposes now. And then we retire inside to escape the mosquitoes, eat from our provisions and then go to sleep as tomorrow is the toughest day of our trip, a long drive and lots to see on the way.
